Bob Getchey is a customer of another raided business, Knockers Billiards and Games. He said he knows gambling is a bad habit but thinks authorities are targeting the wrong group. ” People work for their money and they want to blow it, that’s up to them. They hit these small businesses, it’s just sad to me. Why don’t they go after real crime, the drug dealers and stuff like that, not somebody playing a pinball machine,” Getchey said.

http://www.wnep.com/news/countybycounty/wnep-sham-raid–illegal-gambling-pinball-machines,0,7057392.story

It’s not clear how the pinballs were used for gambling, exactly, though it’s also possible that Shamokin, PA might still deem free games to be a form of gambling payout.

EDIT:

Although agents involved in the raid provided no information, an undercover trooper with the state police parked a truck with two confiscated pinball bingo machines secured in the back near one of the scenes. According to evidence forms attached to the machines, they were both confiscated from 310 E. Independence St., the site of Daily Grind Coffee Bar. The suspect’s name listed on the form was Kenneth Sikora.

http://republicanherald.com/news/troopers-feds-raid-3-shamokin-businesses-1.1052500

So it turns out they’re Bingo Pinballs, which were definitely known for being used for gambling.

Today is the official birthday of arguably the most important advancement in pinball games.

What is ubiquitous to us now was not always.  The first pinball games (and for a decade and a half of pinball’s existence) had no flippers.  You had the plunger, you nudged, and you prayed.  It was a cheap and hopeful element of the Depression, immensely popular, but essentially a gambling game.

There were payout machines (similar to slot machines), but it was probably more likely that games didn’t have payout mechanisms, yet credits were sold back to the retailer on staff.  This was when pin games were so popular they were in every drug store, every dime store (now called Dollar stores), every local bar.  Credits were traded for “prizes”, cigarettes, or nickels, or whatever was dreamed up.

Prior to flippers, pinball was certainly a gambling man’s game.  The exchange of credits for cigarettes and money was kept mostly under the table and on the down low, to skirt the law.  There were literally thousands of local and State actions to ban pinball over the years as a “game of chance”.

Much lore and conjecture surrounds Harry Mabs’ invention of the flipper. Was it merely an accident during testing?  We may never know, but what is indisputable is that it created the game we know today.

Image/article credit: Billboard Magazine

http://tinyurl.com/2by6kju

Part1:

Part 2:

Sponsors: Playland-not-at-the-Beach, Pacific Pinball Museum, IFPA, STERN Pinball, Audio Images, The Bay Area Pinball Location Map

The SF Avatar Pinball Launch Party was a great success.  For the curious, here’s how it happened (For those that could care less, scroll down for the results and pictures):

First I saw a post by Josh Sharpe on RGP.  People were saying “how come there’s no launch party in my town?”  Josh replied that it really came down to venues and distributors stepping up to help with it.  I immediately thought of Playland not at the Beach and the Pacific Pinball Museum as likely venues.  I contacted the owners of both and both were enthusiastic, so next I sent an email to Josh.

Josh put me in touch with STERN, whereupon I learned that the venues for the parties needed at least 3 Avatar games.  I gather from this they wanted to run these parties through their distributor network (3 games is a lot for a local arcade but not really too much to ask of a distributor).  I let PPM and Playland know of this requirement, on the off chance they had any ideas or distributor contacts.  More or less I figured it was dead at that point, though.

Then a week later I got an email from Josh Sharpe and learned a new Distributor had been signed in San Francisco and the event would be held there.  This was only about  two weeks before the date of the event!  I got on all the pinball groups and posted announcements to advertise it.  Likewise, I sent out emails to all of my pinball contacts I’ve acquired via various means – tournaments, friends, leagues, museums, etc.  On such short notice, who knew if anyone would show up?  I also asked for volunteers to help me run the event and people stepped up.

Next I got a hold of the new distributor and we planned the event.  I drove to his store, Audio Images, and we planned the space out and the logistics.  He’s a huge music fan and has seven or eight music-themed pins, such as Tommy and Guns ‘n Roses.  At that point the game had not yet arrived so we agreed to meet again when it did.

Simultaneously I let PPM and Playland know what was up so there were no potential hard feelings, but also to let them know I could hand out promo materials at the launch if they wanted.  Playland donated family passes and 2-for-1 coupons and PPM donated five club cards valued at $20 each.  Since the expert tournament was a cash payout, I decided to use some of these donations to augment the novice prizes and to hold a little impromptu raffle.  STERN also sent a few goodies.  Two T shirts, a beenie cap and a stack of stickers.

On Wednesday, Avatar arrived.  I brought my overhead camera rig and projector setup to Audio Images.  Jim Chen of Audio Images provided a projector screen.  Now the crowd could watch all the games without having to crowd right up against the machine and we could also record some game play.  We also moved and leveled Guns ‘n Roses and Tommy.  We lugged a Captain Fantastic out his basement but sadly the right flipper mechs were in bad shape.

Above - Recipe no. 7 - dish was made at a ceramics class at Laney College.

I decided early in the week I would make some food for the event.  I made nachos and caesar salad.  I did all the prep work the night before (Thursday) so I wouldn’t have a time crunch.  The venue was also providing sodas.  Likewise on Thursday I stopped by my parents’ house to pick up the trophies since package delivery is safer there.

On Friday I picked up some last minute food supplies from the restaurant supply store near work, stopped by my apartment to pick up all the food I made the night before and headed for the gig.

The event was schedule to run from 7 -11pm.  By around 7PM, 15 people already had shown up so I knew the event would be a success, and later that peaked around 40 people.  From there I just relaxed and had fun.  Everyone had a great time.

Teresa Altvater getting ready for action

Onto the tournament details.  Everyone who entered and paid their $5 came out ahead with a 2-for-1
pass to Playland not at the Beach worth $15.  They also had a shot at the prizes if they did well and were likewise entered into a raffle for even more chances to win.

Pictures of the event: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35597103@N08/sets/72157625176823774/

Split-Flipper Doubles (12 entries):

SPLIT FLIPPER CHAMPS: Tim Hansen and Chris Heileg

2. Mads Kristensen and Jon Olkowski
3. Alex Samonte and Stephen Kleckner
4. Kevin Johnson and Josh Lehan

Mads Kristensen (Left) and Jonny O on split flipper

AVATAR Tournament (26 entries):

NOVICE / UNDER 250 FINAL:

CHAMPION: Mike Haffner: (Trophy + $25 Family Pass to
Playland not at the Beach + Pacific Pinball Museum Club Card)

2. Ryan Avery ($25 Family Pass to Playland not at the Beach + Pacific
Pinball Museum Club Card)
3. Mark Altvater ($25 Family Pass to Playland not at the Beach +
Pacific Pinball Museum Club Card)
4. Kevin Johnson

Neil Shatz (NES) won the main tournament

EXPERT:

GRAND CHAMPION: (NES) Neil Shatz (Trophy + $52)

2. David Joud (Trophy + $39)
3. (ELK) Mads Kristensen (Trophy + $26)
4. Alex Samonte ($13)

(continued results – IFPA results sorted by qualifier score, not
Novice Final order)
5. Kevin Johnson
6. Mike Haffner
7. Mark Altvater
8. Ryan Avery

– or – if Novice Final determines 5 – 8 order then it’s

5. Mike Haffner
6. Ryan Avery
7. Mark Altvater
8. Kevin Johnson

9. Eugene Gershtein
10. (JON) Jon Olkowski
11. (EGO) Chris Heilig
12. Stephen Kleckner
13. Louise Swainson
14. Tim Hansen
15. Eric Waggensonner
16. Mike Spears
17. John Lautmann
18. Michelle Rockholt
19. David Rockholt
20. (ANM) Andre Massenkoff
21. Mitch Tunick
22. Josh Lehan
23. John Haydn
24. Teresa Altvater
25. Walter Hurwitz
26. Jeannie Rodriguez

Thanks to all who attended.  Around 40 people showed up for the
event.  Jim Chen is toying with the idea of a Chinese NBA launch party
so maybe we can do it again soon.  :-)

Thanks to Pacific Pinball Museum and Playland not at the Beach for
donating hundreds of dollars’ worth of Passes and Club Cards which
were awarded as prizes to the novice winners, given out in the raffle
and given to every tournament entrant.  Thanks to Jim Chen of Audio
Images for hosting the event and to all the volunteers for helping run
the tournaments and setup/cleanup.

Pinballmachine.org will now take you to San Francisco via
Portland. :-)

The Bay Area Pinball map I created had a great run. We had over 120
locations, 400 machines and the map reached nearly 55,000 hits since
its inception in March. It was a real eye-opener. I had no idea
there were so many places to play.

The data has now been added to the Portland Pinball Map site, which
has an awesome interface, allows anyone to update locations, iPhone app (99 cents) and Droid
app for pinball map on the go, and more easily supports pictures and
entering of high scores.

The address is still the same: http://pinballmachine.org – OR – you
can get there by going to the main Portland page: http://pinballmap.com
and click on the “Other Regions” link.

Big thanks to Ryan Gratzer (ROM) and the rest of the Portland Map team
for the work to make the conversion.

Big thanks to all the contributors who made the original map a
success. There were 18 “official” map editors keeping locations
updated but I received updates from at least twice that number.
Thanks everyone!

phishrace
Jank
Evad
MuralDan
neil shatz
itsmark
radius11
Smiley
joseph2005
pfef
Mike
matt
Nina G
Krellan
mkhollenbeck
joshpfeffer
tjbeyer

These aren’t my movies, just some recent finds:

Montreal Arcade – 1982. shot on 8mm. vids and pins.

Here’s a short documentary someone did of Times Square in the 1980s. I was
in NYC in 1986 on a family trip and remember a lot of those old gritty
arcades back then. Ironically, on that same trip we also drove up to
Montreal and Toronto, and I remember arcades up there as well. The
first time I saw Space Harrier was in an arcade in Toronto and it is
one of my favorite games of all time. Five Canadian quarters for one
US dollar at the time, if I recall, and most games were one Canadian
quarter. We thought that was so cool.

Here is one of the Time Out arcade from the 70s/80s.

Now, turning the wayback machine dial to Full:

http://www.britishpathe.com

Amusement co. interview and some scenes of games being shopped. No
sound, unfortunately:

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=74035

Amusement exhibition from 1968. Several EM non-pins:

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=45538

This is the only vid with a pre-flipper pinball I’ve seen (appears near the
end):

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=46334

British Arcade: 1969: http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=73218

Scene from “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father”:

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=200945

At California Extreme 2010, Jim Belsito (ranked no. 15 in the world) and Keith Elwin (ranked 2nd in the world) held off top players such as Neil Shatz, Andrei Massenkoff and Brian Dominy to make it to the Final match.

The Final was a best of three contest played on Demolition Man, NBA Fast Break and Doctor Who.

Notice how the backbox game is broken and when activated the player can rack up tons of points by just mashing the flipper buttons.  This exploit was allowed to stand because nearly everyone in the tournament was aware of it. However, some didn’t fully understand it and thought you had to time your flips for maximum points. And a handful weren’t aware of it at all.

Regardless, note how both Jim and Keith readily took advantage of this in their games.  In a competitive situation, you take the points whereever you can!

In Doctor Who, both players pursue the “safe” strategy of shooting the loop and collecting the Sonic Boom award.  Notice on Jim’s final ball he decides to “go for it” and try to activate multiball.  Even though multiball is potentially worth hundreds of millions of points, activating it is extremely risky. To consistently score higher, the top players will look for shots that are safe and score only average or mediocre point amounts over high-risk, high reward shots.

I made some handy dandy instructional videos.  Learn to make your own pinball map in five minutes.

All credit to original content creators.

This information and the California Bay Area Pinball Locations Map can be found online at: https://pinballbayarea.wordpress.com

I think for most people it will be helpful to watch the vids first. It can be tough to visualize the techniques when described in words.

Note: the videos and web pages will often use different names for the same technique but you’ll learn what’s what pretty quick. For example, some people call it a “bounce pass” while others call it a “dead flipper pass”. Same technique.

VIDEOS:

Pinpin 7 – “Seven Flipper Skills You Need to Know”. This is the second chapter in the film, about five minutes in. You can fast forward or sit through the opening pinball fishing video.

http://www.minimumwageentertainment….nball_film.php

Short youtube video showing various flipper techniques: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2ZJQYk6OMk

(note: the “slingshot pass” technique shown (aka “post pass” or “post transfer”) is not typically how this is done. The method shown in Pinpin 7 is how it is done on most games)

Pinball Techniques with Neil Shatz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjebGncwCUQ

Short video showing some techniques. This is one of the few free videos that shows some multi-ball control techniques, however, it doesn’t really explain how they’re done.

How to Play Indy 500: http://revver.com/video/1303791/how-…-tom-and-ffej/

This is a *long* (40 min) but well-made video. Though this is about Indy 500, if you are a novice it will convey the importance of having a game strategy to maximize points, extra balls, etc.

How not to suck at pinball: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex7XegO5b8Q

Live Speaker Presentation on the very basics.

Pinball Skill: Slap Save: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR2dmk3yHKI

Pinball Skill: Bangback: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8TwQV8atg

Pinball Skill: Post Pass (aka ‘slingshot pass’ aka ‘post transfer’) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbDaXBNwWnU

Pinball 101 DVD ($20): http://www.pinballvideo.com/

This was made by world champion Keith Elwin. If you just want one “all in one” package for learning pinball with good presentation and humor, this is it. In addition to what the free stuff above describes, pinball 101 additionally describes how to control multiple balls during multiball. You can google pinball 101 to find online retailers that sell it.

Pinball Basics ($15): http://home.myfairpoint.net/vze8f4tt…ries/id51.html

I haven’t seen this one yet. Appears to cover similar material as pin 101 and I have seen generally favorable reviews from people who have it.

WEB PAGES:

Pinball Rulesheets: http://pinball.org/

In-depth rule sheets for many popular games – because that little Rules card on the game just doesn’t cut it for the more complicated games.

Pinballnews Skills Guide Part 1: http://pinballnews.com/learn/skills/index.html
Pinballnews Skills Guide Part 2: http://pinballnews.com/learn/skills/index2.html

These are great articles with pictures from Martin Ayub, the editor of pinball news and one of the top players in the world.

Internet Pinball Database Guide: http://www.ipdb.org/playing/skills.html

Great info, but no pictures.

Three Rivers Pinball Guide (pdf): http://krellan.com/pinball/skillguide.pdf

This is an oldie but a goodie. It has some advice about how to handle the ball when it starts getting knocked around in the slingshots, as well as some tournament advice. Save a copy while you can as the hoster may take it down at any time.

Tournament Approaches: One hit wonders: http://tiltwarning.com/blog/2010/01/tournament-approaches-one-hit-wonders/

Champion pinball player, Bowen Kerins explains how to play games with a repeatable (some say ‘abusable’) shot for maximum scoring in tournament situations.

Tournament Approaches: Attack from Mars: http://tiltwarning.com/blog/2009/12/tournament-approaches-attack-from-mars/

A really excellent guide to feeling out and playing AFM in a tournament situation, by champion player Bowen Kerins.

GENERAL ADVICE:

Control the Ball

All of the flipper technique videos listed above will allow you to better control the ball, which in turn lowers the chance of a drain and enables you to take aimed shots.  Some players use a lot of control techniques and others use just a few, such as bounce passes.  You’ll have to try a few out and see which ones suit your style of play.

At the very minimum, trapping and bounce passing are required skills, and easy to learn.

Aim

I guess this sounds obvious but now that you have the ball under control the next thing to do is pick a shot and try to make it, and if you miss, adjust your shot for next time.  Your goal is to “learn the shots” in the game.  When you make shots (like a ramp, for example), typically the ball is returned to you in a safe, predictable fashion and you get points.  When you miss, the ball goes wild, you get no points and you might drain.

The really good players can learn shots very quickly, even on unfamiliar tables.  It may only take them two or three attempts to make a shot, after which they can hit the same shot pretty conistently.  That’s a skill that is developed after years of playing and practice.

To get big points, most games only require you to learn three or four key shots.  On the Addam’s Family, for example, the center ramp relights the electric chair and the electric chair starts the Mansion modes.  You can rack up a lot of points with just those two shots and nothing else.

Push the game around

Pinball games are designed to be pushed around, nudged, slapped and even slid a little.  Part of why pinball is so much fun is because it’s such a physical game.  A lot of players are afraid they’ll hurt the game or get kicked out of a place or whatever.

The most important time to nudge is when the ball is heading for the left or right drain.  This is when the ball is bouncing around in those areas trying to decide which lane it’s going to pick – either the inlane (feeding to the flippers) or the outlane (down the drain).  You don’t want to be in this scenario, period.  When the ball comes down the table toward the outlane you want to forward-nudge (push the game forward) so the ball just goes off the lane post and gets out of that area altogether.  True, the ball is a bit wild and out of control at that point, but that’s still “safer” than if it’s bouncing around the in/outlane.

Learn the Rules

On later machines from the late 80s to the present, the rules are extremely important to good scoring. On older electro-mechanical games the rules are simpler and if you can manage to keep the ball in play for any length of time you can expect a pretty good score.

I could give some examples but a couple recent video series have been produced which do a great job of this.

• Bowen Kerin’s
  • White Water: http://tiltwarning.com/blog/2011/01/bowen-rides-the-rapids/
  • No Good Gofers: http://tiltwarning.com/blog/2010/12/news-at-11-local-golfer-attacked-by-gofers/
  • Family Guy (same rules for Shrek) and Avatar: http://tiltwarning.com/blog/2010/12/family-guy-avatar-with-bowen/
• Todd Tuckey’s
  • Todd has over a dozen videos on 1980s pinball games on his youtube channel.  http://www.youtube.com/user/tntamusements

Focus

One of the most common differences between pinball and most video games (not all) is that pinball generally requires one to be highly focused more of the time. Modern video games generally have more moments of “downtime”, or, in cases where the pattern is known, the player can relax and “go on autopilot” for a little while.  If you take a moment to “focus-up” and before plunging the ball you will probably see an immediate improvement in your scores.