Category: Lightning Flippers

April 24 was another exciting meet for the Lansing Lightning Flippers women’s league. We had a high turnout of 12 players, which made for a tidy three groups of four. In addition to most of our usual players, we had a new player, Danielle – a friend of Lexi, I believe. Danielle did quite well for her first league night, finishing just a couple of points below the median.

I was in the top group with Tim, Mackenzie, and Amy. It was a very tough group and I was very pleased with myself to come in second, just two points behind Tim. Tim had first choice for the night and led by picking Ghostbusters, which was also one of their choices last league night. I was a little surprised because they had not finished first on it last time, but I realized that they must have decided (with some justification) that my performance last time was a wild fluke unlikely to be repeated. Instead I managed to come out on top again and Amy got second. Tim and I switched places when it was my turn to pick. I chose Medieval Madness and took third to Tim’s first, this time with Mackenzie getting second. There were several exciting games and I thought my group had a really competitive but fun night.

I still had one Lansing Pinball League shirt in size medium left over from the last time we had shirts made a few seasons ago. After being unable to give it away at the open league several times it had ended up forgotten in my attic. I dug it out again and brought it as a giveaway item, which Jen won (right after commenting, “I could probably wear a medium”).

We also had our usual one-ball tournament on The Flip Side, to try to get players rated. Linda put up one of the best single-ball scores I’ve seen, while our frequent champion Tim had a near house ball. In the finals, Linda prevailed over Danielle, Stephanie, and Amy.

Our league meeting tomorrow will be the last of the season. We will be having our final qualifying session immediately followed by the playoffs. The playoffs will take the top seven players (or eight, if we get any more new players) to a fast ladder finals. Ladder is a very unpredictable format since a single loss knocks someone out, so it really becomes anyone’s tournament to win or lose. We will also be playing three, count ’em, three one-ball tournaments to try to get ratings for anyone left who still needs them!

The last Lightning Flippers meet was our fourth, which also means we were starting the second half of the season. We had seven attend which means we were missing a few members, but we were graced by the return of Linda, Sarah, and Mackenzie after their absence last time. We were split into the top group with four and the bottom group with three.

My group included the formidable Tim as well as Amy and Dana, and we had a really fun night of competition. The highlight of the night was when Tim ran up the score on Ghostbusters (a game I am usually weak on)to 600-something and I thought, no way, I’ll just try to get second… then I somehow managed to do over 800! Even a blind rabbit finds a carrot once in a while, as the saying goes.

Our Lansing Lightning Rater tournament, the most ridiculous possible IFPA tournament, had a four-player final match between Tim, Sarah, Amy, and Dana. None of the scores were exceedingly high, but Tim took the W.

Everything is having to get more strategic with game choices as people are starting to run out of their favorites to use (as a game can be chosen only once in the season). I know that I’m down to mulling over which Williams games are left in my roster. I haven’t decided on a game for our next meeting yet… which is tonight! I hope to see all of the Lightning Flippers ladies soon!

My longtime dream was finally realized: Lansing now has a true women’s league! We previously held monthly women’s tournaments under the Lansing Lightning Flippers name, but they have now been transformed into a semi-monthly league. The league uses match-play scoring instead of best-game scoring (like the open league uses). Everyone plays five games against two or three other people, and is scored 7/5/3/1 or 7/4/1 based on their finishing position on the game. Game choice rotates, but everyone can only choose a given game once in the season (until finals). The lowest night is dropped, and after the end of the sixth qualifying night, there is a finals phase that happens immediately, which will use a ladder format.

I was worried about whether we would get enough people to avoid having any two-player groups because then we would have to use 7/1 scoring, which is really suboptimal. The only way this would happen would be if we got five total players. Fortunately that was averted and handily: our turnout was a healthy nine! I had figured if we could get at least six people coming regularly the league would be successful. This did mean everyone played in a three-player group which is a bit less fun than four, but I’m sure our population will fluctuate over time, giving people a chance to play in a full group.

Some of our usual Flippers players attended, including Tim, Mackenzie, Stephanie, Christy, and Linda. We were also joined by Abby from Grand Rapids and Dana and Amy who played in a previous season of the open league. Lexi had planned to attend but had a family emergency, but she is hoping to attend starting tonight.

As a side tournament, we will have something called the Lansing Lightning Rater every night. The purpose of the Lightning Rater tournament is to get people “rated” for IFPA purposes, which requires having played in five prior tournaments. If all our players are rated, it will make the league more valuable to the IFPA. The Lightning Rater tournament is the most minimal possible tournament: one ball qualifying on my American Girl pinball machine “The Flip Side” followed by a single four-player game for the finals. This is intended just for the unrated players but is technically an open tournament so I did not anticipate how many people would want to play. I figured I’d just get the unrated players to do it in our spare moments, but instead most of the rated players attending also participated. Ultimately Amy won, which I think will be her first officially recorded IFPA tournament win. The record of your wins doesn’t distinguish ridiculous from non-ridiculous tournaments, so congratulations!

Overall I think the league got off to a great start and it seemed to me that people really enjoyed the match-play format. I have always wanted to run a match-play league but for various reasons I think the open league will be resistant to changing. Starting a second league ex nihilo gave me the canvas I needed to run a league the way I’ve always wanted to – and it seems like I’m not the only one to like the new format. It was a relief to have our first meeting go so well as I had been very worried about it being a flop.

That’s all for the first night’s report, but we’re about to have our second night very soon! Our league uses Matchplay and so you can view the results for the night and the season there.