Last league night was meeting #7 which means that we started our final bank rotation between “Pythagoras” and “Thales.” The race is really close around the A/B cut line, so tensions are running high for the players clustered there. We needed to vote to determine which game to take up the final slot in Bank 8, Foo Fighters or Star Wars (both games having been played by only half the league due to backups getting switched in mid-rotation). As usual there wasn’t a high voter turnout, but Foo Fighters won by a mini-landslide. (Star Wars will be the backup game if needed during Week 8.)
Jason plays the new Star Wars: Fall of the Empire.
Once again I came rushing in at the last minute due to having an Academic Senate meeting. We were in the second round of a contentious discussion that had started at the previous Senate meeting and the discussion still didn’t finish. It’s going to be going into round three tomorrow, so everyone should expect Joseph to be checking people in again. The good news for my rivals at the bottom of A division is that I will once again probably not get any warmup time.
Devon plays the Smackdown game, Rush.
At this point, the standings in the banks aren’t very meaningful, since only half of the league has played each won. But so far on Bank 7 (Pythagoras) Mike is in first, which has done a lot toward moving him up in the rankings, having been held back by a couple of missed nights this season. Jason is in the lead so far on Bank 8 (Thales). Down in the cut line cluster, Joseph, Heather, and Devon are in seventh through ninth places, and only 5 points separate Joseph and Devon, so our positions are all very tenuous. Even Mike is only four more points ahead of Joseph.
Gary, Tim and Danny share a moment.
Too many power players being drawn into the same group along with some very high scores (like billion-plus games on Deadpool for Danny and on Jaws for Brian) made for an especially long league night and a late starting Smackdown game. Unfortunately for my school-night bedtime, the Smackdown game was also a long one on Rush. Jason triumphed over Danny, Joseph, and Devon to win. Meanwhile, I won in the B division on Munsters by pulling out a third ball rally that got me from around a million to around 13 million points on my final ball.
Smackdown champion Jason (trying to levitate) and B winner Heather (me)..
That’s it for the recap from last week, but we did also have two other events recently: the women’s and open launch parties for our new Star Wars: Fall of the Empire LE. Tim won both tournaments, making them the first ever Lansing double launch party winner!
For several years starting in 2015, the LPL had an annual Halloween costume contest. While nothing ever topped the first year in which three people came as Chris Tabaka (only one of whom was, in fact, Chris Tabaka), it had a pretty good turnout for a few years before petering out. After only a couple of people participated one year, I decided there was no longer enough interest and put it on hiatus.
Front row from left: Mackenzie as Britney, Lexi as Hornet (Silksong), Stephanie as Cowboy Furby, me as a jackalope, Tim as the pinball witch, and Peter as King Kong (the pinball machine). In the back: Traci as Martha Overhead from Beetlejuice, Danny as Michael Myers, Joseph as a red panda, Christy as a Hershey Kiss, Jason as a luchador, and Linda as “Big Penny” the Pennsylvania Avenue RR bridge. 1st place: Peter, 2nd place: Linda, 3rd place: Mackenzie. Photo by Mark Cutler.
This year, a combination of the passage of time and the closeness of league night to the holiday made me think it might be successful if I gave it another try, so I bought a few small trophies for it and hoped. Unfortunately, that day I was up at work for an unusually lively Academic Senate meeting that ran past 5 pm, and then had to rush home and change into my jackalope costume, causing me to be the last person to arrive on scene, while Joseph got things organized. He had texted me with “I think you’re going to be pleased with the turnout for the costume contest,” but I didn’t see the message because I didn’t look at my phone in the rush to get dressed and over to the Avenue. Instead I was delightfully surprised by the crowd of costumes I saw upon arrival. This was the most participation since the first year, and probably at least as much. I hope we’re able to keep things rolling with it next year, too!
Mike and Traci vote in the costume contest.
The first person who came up to me was someone in a gorilla mask and I had to ask, “Who is that?” It was Peter and I quickly realized he was dressed not as King Kong but as the King Kong pinball machine, complete with a playfield-art T-shirt and a “Go Ape Again” light hanging around his waist. (Later, Mike said to me, “Don’t ask him where his center post is.”) I knew pretty much immediately that he was going to win the costume contest vote, which made me feel rather silly when I announced that I would not be keeping the prize translite if I happened to win the vote. In my defense, I had been one of the top vote getters most years in the past when the participation was usually lower, so I hadn’t anticipated how many other people would put real effort into it this time. Indeed, with everyone marking a first, second, and third place vote (3/2/1 points), Peter won by a landslide and earned a Stranger Things translite along with his trophy. Second place went to Linda as “Big Penny,” the Pennsylvania Avenue Railroad Bridge; and third place went to Mackenzie as Britney Spears. I did a recount of 2-4th place because they were so close that I wanted to be sure. Taking honorable mention, one vote shy of third, was Stephanie as Cowboy Furby.
Danny as Michael Myers plays John Wick. Joseph is in the background doing the “standing up and raising paws” thing that red pandas do to try to look intimidating.
Christy brought some cute witch’s hat and pumpkin shaped cookies, and someone (I didn’t see who because of my late arrival but I’m guessing it might have been Tim) brought candy. It was a wonderfully festive league night and I was so pleased that everyone agreed to indulge my love of Halloween and dressing up.
Peter as King Kong the pinball machine, with his costume contest trophy.
Oh yes, some pinball also got played. It ended up being a very late night because Deadpool got pulled for a malfunction after one group had already played it. Worse, the group that had played it included Brian K., who had put up over 700 million on a game that would now be voided. Sorry, Brian. With the bank 5/6 rotation complete, Danny has won both banks and is the current frontrunner in the overall standings, 12 points ahead of Brian K. On the other end of A division, there is currently a scrum going on to be above the cutline. Currently the line falls between Devon in 8th and Mike in 9th (both of them hampered by missed nights this season).
Since it was costume night, I decided to make Monster Bash the Smackdown game instead of doing a random drawing, and made The Addams Family the B division game. Tim won the Smackdown and Joseph won the B division against Lexi.
Smackdown B division winner Joseph (doing the red panda pose) and winner Tim.
Our next league night (tonight) will start the final two banks, 7 and 8, including most of the games that have not been played yet, or have been played by only half the league, due to being pulled as backup games earlier this season. There wasn’t enough room in the banks to include “old” Star Wars (which got pulled mid-rotation), but it will be the designated backup game if we do need to pull anything tonight.
Our last league night was the fifth of the season and we began the Bank 5/Bank 6 rotation. Bank 5 is named for Socrates, who needs no introduction. Bank 6 takes its name from pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander, who along with Bank 8’s Thales is a member of the Milesian School. Philosophers from this school were particularly concerned with finding the fundamental origin or principle of all reality, which they often identified with one particular “element.” Anaximander had a particularly abstract version of this, identifying the fundamental principle with something called the apeiron, which is translated “boundless” or “indefinite.” I promise that each bank has some reason I connected that philosopher with that bank. Unfortunately, I can’t swear that I remember what my reason was in each case and Anaximander might be one of those cases…
Peter, Devon, and Curtis watch Joseph and Tim play Smackdown finals games.
Speaking of banks, we had originally created the banks this season with the idea of maximally spreading out the groups, so they were entirely based on game location. Sadly, the best laid schemes of league directors go oft astray, and our nice, neat banks have been overturned by the plough of a new game. When Star Wars: Fall of the Empire came in, Derik also did a fair bit of rearranging. While I lament our banks being in disarray, I do like the way he has put a lot of our Bally/Williams games together in a murderer’s row.
Everyone was happy to see a familiar face at league night: Cyndi has returned, maybe just for a night and maybe for the rest of the season. I believe I speak for everyone in the league in hoping for the latter.
Peter and Tim celebrating a B and A division Smackdown win (respectively).
It’s our tradition to use any newly arrived game for our Tuesday Night Smackdown side tournament, so this time it was the new Star Wars: Fall of the Empire LE. Tim won the A division, and Peter won the B division on Scared Stiff (appropriate for Halloween season).
Speaking of spooky, our annual Fear and Trembling Charity Pingolf Tournament happened the following Tuesday. This year, Joseph and I drew the nine games for the course randomly, to stop us from falling back on the games we’ve used in the past. Some of the objectives we chose ended up feeling a lot harder at the tournament than they did when we tested them; it happens pretty much every time. I gave away several prizes including a Stern “High Score” embroidered hat. Derik was very enthusiastic about winning it (he declared it “sick”) and put it on right away, despite the fact that he is usually never seen wearing a hat. I tried pointing out that at a pingolf tournament he really shouldn’t be bragging about getting a high score. I’m not sure if he didn’t get the joke I was making or if he just didn’t find it funny, but either way it fell flat and my repeating it three times somehow did not improve it.
Tim went into the tournament as the returning champion, and they managed to pull it off again. Tim is now the four time consecutive champion of Fear and Trembling. Pingolf is evidently Tim’s format… though it doesn’t hurt that one of the games on the course was Getaway.
The 2025 Fear and Trembling Charity Pingolf Tournament, supporting the Capital Area Humane Society. From fourth place to first: Joseph, Danny, Derik, and Tim (four-time champion!).
Tomorrow at our next league night, we will be reviving the dormant tradition of the LPL Halloween costume contest. Wear your costume to league night and you might win a trophy or the top prize of a translite! Christy is bringing Halloween cookies. See you there!
September 23 was the fourth night of Season 23 which means that we finished the rotation between banks 4 and 5, known as Democritus and Heraclitus after two pre-Socratic philosophers. Their traditional epithets are “the Laughing Philosopher” and “the Weeping Philosopher” respectively, but whether the night left someone laughing or weeping didn’t seem to correlate with the bank. For my part, I had a much better time with Heraclitus than Democritus, which suits me fine, given that Heraclitus is my favorite pre-Socratic. Heraclitus is also known as the philosopher who said that fire was the fundamental principle of the universe, so that must be why I had a hot streak.
Mark, Devon, and Brian.
At one point I got called over to Monster Bash to resolve an issue in which the right flipper button was getting stuck. I did what I have seen other TDs that I respect do in this situation. I hit the button 100 times to see if the problem recurred. Since it didn’t, I said “play on” and left. Minutes later they fetched me to say it happened again and this time I was able to reproduce it. I expressed reluctance to bother Derik about it, and Peter said that he thought it was just gummed up with something sticky. Joseph suggested he could clean it with his hand sanitizer if he had a cleaning tool, so Peter went and got a napkin and folded it up. Peter stood there working on jamming the folded up paper in the crevice around the button, and reported that it was working. He did not notice Derik creeping up behind him and then standing there with an amused “WTF” expression on his face.
Derik silently watches Peter work on the flipper button.
Speaking of WTF, the B division on Tuesday Night Smackdown stole the spotlight from A with a much longer game and a very dramatic finish. Joseph (as player 2) had finished the game on James Bond with 626.7M, and Jason (as player 4) looked almost certain to overtake him. When Jason drained through the left outlane, everyone watching (including, probably, Jason) thought he had won on bonus. The score display was interrupted by a prompt for player 2 to enter initials for the high score board, which I assumed would be followed by a prompt for player 4 to enter them also. Instead, after Joseph finished putting in his JFN, it went to a match screen. A couple of stunned beats followed as people registered what had happened. Jason had finished at 625.8M, less than a million short. Danny, meanwhile, had destroyed everyone with a big game of Ghostbusters in the A division.
Joseph gestures to the amazing close scores on James Bond.Jason just barely failed to eke out enough bonus to beat Joseph.
Having completed League Night #4, we are now at the halfway mark of the season. Brian laughed off his rivals with a win in Democritus (bank 3), while Tim triumphed and left the competition crying in Heraclitus (bank 4). In the overall standings, Brian is at the top with a mere single point lead over Tim. Danny is another three points behind Tim. The cut-line for A division is currently between Joseph in eighth and Devon in ninth, with only two points between them. With half the season left, no one can feel secure. We’ll be starting the second half tonight, and this will also be the last chance for any new joiners for Season 23. After Night #5, new players can still attend but will be recorded as guest players without official standings.
Danny looks nonchalant about his victory in the A division on Ghostbusters, but Joseph still can’t believe what happened on James Bond.
When I showed up for our last league night I was looking and feeling quite scattered. Unfortunately, this year I am serving on Academic Senate at CMU, and the meeting dates all this semester coincide exactly with league meetings, including the times that additional weeks get skipped. As a result, I will only be able to make it just in time for the start of our league meetings and Joseph will have the responsibility of setting up the Smackdown and checking people in. When I arrived and started trying to double check Joseph’s attendance sheet, I found that he had missed a few people and I got a little frustrated and complained that he isn’t very good with names. Linda said it sure sounded like I was throwing Joseph under the bus and I joked that Joseph is always happy to go under the bus for me. Then I felt bad for being a bit of a jerk and made clear to everyone that in fact, Joseph is an invaluable league assistant without whom it would be impossible for me to keep the league running!
Tim busy working on a billion-plus game of Godzilla.
Last time was our third night of Season 23, so we started a new pair of banks. The current set are known (by me and possibly Joseph, if no one else) as Democritus and Heraclitus. These two pre-Socratic philosophers make a natural pairing for a bank rotation, because there is a tradition of referring to them as “the laughing philosopher” and “the weeping philosopher.” Baroque painters loved to depict them representing those opposite attitudes. In reality, they didn’t quite live at the same time. Heraclitus was already gone when Democritus was born. Heraclitus is known mainly for various cryptic aphorisms (hence his other nickname, “The Obscure”) and for his belief that fire, representing change, was the fundamental principle of nature. He’s also my favorite pre-Socratic philosopher. Democritus is best known for having the most developed early theory of atoms.
Mark and Brian coining up on King Kong.
Perhaps it’s appropriate that I played bank Democritus, because I can only laugh at a night in which I managed to both set a personal best on Godzilla, have probably a personal top 5 game on Indiana Jones, and then also struggle to eke out 5 million on Metallica. Meanwhile, Tim was also in my group and managed to competely tear up Godzilla and then have a great game on Indiana Jones too, so those games were treating us well.
With only half of everyone having played each bank, the results aren’t too meaningful yet, but as things stand, Mike has the lead so far on Bank 3 (Democritus) and Danny on Bank 4 (Heraclitus).
Lexi playing James Bond in the Smackdown B finals.
Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was Ghostbusters, and the B division played James Bond. Danny won with a walk-off on Ghostbusters (which he then didn’t actually walk off, but finished playing, because it was a great game) and I somehow managed to win on Bond, a game that frequently kicks my ass, including this past Friday when I got completely pulverized on it at RLM Amusements’ weekly tournament in Grand Rapids.
Joseph has an inexplicable knack for getting photos of me with my eyes closed. This is actually the better of the two photos he took of us. In the other one my eyes are completely closed.
I’ll be seeing everyone soon, though don’t forget that I won’t be around until shortly before the start of league due to my Senate service. We’ll have a Smackdown game TBD, which Joseph will get started for everyone when he arrives about 6 pm. See you soon!
It was our second league night of Season 23, so we finished the first full rotation of banks 1 and 2, which are named (for reasons best known to myself) Anaxagoras and Aristotle. We were also joined by a few new pinball seekers. The first was Brian, who was invited to join the proceedings late but who decided to just watch and hang out instead. (I kidded him that we already had a Brian/Bryan quota, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t why he declined to compete.) Brian had noticed an unusually large number of pinball players a couple of weeks previous when he had dropped into the Avenue to get a few games in, so he tracked down the league’s Facebook page and figured out how to find us again. Unfortunately, his schedule will prevent him from playing as a regular member, but he did put in a game for our Tuesday Night Smackdown side tournament on Attack from Mars.
Josh hard at work pulping some fiction.
The second was the mysterious, pseudonymous Hayley Hyena, who did not join the league but whose name showed up on my Smackdown score sheet. Linda was able to point out Hayley in the bar, and I got to break the news to her that she had qualified for A division of the Smackdown with a 3+ billion AfM score. She ended up coming in second, not bad at all for someone’s first ever official IFPA tournament.
Nathan seems less than impressed with his bonus.
The third new player did actually join the league properly. Christy’s friend Jonathan, who has often spectated league in the past, and has played in one of the charity tournaments, decided to take the plunge and pay dues for the season.
I can’t resist writing a little bit about my own modest accomplishment of the night, which is that I set the top score for the league on Medieval Madness with about 67 million. There was a time when that wouldn’t have been expected to give you a first, but it seems to play tougher in recent times. I got about halfway through beating down the King of Payne’s castle when I drained my last ball. I haven’t finished the final castle in years so I fell to my knees with disappointment, but overall I really could not be sorry about that game!
Jason and Hayley playing in Smackdown finals.
Now that we have finished a complete rotation of banks 1 and 2, we can see the true winners of each bank. Danny took first on bank 1 with a whopping 494/500, giving him a 6 point lead over Tim. Over on bank 2, the winner was Brian K. with 492/500, giving him an impressive 14-point margin of victory over runner-up Joseph. At this point there is no way to say who is winning the league, because everyone drops the two lowest nights and we have only had two. After the next bank we will begin to see people break away from the current 25-way tie for first place.
Devon (Smackdown champ) and Jason (undercard winner) asked me to take their photo on the pool table. A pool player politely waited for them to get off before resuming his game. Apparently this was a parody of (or maybe I should say tribute to) Christy taking her own pool table portrait.
League ran a bit late due to having to switch out Star Wars (the substitute was Tales of the Arabian Nights), then we had our Smackdown finals on Attack from Mars and Black Knight: Sword of Rage (the B division game). Devon was the night’s champion, and Jason won the undercard.
That’s it for my recap of the good times! See you again very soon.
The second Tuesday in August marked the beginning of Season 23 of the venerable Lansing Pinball League, after a two month summer break. Everyone was anxious to start again, although we did have quite a few events to tide us over during the break. First we celebrated the end of the season with a league pizza party at Peter and Abi’s house. Then in June came the Rocket Robin round-robin charity tournament (won by Brian K. after a tiebreaker with Joseph) and the King Kong Launch Party (also won by Brian). The women’s club also had two tournaments during June and July, a King Kong launch party (won by me) and a July regular tournament (won by my longtime rival Karen C. from Grand Rapids).
New league member Craig plays while another new league member, Abi, watches.
We had three new joiners so far this season. Chris A. is a Detroit-area player who has previously attended one or two of the charity tournaments but hasn’t played in our league before. Craig is new to competitive pinball (but not to pinball). Abi has played in the Lansing Lightning Flippers tournaments and some of the charity tournaments, but not in the league before. We also had a couple of players returning after an absence of a season or two: Curtis (the director of the Royal Scot League) and longtime league member Mike.
Hanging out in the cool kids’ club with Linda and Devon.
The banks have been rearranged and given a new naming scheme this season. I decided rather than trying to group them by theme, which is getting harder and harder unless you want two banks called “movies” and “bands,” I would just group them spatially to make sure the crowds are as spread out as possible each night. That way we won’t have two groups playing side by side if it can be avoided. I then mostly arbitrarily named each bank after an Ancient Greek philosopher, although in each case there is one game in the bank that connected with the name. So far no one except me knows what any of the game connections are (and some of them are pretty thin).
Christy partying with AC/DC.
As in past seasons we will be randomly assigning players to one of two banks on odd-numbered meetings, and then they will play the other bank on the next meeting. The two meetings’ banks were named Anaxagoras and Aristotle. Anaxagoras was a pre-Socratic Ionian philosopher who believed in Nous (mind) as the fundamental cosmic principle. Like many pre-Socratics, he was also trying to explain nature and the heavens, and came up with a correct explanation of eclipses and meteors, among other insights. Aristotle you probably already know. He was a student at Plato’s academy who went on to have the second most distinguished career of the ancients, especially in creating an ethical theory that was extremely influential on subsequent periods of philosophy (and still is).
Oh yes, but back to pinball: I got to play in the cool kids’ group with Devon and Linda, though I didn’t exactly start the season by covering myself in glory. Getting into A division is going to be very tough with it capped at 8 people again so I expect a few of us are going to fight over the cut line all season. With only one night in the books it means we have not completed a full bank rotation so the overall standings don’t mean too much yet, but the first-half winner in bank Anaxagoras was Danny (surprise!) and in Aristotle was Brian (shocker). Tonight we will finish the rotation and then we’ll have the final positions.
Linda playing X-Men on the Twitch stream.
Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was Elvira’s House of Horrors and my random drawing for a nearby B division game happened to hit on Scared Stiff! Curtis was the champion for Elvira’s HOH and our B division “undercard” champ was Peter. Peter also generously provided the streaming rig for league play and for the Smackdown finals again.
Smackdown undercard winner Peter and champion Curtis celebrate their wins.
Looking forward to seeing you all tonight for our second meeting and finishing up the first two banks! And if you didn’t make it to the first night it’s not too late to join as we drop the two lowest nights from everyone’s score, and allow anyone who has attended at least four of the eight nights to play in the final tournament.
In a late-night two-match finale, number one seed Danny C. wrested back the LPL championship title from number two seed Tim Treichel. Derik took third in A division. There would be no repeat of Double Dan-ger, though, as Heather defeated Dan N. in B division finals, and Bryan got third in the division.
Derik plays John Wick against Tim in A division semifinals.
This was our first season using the new rule capping A division at eight players. This was an attempt to avoid having another very late night and having to resume the last round at a later date as in the past. It was not wholly successful, since the tournament still did not wrap up until around 1:30 am and could have gone even longer. By the time things finished, bar staff had turned all of the pinball games off upstairs, leaving the players to turn Foo Fighters back on during the match.
Danny playing John Wick against Tim in the first of their two-round finals.
Danny, as the winner-bracket winner, had a very long wait before finals started. There is always a big delay as the second-chance bracket finishes playing out, which is why some leagues have single-game matches in that bracket. The league may be forced to institute that change for next season because the players keep getting better and matches keep taking longer. The tendency for some of the modern games to have long ball times is also a contributing factor. The league director was very worried when one of the games chosen in the second round of the final match was the infamous tournament-wrecker James Bond.
Third place Derik poses with Tim, who had not yet played the final match.
In the first round of A division finals, Tim swept Danny, winning on both Danny’s pick (Foo Fighters) and their own (John Wick). Since Tim was in the second-chance bracket, this sent them into a second round. This time Danny picked Bond (to the TD’s silent dismay) and won. Tim made an unexpected choice for the second game, taking Danny a couple of steps over to play Medieval Madness. An old saying about Medieval Madness goes, “Madness for show, castles for go.” In other words, stacking up Madnesses on the saucer is flashy, but the real points in the game are all in knocking castles down. Danny disproved this by playing Madness for show and go. To the delight of onlookers, he lined up four Madnesses on the saucer with Trolls lit. This allowed him to defeat the trolls during multiball, thus bringing Troll Madness into it for the complete set of madnesses. It was the highest-scoring Multiball Madness this reporter had ever seen, totaling about 27 million points. Neither player ended up with a gigantic score, but the Medieval Madness at The Avenue has not been known for huge scores in recent times. Danny took the win and the championship, commenting that he thought Tim was going to take him out.
Second place Tim and new-old champion Danny.
Eleven players played in B division, which finished a couple of hours ahead of A. Due to the awkward number of people, there were a lot of byes in the first round. The rule was that only important ties for seed would be broken, which means ties to get into A division or to get a first round bye. Otherwise, ties would be broken automatically according to which player had the highest scoring single night. The only two players who tied this season were Devon and Heather who tied for the top of B division. It turned out that they both got byes, sparing everyone the wait for a tiebreaker game. The automatic tie went in Devon’s favor so he got top seed in B division.
Dan plays Dungeons and Dragons against Heather in the B division final match.
The final match in B division was between Heather in the winner bracket and Dan in the second-chance bracket. Heather chose Dungeons and Dragons and rode a good set of multiballs to victory. Dan then chose Deadpool, and neither did all that well, but Heather managed another win to take the B division without having to go into a second round. Despite having expressed disappointment at not making A division this season, she later commented, “It’s better to reign in B than serve in A.”
The B division podium: Bryan (third), Dan (second), and Heather (first). Photo by Joseph.
The Tuesday Night Smackdown side tournament was also contested, on The Beatles. For obvious reasons a lot of people did not play in finals, so we had only a two-person B division. The Smackdown champion was Danny and the B division winner was Peter.
Although Season 22 is officially concluded, the post-season split flipper tournament known as Super-Ball XII will take place tomorrow at 7 pm. The format is the same as for league playoffs, except there will probably only be one division. A Tuesday Night Smackdown tournament will also be open to all. The Best Game, Worst Game, and Most Improved awards will also be given out at the Super-Ball.
This was our last qualifying night for Season 22 and perhaps the biggest thing it decided was who would make it above the cut into the newly truncated A division. In the past we have often had 10 or 12 people play in A, but the league had voted to cap A division at 8 people this season in order to allow finals to retain its current double elimination format while not spilling onto an additional night. We’ll see if that desideratum is obtained. Peter, Devon, and I (Heather) were all on the bubble within a few points of each other going into the night. I have played in A division for many seasons running now, usually around 9th seed, and I really did not want to drop into B. The three Bubble Kids were all snooping around peeking at each others’ games and score sheets through the evening.
Derik and Dan demonstrate that LPL is, at heart, a beer league.
The biggest event of the night, though, was a guest appearance by past league member Allen, who was back in town (from his home state, Texas) for Pinball at the Zoo. Derik texted me ahead of the meeting to ask if the Smackdown game could be Deadpool in honor of Allen, and I reluctantly set aside the game the random number generator had come up with – The Beatles – to do that favor. Don’t worry, we’ll play The Beatles for our Smackdown tonight instead. Everyone who knew Allen when played in the league, while he was temporarily living in the area, was delighted to see him. He also got to meet the newer league members who arrived after his departure. It made for a jovial night despite the tension of the end of qualifying.
Allen plays Deadpool in the Smackdown finals.
Peter was streaming the Smackdown as usual, which allowed him to show off the rig to Allen. Allen had already been following some of our streaming on Twitch and I saw him in the chat a few times. Probably unsurprisingly, Allen tore up Deadpool in the Smackdown finals for the win, but there was a dark horse contender in the form of Abi. In her first Smackdown finals, she qualified as third seed, and went on to come in second in the finals. Derik triumphed over the B division on Monster Bash.
Smackdown champion Allen and undercard winner Derik celebrate their wins.
After the dust settled, it turned out that Peter had squeaked into A division, leaving Devon and me tied at the top of B. Using my automatic tiebreaker, Devon will get the better seed since he had the highest single night performance between us. If, however, there turns out to be a significant tie (meaning a tie for a bye), we will play an actual tiebreaker on a random game.
The Smackdown A division lineup, from first to fourth: Allen, Abi, Peter, and Heather.
I’ll be seeing everyone soon for the dramatic conclusion of Season 22! Make sure you’re there at 7 when I take attendance!
In accordance with the adage that anything worth doing is worth doing late, I bring you the recap of the Ethan Reynolds Memorial Pinball Tournament. The tournament was held on April 1 at The Avenue Cafe in Lansing and used a group strikes format. I chose the format because I thought that group play was most suited to Ethan’s gregarious temperament. The charity beneficiary was the Capital Area Humane Society. Although they are already the most frequent beneficiary of the Lansing Pinball League’s charity tournaments, in this case they were chosen by Ethan’s family as a charity that was important to him. Twenty-eight people played in the tournament, which is one of the highest turnouts I have had for a charity tournament. Attendees included both league regulars and some of Ethan’s friends who were new to playing pinball tournaments. There was a wonderful spirit of joy and fun in the crowd despite the sad event that had brought everyone together.
Shylia shows off the Foo Fighters translite she won in the charity raffle that Mike conducted.
I did not want my usual $10 entry fee for charity tournaments to be a barrier to anyone who wanted to celebrate Ethan with us, so I made the entry fee “pay what you wish” and did not even have to collect $1 for the IFPA because an anonymous donor covered our fees. Despite this, I was overwhelmed by the generosity of attendees and received many large donations, including a big roll of bills from Pinball Pete’s and a Foo Fighters translite that Mike Stewart raffled off to bring in even more money. I had an anonymous donor pledging to match any donations dollar-for-dollar and at the end of the night I was a little nervous to present them with what was frankly a higher bill than they expected. (“I hope you’re sitting down,” I texted.) Not only did they cheerfully make good on it, they later went on to secure a matching donation of $1,000 from their employer. I received $1,226 in donations from players and other donors and another $1,226 from the anonymous matching donor, allowing me to present a check for $2,452 to the Capital Area Humane Society in Ethan’s name. They were rather startled (in a good way) when I read the amount to them. With the matching donor also garnering their own matching donation of $1,000, that brings the total amount raised by this tournament to $3,452!
People hanging out in between rounds.
The tournament itself was also a success, though I may be rather biased in saying so, for more than one reason. I was originally going to run a seven strikes “fair strikes” format, but I began to worry at the very large number of people who had marked themselves “interested” on Facebook. In the past we have been able to finish a seven strikes tournament by about midnight, but that was with a relatively small group. I cautiously decided to have a sliding number of strikes based on how many people attended. For 25 or more I announced that it would be six strikes, so that is what we ended up doing. We got done around 11 pm, which I consider optimal for a tournament, although there was some luck involved in things ending quite as early as they did.
Peter tending his streaming setup while talking to Orneal.
The tournament came to a dramatic conclusion and one that I most certainly was not expecting. I was playing remarkably well all night and had not taken last in any round, so with four people left standing, I went into finals with four strikes, against Tim with four, Danny with five, and Joseph with five. The final game drawn was Dungeons and Dragons, which was still quite new to all of us. When the game ended, I had won it, so I knew I was going to finish high in the tournament, but I didn’t realize just how high until Danny said, “She’s knocked us all out.” I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen this happen in a group strikes tournament: a three-way tie for second. Joseph and Danny each took one strike and Tim took two, leaving everyone but me with six strikes. It was my first major tournament win in a long while and broke me out of a slump.
Dan, Lexi, and Mike waiting for their next matches.
I had previously announced that any tiebreakers would be ceremonial only, so the official results have the three-way tie intact. I offered for the other three to play off to decide who got which trophy, and they agreed to do that, playing one more random game, though I forget which one. I think my head was still spinning too much from the excitement of winning. Tim got second and Danny got third. Sadly for Joseph, I had only made three trophies, and he ended up in fourth.
Fourth place Joseph, third place Danny, second place Tim, and the winner Heather (me). I like how this is in order of height, but reverse order of finishing position. Thanks to the random bar patron who took this for me.
Let me express my gratitude one more time to our wonderful matching donor, to Pinball Pete’s, and to all the players and spectators who gave so generously. This was an amazing tournament both for contributing so much to charity and for being a lot of fun. The only thing that would have made this tournament better is if Ethan had been able to attend it himself.
