When the Lansing Pinball League was young, there was Chris, and there was everyone else. Chris’s victory was so certain that everyone focused instead on who would be the runner up. Matt called it “the Battle for Second.” After we switched to having a final playoff tournament instead of just basing standings on the points earned in the regular season, he had to work harder. There were some close calls, including a skill shot plunge on Addams Family that won him a narrow victory over Alex, and the time he had to battle out of the second-chance bracket and defeat Mike S. in two matches to defend his title. Yet for 10 seasons he remained the undefeated champion of the league. As Season 11 dawned, murmurs began: it’s time for a new champion. Who will it be? The strongest contenders were Mike, Tim, and Danny. I think Danny was generally favored, but Chris himself told me he thought it would be Tim.
We did get a new champion, but it didn’t happen the way people pictured, with a tense final match between Chris and the new winner. Instead, Chris got knocked into the second-chance bracket by Danny and had to fight Tim there. It went to a third game on Getaway, Tim’s choice. I wondered if Tim had chosen wisely; he’s very strong on Getaway but so is Chris. In fact, it was an epic game of Getaway in which Chris put up about a billion points that stymied Mike in his near-miss season. I got up on a chair to watch the playfield without distracting the players, because in a previous game there had been a flipper issue reported that I was not able to replicate. In the time it took me to get up on the chair and get situated, Tim had finished Ball 1 at over 200 million. I was stunned. “How did you get that score so fast?” I said. He replied, “Loops.” He had done something crazy like 10 speed loops, maybe more, whereas the most I had ever done in my life was five. I had never seen someone use speed loops as a tournament strategy before. In the last ball, Chris went up needing to make up something close to 300 million points. I thought he might do it as he seems to thrive on this kind of pressure. Sometimes I think he only really starts in Ball 3. But this time it was different. He drained early as spectators gasped, then went over to shake Tim’s hand. Tim had slain the giant. Chris didn’t even take home a third place trophy.
Tim wasn’t close to finished climbing the hill yet, as he had to go on to play Danny in the semi-finals. He lost that battle, though everyone thought it could have gone either way. Tim got third place this season, but he had two accomplishments that couldn’t be taken away: he had finished the regular season in first place ahead of Chris, something that has been done only once before; and he knocked Chris out of the finals, so far a unique accomplishment (though he certainly had considerable help from Danny). After Tim and Danny finished their match, I wanted to take the “alternate reality” photos. This is a tradition that allows the third place player to go home without waiting for finals. We take two winners’ photos, with the potential first and second place winners switching trophies so we can use the “correct” one after the winner is decided. This time Mike refused. “I’m not touching it,” he said, of the first place trophy, believing that doing so had robbed him of wins in the past.
Danny and Mike went on to finals, with Mike in the winners’ bracket. They had a very high-scoring game of Star Wars, both around 1.8 billion. Mike tilted away a bonus that would have given him perhaps 100 million in breathing room, which he was quietly cursing himself for as Danny stepped up. Danny seemed sure to win, especially when he started a multiball; but he drained early and ended up about 2 million points short. Danny chose to play Deadpool, and himself had a very unfortunate tilt which may well have cost him the bonus he needed to win. It ended there, with Mike as the league’s new champion and Danny in second.
Joseph wrote up his own account of the night on his Livejournal (don’t laugh) and in it he said, “It tells you of [Chris’s] skill that, ultimately, it took the cooperative work of three people to dethrone him.” Mike said that he had to admit that there was “an asterisk” next to his win in the history books because he had not had to play Chris at all.
Meanwhile, the B division was itself fraught with drama. Most people assumed Jason, a long-time player who was in B only because he joined midseason, would just mow his way through the bracket. I felt sorry for the B players for having such a ringer in their midst. Instead, Jason had a bad night and was knocked out of the second-chance bracket by Ed, Terry’s brother who is a relative novice. It just goes to show one of the charms of pinball: once in a while, the most seasoned player can have a bad night and the greenest player a great one. Karen took third place and the final battle was between Tyler in the winners’ bracket and his father, Chad, in the second chance bracket. In an upset, Chad battled his way out of the swamp to win two matches against Tyler and take home the B division first place trophy.
We also had a Smackdown on Theatre of Magic, though the participation was limited due to some people still being in the main tournament when we held finals for the Smackdown. Derik won, causing Mike to say, “It’s just like you said, your plan was to throw the main tournament so you could win the Smackdown.” Derik replied, “You weren’t supposed to tell anyone that!” Mike said, “You said it right in front of three people!”
I went home without a trophy this time, but with the glory of having played in A division and a big box of karate trophies. Wait, what? You read it right: Danny donated a huge number of old trophies for me to recycle – sorry, “upcycle” – into trophies for my charity tournaments. Joseph noted, “If you’re good at karate, you can just take whatever trophies you want.”
Tonight is our post-season “Zen” (split flipper) tournament, known as Super-Ball XI. Matt started the tradition way back in Season 1, when he went to the trophy shop and said, “just give me the cheesiest thing you have for trophies.” Since I’ve taken over, I have just told them “we want the same thing again” and they have continued to pick out something great for us. This time they’re a bit wider than usual and a nice sparkly green color, with angels (or maybe they’re Winged Victories) on top. They say “Super-Ball XI Zen Champion” and they can be yours! Anyone can win the Zen tournament since skill is equalized by the unusual play. We will also be randomly giving away two translites courtesy of the Stern Army. I hope to see you tonight at 7:30 for the Super-Ball.
