Pinball Bay Area

Click photo to biggie-size

From Friday March 30 till Sunday April 1 the largest Match Play tournament in the world was held just outside of Pittsburgh, PA.  The Bay Area contingent consisted of Walter, Nicole, Alex, Josh, Damien, Chris,  Andrei, Marcus, Eugene, and of course, myself.

We booked flights, hotels, and used up vacation days to do it. And several spent time away from families.

Was it worth it?

Above: The Pinburgh Poster

Passing over the Rockies on the flight out.

About a month ago, I considered the sanity of this endeavor: Am I really flying across the country to do this?  It takes about a kilobuck, all told. It makes no practical or economic sense.  But I love playing pinball and I love competing, love the community and camaraderie.  If I’ve found one truth in life, it’s that we have to follow our passions.  Wherever they may lead us.

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.” – Charles Bukowski

Here I am, on the scene and ready for action.

Nicole had custom BAPA headbands and wristbands made for the league.

Above left to right: Josh, Eugene, Nicole, Jonny O, Andrei Massenkoff (2011 World Champion)

Banners hang from the rafters to recognize past PAPA World Champions.  

Three of the 14 winners are (or were) Bay Area players, and all three from the Bay Area Pinball Association: Rick Stetta (PAPA 2), Bowen Kerins (PAPA 4) and Andrei Massenkoff (PAPA 14).

Dave Baach, who co-ran the PPE tourney with me. hooked me up with some cool stickers.

Dave Baach (right), a key contributor to PAPA’s evolution, and co-ran the PPE Tournament with me.

Damien got 3rd highest score on a very tough Demoman with the claw disabled.

Results for Bay Area Players:

A Division

Andrei: Qualified for playoffs, advanced to Semi Final

Eugene: Qualified in A, finished 83

Alex: Qualified in A, finished 48

Damien: Qualified in A, finished 37

Josh: Qualified in A, finished 80

B Division

Walter: Qualified for playoffs, advanced to Semi Final

Chris: Qualified for playoffs, advanced to Semi Final

Jon: Qualified in B, finished 55

Marcus: Qualified in B, finished 74

C Division:

Nicole: Finished 36th

I think we did a great job overall and had a real team spirit going.  We traded info on games we had played and that made a big difference in some of my matches.

I qualified in B Division (the intermediate Division), but at the very bottom.  I really needed some monster rounds to have a shot at the playoffs.  My opening round I got a 9-3 (Nine wins and 3 losses – a Round of 7-5 or better is good ). This put me at 32nd place, so I was pumped.  But then I had two mediocre rounds, going 5-7, and then 4-8.

I got my act somewhat back together in round 9 with 6-6, but not enough to make up for the previous two craptastic displays of non-performance.  I really needed an 8-4 or better.  So going into the final round, to have any shot of qualifying I needed 11-1 or 12-0, and I only managed another 6-6.  Thus, in the end I managed to climb about half way up the standings to finish at 55th out of 91 players in B Division.  Out of all players I finished 147th out of 273.

Now that I was out of the tournament, it was time to have fun.  I played pinball.  I hit the local bars.

I went to get my swerve on at the local watering hole, and dragged Chris along.  It was Nicole’s birthday, and since she got knocked out of C Playoffs contention, our initial intention was to buy her a glass of her drink of choice, which is Champagne.  Thing is, they only sell alcohol at the State liquor stores or in bars in Pennsylvania.  We went to the nearby bar, on the off-chance, and learned they only sold beer to-go.  Then we decided to stay.

I asked this girl at the bar if she was playing in the pinball tournament, then got her reaction shot (above).  Her name was Teresia and she’s a private investigator, catching workmen’s comp abusers.  We had a good time and Chris and I convinced her to do a Kamikaze shot with us.

I went back in to find Damien.  I found a split flipper money game with some top guys, including Keith Elwin, got in.  “You’re the new guys, you go first.”  We did.  “Spinner, Damien, all day”.  And we did.  Got the win.  Took the 8 bucks off the game like champs.

Not a bad end to this adventure.

Above: Nicole stayed out all night long.  Sleeping in her boat.

It was time to go home. Back to life.  Back to work.  Back to Reality.  Back to what we do, when it’s not pinball.

Was it worth it?

You’re goddamn right it was. 

Contact is commonly credited as the first electro-mechanical pinball game.  It’s battery-powered.  This one at PPM is the “Junior” model, at around 40 x 20 inches.  The full size Senior edition is 60 inches long.

A ball shot into the lightning bolt holes, followed by a subsequent shot to the Contact hole, will cause a kicker to fire and launch the first ball into the lower, higher-scoring hole.  It would also ring a bell (very high tech).

This could be done more times with other subsequent balls to keep increasing the values.  This game was designed by Harry Williams, who also designed the stool pigeon tilt, seen at lower left and called “anti tilt”.

Above is the Operator’s license to operate the game, including the $3 annual fee.

Contact was first introduced in 1934.  A nickel in 1934 is worth about 85 cents today.  The $3 license fee is roughly equivalent to $50 in today’s money.

Click pictures to enlarge.

Most of these pictures are of the Wonderland Arcade in Kansas City in December of 1943.  The US was deeply involved in World War II by this time, which is why you see so many soldiers in the pics, either on-leave or about to be deployed.

Most of the games were not new, since pinball manufacturing resources were put to work for the war effort.

To read the original LIFE article, click here.

NSFW

This clip comes from a Hong Kong film so you already know it’s going to be weird.  Semi-NSFW.

I was playing some TRON after work today.  A woman was on Apollo 13.  I noticed there were three PPM post cards on the glass right above the lock down bar on her game.  I figured maybe the staff had put them there for people to take, but they were very noticeably blocking the flippers from view.

Being a freakin’ Dudley-do-right, I mentioned to her that it was fine to move them out of the way, thinking maybe she didn’t know. “You know if those are in your way…”

Then it got weird.

Without looking up she said, “You’re TALKING to me while I’m playing?” in a wildly angry and incredulous tone of voice. My hair stood on end and my pulse flew.

It was the sort of voice where if it had come from Idi Amin, or some other third-world crackpot merciless despot, a military officer in khaki uniform with sweat-glistened brow and lifeless stare would have immediately and quietly moved right behind me with a pistol leveled at the back of my head.  I’d hear a hammer being cocked and then BLAM my brains on the adjacent game.  Meanwhile she’d chuckle and collect a Super Jackpot.

“I wasn’t trying to distract you…” I attempted.

“DON’T TALK TO ME!  GO AWAY! NOW!”

“Okay, okay, fine.”

“YOU MADE ME LOSE MY BALL. YOU WERE THE CAUSE!”

I reached into my pocket.  “Look, let me get your next game.”

“GO AWAY.”

“Fine, fine!”  I started walking back to TRON, but decided to put another game’s distance between us, and went to Transformers instead.

As I was moving away she dismissed me with this: “Go play some game… with some of your other lost souls…”

This week’s league night was held at Walter’s house.  Walter has an all-star line-up of games:

• Big Bang Bar
• Attack from Mars
• Monster Bash
• Medieval Madness
• Indiana Jones
• Tales of the Arabian Nights
• Tron Limited Edition
• Terminator 3
• Spider Man
• Centaur
• Who Dunnit

Above: Walter collects pinball gun handles and above is his pinball gun coat rack!

A highlight of the evening was when reigning PAPA World Champion Andrei Massenkoff got Rule the Universe on Attack from Mars during his league game.  Keep in mind in league games you’re not allowed to play extra balls either!  He ended his game with about 35 Billion points.  And that was after his 170M+ game on Tron LE.  And that was after David Joud’s 170M+ game on Medieval Madness.  Lucky me was playing in this group.  It’s like I was in the Kentucky Derby riding Mister Ed.

Zoe Vrabel picked up a few new trophies and some cash down in sunny Las Vegas at the Pin Pin Tourney.

She’s a veteran of the competitive Portland scene and moved down to the Bay Area to pursue her education, but she’s quickly made an impact, both in the standings and running events.  Way to go!!

What?  You’re not following Zoe on Twitter?  Click here and subscribe!

Just posted to the Tilt Warning blog, here’s Game 3 of Andrei’s quarter-finals group.  Andrei had 3 points going into this game and really needed a win to have a good chance of advancing.  The game is set up so tough that each player really only gets good flipper time on one ball apiece.

Hat-tip: Crazy Flipper Fingers

Play AC/DC at Vitus in Oakland.