Lansing Pinball League

Author: Heather

  • League Night Recap for 4/11/23

    April 11 saw the league finishing up a two-bank rotation of Athena and Hera (I picked those names and I’m going to use them damn it). We also had the return of most of the new members who swelled the league’s ranks for our first league night, meaning we didn’t scare (most of) them off, as well as having another new member join. Our new member is named Mark (H.), so I told him he was going to have to be “Other Mark” since we already have a Mark (C.). We also had the return of a couple of past members who had been absent several seasons, Jim J. and Jimmy R.

    Jason and I posing for our Smackdown Undercard and champion photo, respectively. Photo by Joseph.

    Other Mark came to us all the way from Traverse City, believe it or not, and turns out to have been an employee at Pinball Pete’s in Ann Arbor back in the day. He and Derik got to reminiscing about the old days at Pete’s and I chimed in a little bit with my recollection of when there was a Pete’s location on Packard (I had a friend who lived in some apartments almost across the street).

    The Tuesday Night Smackdown game was Guns N’ Roses which somehow I won. Really, I’m in such disbelief that Joseph just now had to tell me that I won, and I didn’t believe him until he pointed out the champion button that was still sitting on the dining table. Jason won the Undercard division along with also taking home a replacement trophy from his Zen championship in Season 16. The trophy shop had accidentally given us the wrong size trophies and while I didn’t really care that much, when they found out they felt bad and made us replacements. That’s what Jason is holding in his Smackdown winner’s circle photos.

    I just thought I was posing for a friendly photo when Jason decided to sucker hit me with his Zen trophy. Classy!

    This was our last meeting before the big Michigan event of the year, Pinball at the Zoo. A lot of people were planning to attend and some of us had designs on coming home from PATZ with trophies. Unfortunately despite being the #2 seed in Women’s and getting to drive the bus in semi-finals, I drove the bus straight off a cliff, so I had to rely on hometown favorite Derik to bring glory to the league. Derik made it to finals in the main tournament and took 4th. Although he didn’t get the win we were hoping for, he did garner a huge crowd reaction with a glorious Lazarus ball on Flash Gordon that he not only lifted out of the drink successfully but sent straight up the ramp!

    Our next meeting is in (checks watch) a little over an hour so I hope to see you all soon!

  • Season 18 standings

    This Google doc has our league results spreadsheet for Season 18.

  • League Night Recap for 3/28/23

    The Capital Crushers descended on The Avenue Cafe on March 28 to kick off the eighteenth – you read that right – season of the Lansing Pinball League. It was our best-attended night in a long time as 25 people played, necessitating the addition of a second bank. This was mainly due to a sudden influx of enthusiastic new players who brought great energy with them: Ethan, Cyndi, Jon, Adam, Ann-Marie, Grant, Randall, Ro, and Ted. We did our usual drawing from a hat but fortunately avoided having a group entirely made up of new players (barely, since Joseph ended up steering a group of three newcomers). We also had the reappearance of a couple of off-and-on regulars who weren’t able to make it last season, Jason “Mags,” Shylia, and Brian K.

    Josh plays KISS.

    I was in a group with Cyndi, who is very new to pinball, and after making sure she was OK with receiving advice, I showed her how to make the Tower skill shot on Lord of the Rings and then immediately shoot the ring to start a mode. I was thrilled and proud when she proceeded to execute both elements perfectly on her first try, because at heart I’m a teacher even when I’m not at school. Cyndi, Linda, Josh, and I made for a fun and collegial group.

    Linda and Cyndi watch Josh play KISS.

    Our Tuesday Night Smackdown on Indiana Jones had the most players I can remember, possibly a record turnout, meaning that not everyone qualified to play finals. Several people near the bubble hung around watching anxiously as the last games were played. The final game as I rung the bell to end qualifying ended up catapulting both Cyndi and Linda into qualifying and sadly sending Jason and Jon home.

    There was very narrow margin between second and third on the Smackdown game.

    I have a button maker now, and finally got around to making a template for giving out buttons to Smackdown winners which they can wear for bragging rights. Tim put theirs on right away and Joseph… well, for some unaccountable reason he decided to do something silly with his. Who would have guessed?

    Tim, the Tuesday Night Smackdown champ, with their button.

    I hope to see you all shortly at our second league night (and don’t forget about the ladies’ Lightning Flippers event next week)!

    Joseph also shows off his Smackdown undercard button.

  • Heather and Joseph return as Super-Ball champs after 15 seasons

    Joseph and I won our first Super-Ball split-flipper “Zen” tournament as a team since Season 2 during Super-Ball XVII on Tuesday, March 21. Although we have played as a team more often than not subsequently, our only previous victory was at Super-Ball II. This was also the first pinball tournament either of us had ever won and because of that, the trophies still have pride of place on our mantel, along with Super-Ball trophies each of us have won with other partners. Originally, the teams were dictated by seeds, with the top seed partnering with the bottom seed, then the second seed with the second-to-bottom, and so on, in an attempt to equalize the teams. It was only by luck that Joseph and I got paired during Super-Ball II. (In Super-Ball I, since I was the most novice player in the league, my partner was Chris Tabaka, which I remember Matt Pries apologizing to me for.) This proved unpopular as people wanted to play with their friends or significant others, so in recent years people have been allowed to choose their own partners.

    Biff and Pat play Star Trek.

    Our two most frequent Super-Ball champs, Josh and Mike, both missed the event this year, leaving a relatively open field of competition. As happens more often than not (somehow), we had an odd number of people attend. In the old days this would mean the lowest seed would play on two teams, but it turned out that some people, especially newer players didn’t want to do that, so usually we take volunteers now. This time everyone wanted to do it so I did a lottery for it, and the gods of randomness chose Mark, who was playing in his first Super-Ball. Our teams were Dan and Derik, Biff and Pat, Joseph and I, Linda and Mark, and Mark and Tim. Unfortunately, Linda and Mark had a first-round match with Mark and Tim, thus causing the most awkward situation to happen straight off the bat. (Mark and Tim beat Linda and Mark.)

    Derik and Dan confer on strategy for Elvira’s House of Horrors.

    Finals were between top-seeded Dan and Derik in the winner bracket and Joseph and I in the second-chance bracket. In the first round, Joseph and I won 2-0 on Dan and Derik’s picks. In the second round, we went 1-1 on Dan and Derik’s picks (The Munsters and Tron) and got to choose the third game. We had already used up all our favorites (since a game could only be chosen once) and I was at a loss and feeling doomed, but Joseph suggested Cactus Canyon. We managed to narrowly triumph on it in an exciting finish to an exciting match.

    Runners-up Dan and Derik and winners me and Joseph, a photo taken by a darts player whose name I didn’t get.

    The final positions were as follows:

    1. Heather and Joseph
    2. Dan and Derik
    3. Biff and Pat
    4. Mark and Tim
    5. Linda and Mark

    That truly concludes Season 17 and we’re moving immediately into Season 18 to get back on schedule after our delay last month. See you all soon!

  • Season of Dan: Clark and Nelson win Season 17

    Season 17 ended on March 14 with Danny Clark winning the double-elimination playoff and Dan Nelson taking home the B division trophy. Ten people qualified to play in the top division and the tournament wrapped up shortly before midnight, helped out by Danny going straight through the winner bracket to victory and sweeping Derik in the final match.

    Danny and Derik, the new champion and second place winner, respectively. Danny looks very happy about his win.

    The league voted to continue using the new rule, adopted last season, that allows each player to choose the same game only once during the entire tournament. This required everyone to choose their games carefully, either using their best games early on to avoid an early knockout or saving them for harder rounds later. In the final match, as the lower seed, Danny ended up not getting any game choices. Derik chose the first game, Tales of the Arabian Nights, and then after a loss, chose Indiana Jones, which Danny also triumphed on.

    In the B division finals, Dan battled out of the loser bracket to a second round against Jake, winning four straight games in the process. The score sheet for their first round must have been filled out by Jake since the winner on The Beatles is listed as “Fucking Dan!” and the winner on Tales of the Arabian Nights is recorded as “FUCKING DAN!”

    Jake finishes his final game and expresses what we all have felt about Getaway at one time or another.
    B division trophy winners Jake (2nd), Dan (1st), and Mark (3rd).

    Third place in the A division went to Tim, and in the B division it went to new player Mark Cutler, taking home hardware in his very first league season. Last season’s champion Mike, hampered by having missed a few qualifying seassions, went in as the #6 seed and finished fourth, defeated by Derik.

    Tim with their 3rd place plaque. I guess they were open to fae pacts but not too open…

    We also gave out a few end-of-season awards (or “awards”), including the Best Game award, given to the player with the score highest above the night’s average on a specific game, which Danny won with a Deadpool score of 617 million. Mark won the Most Improved award, given to the player whose scores showed the strongest upward trend across the season, and Bryan won the Worst Game award for the score furthest below the average for the night. The score that secured Bryan the coveted “LOSER” ribbon was 382 million on Attack from Mars.

    Danny plays the final game of the night on Indiana Jones.

    In order to avoid blocking any games that might be chosen for finals, the consolation tournament was held on The Flip Side, the miniature American Girl pinball machine. I won, not surprising since I’ve had a lot of chances to practice it.

    Linda tries to learn something from watching Tim play The Flip Side.

    That closes the books on Season 17, but we do have our traditional post-season tournament, Super-Ball XVII, the split-flipper tournament. That will be tonight and Prime Time Awards has supplied beautiful (and splendidly cheesy) trophies for us so I am hoping a lot of people turn out for the competition.

  • League Night Recap for 2/28/23

    The last day of February was also the last night for the regular league season. The final seeds for the playoffs, and even more importantly who would make it into A division, was decided on this night. It promised to be a long night since some people needed to make up Star Trek (it had been taken out for phantom scoring the previous league night) and everyone would have to play the same bank, since we started the last two-bank rotation on an even-numbered night.

    Nate puts his hat on as though to say “My work here is done.”

    Surprisingly, even though we did have four groups playing the same bank for the first time in a while, it didn’t end up being too long. A total of 16 people played, two of them (Biff and Danny) being latecomers who went around on their own after league was mostly over. There were a couple of backups, but it wasn’t the really late night I was bracing myself for. One notable absence was Jake. He and Sam usually come together from Grand Rapids, but Sam came on his own. According to Sam, Jake said he would be in B division no matter what transpired so he might as well just see us at finals. I asked him if that meant that he loved us more than Jake did, since we aren’t good enough for Jake to just hang out with if A division isn’t on the table. He started saying something about Jake having a family. Pffft, excuses, excuses.

    Bryan and Derik chat about… I don’t know, I’m just going to say beards.

    Also missing was reigning league champion Mike, who was feeling under the weather. He missed three nights this season and still managed to make A division, though he will surely miss having a first-round bye this time. Those will go to #1 seed Derik and #2 seed Danny.

    Mark gets his makeup game on Star Trek done.

    Probably the biggest heartbreak when the dust settled was that Nate missed A division by 1 point. On the other hand, one could equally say that the happiest story of the night was that Biff made A division by 1 point. It reminds me of one of my favorite Peanuts comics. It turns out, though, that Sam is probably going to miss league finals, which will move Nate up into A division after all. I’m sure Nate is very happy that Sam is sick! Wait, that doesn’t sound right…

    Tim celebrates their Smackdown triumph on TRON.

    Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on TRON. It was one of our least popular Smackdowns, with only six people entering scores. Mark played his first Smackdown A division finals against Tim, me, and Joseph. Unsurprisingly, Tim won, although I had a good shot at it and ended in 2nd. Bryan and Linda played off for the B division on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with the victory going to Bryan. I don’t know why the dice roll always picks TMNT when we’re doing a Smackdown at the top of the stairs.

    That concludes Season 17 except for finals tomorrow, and Super-Ball XVII (Zen Night), which will be in a week. In 24 hours we… actually won’t know yet who won Season 17, I am going to bet. But at least we’ll be getting close. I hope.

  • League Night Recap for 1/24/23

    Our penultimate league night was way back on January 24, and it was the conclusion of a two-bank rotation between Hades (Indiana Jones, AC/DC, Deadpool, Ghostbusters, Stranger Things) and Ares (The Simpsons, The Mandalorian, Scared Stiff, Star Trek, and Attack from Mars). The reason it was so long ago is that first we had a three-week gap due to the calendar, then The Avenue was unexpectedly closed on what would have been our next meeting night (February 14), so we had to reschedule for February 28.

    Pat celebrates his Smackdown victory on Rush.

    Another hitch is that during our last meeting, Star Trek had a malfunction, a switch firing nonstop that was escalating scores. Since half the league had already played it, we couldn’t just remove it for a backup game, so now everyone who didn’t get to play it has to play it as a makeup tonight. This is not an optimal time for that because we also have to play a single bank tonight no matter what, since we’re on our last night of the season. Unfortunately, this happened because we started a two-bank rotation on an even-numbered night. It’s an inherent flaw to the system of deciding night by night whether to play one or two banks, and I think I may just switch back to a permanent two-bank system next season.

    This was our first league night without Allen, since he went back to Texas and his family. League won’t be the same without him. I was thinking we have to call this the AA era, After Allen, except that doesn’t sound quite right.

    An interesting and somewhat alarming occurrence happened as we were finishing up Tuesday Night Smackdown: James Bond 007, which fortunately was not a Smackdown game, suddenly decided it was going to update its code right now. It was odd watching it do this totally unprompted and unattended, but that’s the brave new world of pinball we live in. I’m just glad it didn’t happen during a tournament.

    I believe Joseph is holding up an invisible Smackdown button, mocking me for having still not gotten the template together to start making them again.

    As for the Smackdown game, it was on Rush. It feels like we just did a Smackdown game on it, but that was actually last season. The champion this time was Pat and the undercard winner (on Cactus Canyon) was Joseph.

    Tonight is our final qualifying night of Season 17, locking in the seeds for the playoffs in two weeks and perhaps even more importantly, deciding who gets to play in A division. The bank is Zeus, which includes Guns N’ Roses, Tales of the Arabian Nights, The Addams Family, James Bond 007, and the wild card game voted by the league, Attack from Mars. It’s actually hard to say how close the positions are at this point due to the Star Trek failure that has left half the league with no score for that game in Bank 7, so I’ll just go ahead and say “anything could happen.” So, I hope to see you there tonight for the final reckoning!

  • The madness returns!

    The annual Stephen T. Kendrick Memorial March Hare Madness tournament, a charity tournament benefiting the Rabbit and Small Animal Rescue of Westland, returns to The Avenue Cafe on March 7, 2023. This will be a timed group matchplay tournament using the Critical Hit deck. If you haven’t played a Critical Hit tournament before, you’re in for a treat! Every player is dealt cards that allow them to “cast spells” during the tournament. You could force someone to play a game without viewing the display, shake the game to give someone tilt warnings, or even trade scores. It’s a wild time fitting for the name March Hare Madness! Plus, rabbits and magic… it’s a whole thing.

    The tournament kicks off at 6 pm and we will play rounds until 10 pm at which point the top four players will play a three-game finals match. The entry fee is $10 which goes 90% to RASA Rescue and 10% to the Sharpe cartel.

  • League Night Recap for 1/10/23

    Our first meeting of 2023 on 1/10 was our sixth of the season and we ended up having a big enough crowd to need to split into two banks. Unfortunately, this does mean that league night #8 will have to be one bank no matter how big of a crowd we have, but we’ll make do.

    Jen, Kristen, and Sam talking in the pervasive gloom of the alcove.

    Unfortunately, The Addams Family kept having issues, most critically resetting, so it had to be taken out of commission after almost everyone in one bank had played it already. Josh was looking over my shoulder as I was checking on the upcoming banks to find a backup game and pointed out that something was wrong with them as Bank 8 was purported to contain South Park and FunHouse, which obviously we don’t have. I briefly panicked, thinking that I had accidentally given out the editor link in order for some prankster to do that (putting in one of my least favorite games and my very favorite game), then realized that Joseph had done it for a placeholder because Bank 8 has two empty spaces until we vote on what to put in it.

    Somebody made good use of a prize they got from the vending machine.

    We had a visit from Kristen G., who played in the league years ago before moving away, and was in town for work. She didn’t play in league (there’s really no point in playing one night) but she did play in the Tuesday Night Smackdown game on 007 and got second place. This must have been her first official tournament at The Avenue in quite a while. Allen also played in the A division of the Smackdown, getting fourth. Sadly, this will be his last official appearance at the Avenue for some time.

    Biff plays Attack from Mars.

    Although this wasn’t known yet at the time, it turns out that the night marked Allen’s exit from the league. Over state finals weekend he let me know that his work in Michigan has unexpectedly ended early, allowing him to return back home to Texas and get to live with his family again. Previously his plan was to move back in May. While I recognize that this is good news for him, I was very sad to learn that he wouldn’t be able to finish the league season after all. State finals served as his last big hurrah as a Michigan player (for now), and he went out with style by taking 3rd place. He wanted me to let everyone in the league know how much it has meant to him to have a second family in Michigan, which is what made it bearable for him to stay away from his first family so long.

    The night ended with Tuesday Night Smackdown as usual, and as mentioned, the A division played on our newest game, 007. I somehow failed to take any pictures of the winners this time, probably in part because my usual league camera (“Little Points”) had just gone out of commission. Mike won on 007 and in the B division, I had a really wild come from behind on ball 3, player 4 of Game of Thrones for the win. I started the last ball with fewer than a million points, needed to get past 300 million some, and finished well over 400 million thanks to one good multiball.

  • League Night Recap for 12/13/22

    It’s been a while since our last league night because we took December 29 off to play the annual Silver Balls in the City charity strikes tournament. Unfortunately, I didn’t take notes about the night like I sometimes try to do (it helps with my unfortunate habit of writing up the recap two weeks later) and my brain has subsequently been churned repeatedly by a record grading marathon, then the holidays, then scrambling to prepare a new semester. Frankly, it’s amazing I can remember my own name. Fortunately, I do have pictures for you this time, and I can remember a few highlights, so here goes.

    Sam noticed me taking a picture of him and then insisted I do one where he was posing. This is the pose he chose.

    Our last league night on December 13th was the fifth of Season 17. We had a relatively small turnout again last time so we played only one bank, “Athena.” I was considering playing two banks no matter what on the assumption that at some point we’ll need to again and so we won’t want to end up with an odd number of banks left. Joseph convinced me I should stick with the rule about playing one bank with fewer than 16 people so that’s what we did. We were missing regulars Pat, Brian, Mike (who let me know he was out sick), and Allen (who was back home in Texas for the holidays). On the other hand, we had the surprise return of Nate F., Jake’s brother-in-law, who hadn’t played this season. Nate walked up to me, gave me a hearty pat on the shoulder and said it was good to see me again, and I was so embarrassed because I felt I had to own up and admit I could not remember who he was. Fortunately he took it in good humor.

    There’s a new sheriff in town, and it’s Dan N.!

    Dan asked me what Jurassic Park had to do with the bank theme of “Athena.” I responded “It needed to go somewhere and I couldn’t make everything fit.” I did point out that I was proud of including Rush in the bank because Athena’s symbol was an owl. I realized later that I had forgottne that I did have a reason to put Jurassic Park in Athena. It’s because Athena was the goddess of wisdom, that is, she was a clever girl. (Cactus Canyon is really the one I have no real justification for.)

    The GR contingent have a conference: Jake, Nate F., and Sam.

    Danny came very late and since all the groups were done by the time he arrived we just gave him a score sheet and sent him on his way. Joseph noticed he had something like 850 million after ball 1 on Rush, so he let him know that he had already beaten everyone else and could go on to play the rest of his games. I was desperately behind on work and trying to do some work at this point so I think Joseph just wanted to help me be able to go home as soon as possible. Danny was actually able to go back and continue his suspended Rush game, still just waiting for someone to shoot, after finishing the rest of his games for the night. He was still playing as we left for the night.

    Josh has his turn on Rush.

    The Smackdown game was Monster Bash, which I did terrible at. I had a score of 5 million and insisted on playing a second game just so I didn’t have to leave a score that embarrassing on the score sheet. On my second try, I got 3 million. Tim ended up winning the Smackdown, and since we only had six competitors, the B division was played between me and Mark. I had a narrow victory on Attack from Mars. This was Mark’s first official IFPA tournament, though he quickly followed it with a second one by playing at Silver Balls in the City.

    We heart you too, Tim!

    Speaking of Silver Balls, I will eventually have a pile of photos from that tournament and I promise to upload them to the league Flickr pool (which exists) and the Facebook group eventually. I don’t promise when.