Cue the cracks about how I’m always “right on time” with my league updates. Done? OK, let’s move on…
Jason shows his moves.
Our third league night of the season was a snowy night. So much so that we worried Mike wouldn’t make it (but of course he did, the thought of missing two meetings was too much!) and Todd (a prospective new player whom we met at the Munsters launch party) sent apologies and a promise to come next time. We did have a new player this time, Jon, who has recently moved to the area from New York, where he lived in Brooklyn and Queens. Jon has previously played in a team league in NYC as well as the Sunshine Laundromat league. I chatted with him a bit about Brooklyn as my brother has lived there for around 15 years now.
Derik fills new player Jon in on the league gossip.
When I was having people draw for groups for the night, I came up one slip short, and realized there was one more person present than I had accounted for on my list. I was being driven crazy trying to figure out how the count was wrong, when suddenly I realized who I forgot to count: myself. It was also a fairly cramped situation trying to get league started because they were in the midst of noisily building a bar upstairs, plus I was told we could not have the “good table” (you know the one) because a D&D group wanted it. As a result I had to set up operations in the alcove. I got the groups sorted out and was just sending people off to their games when the aforementioned Jon arrived. I added him to my own group, which is lucky for him, because we were traveling behind Danny’s group and got to farm his credits all night, making for a cheap session.
Unfortunately I had to work while trying to keep up with league. I had my laptop with me and was grading student reflection papers online in between balls. At one point I thought (it turned out incorrectly) that a student had plagiarized something, and that got me temporarily so upset that I tanked on Medieval Madness as a result. I swear that’s why.
Pat shows off his first Smackdown medal, for the Undercard competition on Medieval Madness.
I was due to have a sleep study later in the week, and began explaining to my group what that would entail. Everyone agreed that no one would be able to sleep normally under those conditions. I can now report back: I didn’t. I got probably an hour of sleep over the ten hours they gave me to try to do it, falling far short of the minimum time for the test to mean anything, so it was a big expensive waste. I’m about as happy about this as you might guess.
The Tuesday Night Smackdown was held on our brand new Munsters, which really and truly was drawn by the random number generator. I’m not sure everyone believed me about that. The smack was laid down by Mike in A division and by Pat in B division (his first hardware, locally at least). The B division played on Medieval Madness, which (to no one’s delight) has been drawn as tonight’s Smackdown game.
Smackdown finalists Mike (winner), Bryan, Tim, and Josh (who apparently didn’t want to quit eating).
League night is, of course, tonight at 7 and I hope to once again see all of you there.
Joseph seems unperturbed by the pink elephant looming over his shoulder to watch him play Deadpool.
Our bank for the night was Clio, themed to “cartoons” but named for the Muse of History. I pronounced the name “clee-O,” causing Mike to haughtily correct me, “It’s pronounced Clio” (with an “i” as in “eye”). Oblivious, I launched into Professor Voice and said “that’s also an accepted pronunciation, but it can be pronounced either way in English.” Mike had to tell me that he was joking and only then I realized he was referring to the city of Clio, in his neck of the woods, which is pronounced with the long I sound. “I was talking about the Muse,” I said. “That’s where the bank’s name comes from. The city is probably named for the Muse, come to think of it.” Mike said that he was just giving me some, ah, “stick.” About twenty minutes later, during a break between balls, I looked it up. The city is indeed named for the Muse. I was pleased with this discovery and eager to share it with Mike, who somehow just didn’t get as excited about it as I did.
My night got off to a less than stellar start on Iron Man as I burned through an Iron Monger multiball in record time. My first ball went like this: shot, shot, shot, here’s the Iron Monger, bam bam bam here’s multiball WOO HOO record time, like a PROOOO…. wait where did it go already? All the balls? ALL OF THEM? I was so irritated at draining out my multiball so quickly that I declared, stubbornly, that I was just going to have to get it again. This despite the fact that I am not sure I’ve ever started the same MB more than once in that game. And yet that’s what I did. I started it a second time on Ball 3 and… wait, what? C’mon. No really, c’mon. You cannot tell me that I started Monger multiball twice and still finished a game under 10 million. You cannot tell me… because I already know. C’est la vie de flipper.
Josh tries his hand (and Thing’s) at The Addams Family.
On my next game, The Simpsons Pinball Party, I wasn’t quite so unfortunate, but I did have a very unlucky drain when the Itchy and Scratchy saucer ejected the ball STDM. Derik was in my group and expressed sympathy and surprise. It was a one in a million bit of bad luck, he said, that couldn’t be duplicated if you tried. Except that according to Mike, the very same thing happened to him when his group played it next.
I probably should have given Derik a hard time about that, but I was too busy giving Derik a hard time about the fact that I discovered where the Police Force I liked so much (formerly at Pete’s arcade in the Royal Scot bowling alley) had gotten to: a kids’ play area at the Meridian Mall. Derik grinned a bit sheepishly when I confronted him with this discovery. He could hardly hide it from me; I work at the mall sometimes and pass that storefront all the time. Sure, technically I can still go play it, but it’s not the kind of place where it’s very comfortable to stop and play games, as I found out yesterday when I tried playing Jack-Bot while two girls stood on the couch that’s right next to it and leaned in so close that one girl’s hair kept falling on my right flipper fingers. (Police Force seemed to be out of order on my visit yesterday, or at least the score display was out, so we didn’t bother.)
Joseph looks offended on Danny’s behalf as he tries to save a doomed ball.
I didn’t see much of what happened outside my own group, though I heard that Danny toured the Mansion on The Addams Family, or as he calls it, “a good start.”
Afterward it was time for Tuesday Night Smackdown on Game of Thrones. Special mention should be given to Bryan, who played in the Smackdown Championship (A division) for the first time. I think this was his first time playing in any tournament’s finals. I remember how exciting that milestone was for me and he seemed pretty pleased too. Derik had put up the best qualifying game but was not able to defend his top seed. Instead, Mike became the Smackdown Champion of the night. The Undercard (B) division played off on Medieval Madness, with the win going to Tim.
The Smackdown finalists (Bryan, Derik, and Danny) beat up the winner, Mike. Uh, that looks like kind of a low blow there, Danny.
See you all tomorrow (technically tonight!) at league night #3, when we will be playing the bank Thalia. Anyone who tries to correct my pronunciation of it will be kicked in the leg, just like a pinball machine.
Super-Ball XI in November finished with Mike and Bryan beating Joseph and me in an epic six-game finale that finished after last call, then the league took a break for the holidays. We started up again on January 8, the opening night of Season XII. There were a few changes this season. First, my work schedule changed, and while the new schedule is worse in almost every other way, it does give me Tuesdays off, so the league start time has been moved back to 7 pm. Second, I decided to incorporate an idea from Pinburgh in an attempt to keep us from having nights where three or more of the venue’s longest-playing games end up scheduled at the same time.
Joseph watches Danny try to become the Smackdown Champion on Medieval Madness.
Pinburgh has banks (fancifully named, and often themed) with a game from each era, so in a given session, players can expect to play a modern game, a couple of solid states, and an EM. I hit on the idea of designating the league’s games as long-, medium-, and short-playing, and then grouping them into banks that have no more than two longs, and at least one short. I predicted to Joseph that people would immediately start critiquing our judgment about which games are long and short. This prediction came true. We based it on looking over the average and median scores on each game the previous season, and in some cases it goes against conventional wisdom. We’ll look at it again and make adjustments next season. We then set about trying to arrange games so that they followed the correct long/medium/short pattern but could also be describe as a loose theme. Some were easier and some fit better than others, but we eventually came up with something, and I named the banks after five of the nine Muses of Greek mythology. One of the banks is (as at Pinburgh) designated as a backup bank, so that if a long-playing game has to be substituted, a long-playing game out of the backup bank comes in and the “down” game goes into the backup bank to replace it, and so on. At the end of the rotation we play the backup bank, including whatever games got rotated into it, assuming they have been repaired by then.
I didn’t have much time to admire my neat new banks. Shortly after our first league night, two of the games were already sent away (Getaway and Star Wars) and have been replaced by Kiss and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Oops. Well, anyway. The banks are as follows (we’ll play them in this order):
Euterpe: AC/DC, The Beatles, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Monster Bash
Clio: The Addams Family, Deadpool, Iron Man, South Park, The Simpsons
Urania: Elvis, Junk Yard, Star Trek, Star Wars Kiss, Tales of the Arabian Nights
Calliope (backup): Getaway Star Trek: The Next Generation, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Theatre of Magic
This week was Euterpe, or as Tim called it, “Battle of the Bands III.” I offered to pay the entry fee for the Smackdown tournament for anyone who successfully guessed the one-word theme that each bank was arranged around. Lupe was close enough that I gave it to her. The answer is Euterpe, “Music”; Clio, “Cartoons”; Thalia, “Comedy”; Urania, “Stars”; and Calliope, “Adventure” (this is the loosest theme and Lupe said “Quests” which I thought was close enough).
That brings me to the third change for the season. In order to try to keep league costs down so I don’t end up in the red again, the Smackdown fee structure has changed. Now everyone is limited to two attempts, period, and everyone who plays has to pay $1 to the league. This fee is waived for anyone who is not IFPA rated (right now that’s just Josh).
Tim shows his medal for the Undercard on Addams Family.
We had a pretty early finish to the night this time, partly because of starting at 7 and partly because we had a rather low turnout. We welcomed new member Josh (who played in his first organized event at Battle of the Bands II, the Beatles launch party) and returning member Russell (a founding member, but absent for several seasons), but we were down Mike, Chris, Terry, Ed, Caleb, and Karen. The joke went around that Mike didn’t need to come anymore now that he’d won a season and Chris didn’t have to come now that he’d lost one. Actually, Mike was sick, and Chris told me he is taking the season off (his first since the founding of the league) but expects to return in the future. Terry said that he doesn’t want to commit to making the drive in the winter, and I guess that includes Ed too. I’m not sure whether Caleb and Karen are playing this season.
The night’s winner was Danny, followed by Russell and Tim. This season’s results are available in the Google spreadsheet maintained by Joseph, and will always give the latest night’s results, overall standings, and game scores, so you might want to bookmark it.
Derik showing off the source of his magic powers.
Our Smackdown game was Medieval Madness, which was pretty unkind to a lot of people, and the Undercard (B division) was Addams Family. Derik became the inaugural Smackdown Champion of Season XII and Tim was the Undercard winner. Derik credited his red hair for his win, since redheads have been dominating the league lately.
See you all tonight at 7 for the second meeting! Remember, you get to drop the lowest, so if you missed the first night that’s no reason not to start now.
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.
Tim plays his last ball in the deciding game against Chris.
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 and Chris react to Tim’s victory and the audience’s applause. Sorry for the quality, but it does capture something of the moment.
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.
Chad and Mike working on their B and A division wins, respectively.
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.
Third place Tim, second place Danny, and first place Mike. Unusually, this picture was taken when we actually knew who had won!
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.
The B division winners: third place Karen, second place Tyler, and first place Chad.
The Smackdown finalists: Jason, Heather, Derik (the winner), and Dan. Dan wasn’t quite ready with his dukes when Joseph snapped the photo, so it looks like he’s just making a subtle threat.
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.”
The Undercard winner, Joseph. The other two Undercard players had left before I took the photo.
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.
So it turns out that I only took two (2) pictures during our league night of 10/23 (actually both of the Smackdown winners), which was also the final night of regular play for season 11. I think my mind was really elsewhere because I was a bit worn out from preparing for the Fear and Trembling Charity Pingolf Tournament, which would be held the next day. This year the previously annual league Halloween costume contest went on hiatus, due to the low participation last year. This didn’t stop me from working on a costume and, for the second year in a row, burning myself with hot glue to the point of screaming. I just waited to unveil my costume until the Fear and Trembling tournament, where I thought the theme would make it more appropriate.
The league voted again to have Iron Maiden be the Tuesday Night Smackdown game so that people could try to get a score for Stern’s Up the Irons leader board. Danny didn’t manage to best his previous score, but Chris got a score that put him in 9th place. Last I saw he had moved down to 10th as a certain well known Michigan pinball player managed a score over 4 billion (!). I’m not sure if that is going to tamp down the league’s enthusiasm for Iron Maiden Smackdowns, although the vote did shift to “play a random game” for tonight’s league meeting, perhaps coincidentally.
Derik (the Smackdown Champion) insisted that the four finalists should pose like Egyptians, to match some of the theming in Iron Maiden.
When it was time for Smackdown playoffs, the only B division player left around was Bryan, so he won the medal for the Undercard by default. Derik insisted I draw a random game anyway so we could say what game Bryan “won” on. The dice said it was “Star Wars.” Congrats on your Star Wars win, Bryan!
Bryan celebrates his Star Wars “win.”
After the dust had settled and Joseph had gotten the scores entered, and despite Tim showing good moral fiber as he corrected a score of his that Joseph had accidentally added an additional digit to, we had something happen that has only happened once before: Chris did not finish the regular season on top. Instead, Tim passed him to finish in first place. (Granted, this is almost certainly due to Chris having missed more than one league meeting.) The only other time this happened, former league member Alex H. beat him by a very small margin and went on to lose by an equally slender margin in playoffs.
The next day was, as previously mentioned, the Fear and Trembling Charity Pingolf Tournament. The twist of this tournament is that it is an objective based pingolf tournament with a choice of two objectives on each hole. The turnout wasn’t as high as I had hoped for, but those who did attend seemed to be enthusiastic about the format and have a lot of fun. We also had a rare appearance by Russell and Aaron H. And I finally got to publicly show my basilisk (cockatrice, if you make that distinction) costume. That’s a monster from European folklore that has a rooster’s head and legs and a dragon’s wings and tail. I bought the rooster head but modified the wings and feet from previous costumes I’d used and reused the dragon tail that I sewed by myself last year for my dragon costume. I showed Aaron H. the sheet I printed from Mythology Wiki to explain my costume. “You know that’s not a real thing, right?” he replied, with a tone of concern.
Me (the basilisk) posing with the finalists of Fear and Trembling: Danny (1st), Dustin (4th), Mike (3rd), and Derik (2nd).
Tonight (in about an hour and a half… shut up, Mike) we’ll be having our final playoffs, with the top eight going to A division and everyone else going to B, to battle it out for the privilege of earning beautiful crystal plaques inscribed with the league logo. Will Chris finally cede his throne? Will it be to Tim or to Danny? Or will Mike S. finally get his long coveted Lansing win? Soon we’ll find out! See you at 7:30.
Our penultimate meeting of the regular season happened on October 9. We were all surprised not to see Lupe and Caleb. Just as league was starting I got a worried message from Lupe: she had misunderstood and thought league night was the following week, and would not be able to make it on short notice. Fortunately, I was able to reassure her that if she made our final regular meeting she would still qualify to play in finals. So let this serve as a reminder and warning: you must play at least four meetings in the regular season to qualify for finals. There is only one meeting left, #8, and it will be tomorrow, October 23. The meeting after that, November 13, will be finals. (Note that there is a three week gap between our next meeting and finals.)
The Tuesday Night Smackdown finalists.
The Undercard finalists.
The most notable event of our last meeting was not during league but rather the Smackdown finals. The league had voted, narrowly, to do Attack from Mars rather than Iron Maiden again (I offered the option for the sake of giving more chances at the Stern “Up the Irons” tournament). Danny blew a raspberry as I announced that we would not be doing Iron Maiden. It didn’t stop him from trying Attack from Mars, but despite throwing in several extra attempts and paying the tax for that, he still ended up at around a billion, which put him into the Undercard (B) division. As the main Smackdown tournament proceeded on Attack from Mars, the Undercard played off on Monster Bash. Thanks mainly to Danny’s 700-plus-million score, the B division – which included Oscar in his first Smackdown appearance – ended up wrapping up at almost exactly the same time as the A division.
The Attack from Mars final scores.
And oh, was it ever a Smackdown in the A division. Chris usually goes home before the Smackdown happens but this time he was determined to win it. He finished Ball 3 at nearly 10 billion, causing Jason to work very hard on his last ball, stacking up billion after billion himself, but draining at around 8 billion. It was very exciting for the last few spectators to watch. (Everyone else had gone home as the hour had gotten exceedingly late.) I said to Chris, “enjoy your plastic medal and 0.8 WPPRs.” When I saw him the next week at Grand Rapids Pinball League, I mentioned that I had been wrong; it ended up at over a full point. He yelled, “YES! ONE POINT!” with an Oscar-worthy level of enthusiasm.
Tomorrow, as I said, we will have our last regular meeting at 7:30. I want to remind everyone that on Wednesday we will be having our annual Fear and Trembling charity pinball tournament. It benefits the Capital Area Humane Society and has a unique (as far as I know) format. It’s pingolf, but on each hole you choose between two objectives, and have to stick with the one you chose even if you get the other one by accident. The cost is $10 plus coin drop. It’s IFPA sanctioned and there will be custom spooky trophies (I’m finishing them up right now and I am very pleased with them). If you love Halloween or pingolf (and that’s what we logicians call “inclusive or”), you will love this tournament. Please come if you can.
September 25 was the sixth meeting of Season 11 (out of eight) so we are starting to head into the endgame. Unsurprisingly, this has some members starting to pay close attention to the current standings. The day of league, I found a message on Facebook from Chris, who (understandably) misunderstood what was actually a spreadsheet error to mean that we had changed the policy for missed meetings from “get last place on all games” to “get 0 points on all games” which makes a huge difference. Chris missed two meetings this season, which would leave him way out of A division if he received a 0 for his missed night. Fortunately, this was actually just a mistake, which Joseph quickly fixed when alerted to it. Sorry, Chris, you don’t have your excuse to quit coming… yet!
We had two new league members join this time, married couple Tim and Sarah. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to Tim, but I did chat a bit with Sarah and learned that she used to live in the Seattle area, where there is a thriving pinball scene. Although she has a longstanding interest in pinball, this is the first time she and Tim have played in an actual league. I hope the long night we had (somehow logjams kept happening) doesn’t deter Tim and Sarah from coming back!
This was our first night playing Road Show, which moved to the Avenue recently. Danny and I were in the same group and we had a ridiculously close pair of scores, with mine beating his by about 300K out of 355 million. Joseph points out that there were a high number of these kinds of close calls – check out the standings document and see for yourself!
Finalists Mike and Derik demonstrate the best way to hang around Smackdown winner Danny. Not pictured: the other A finalist, Chad.
By a vote of the league (on Facebook), we made Iron Maiden the Smackdown game again so that people could have another opportunity to qualify for Stern’s “Up the Irons” contest. Only games played during an IFPA-endorsed tournament or league are permitted to count for the contest. No one set a new high score, though I heard Danny had one over 1 billion before Joseph arrived to start taking scores, unfortunately. Danny won the Smackdown (shocker!). The Undercard was fought out on AC/DC again. This time it turned into a family feud as Chad played in the Smackdown and Tyler played on the Undercard. Tyler showed his dad how it’s done, taking the Undercard medal home.
Since I’m posting this you all know that means it’s time for another league meeting. I’ll see you tomorrow at the Avenue at 7:30.
Our fifth meeting of Season 11 was supposed to be the one that would bring us up to date on all the games we had not yet played so far this season. Instead, by the time it rolled around, we had received a new game at The Avenue: Road Show, or as I call it, “twice the heads, half the fun.” But hey, half the fun of FunHouse is still pretty darned fun. It was too late to make it part of league night #5, so it will be on the list for our next meeting.
The big excitement of the night is that our T-shirts, courtesy of Pinball Pete’s, were delivered! Everyone should thank Derik for co-ordinating the T-shirt design and printing. If you missed picking up your shirt, I will have them at league tomorrow.
The other big excitement of the night was that we were finally playing Iron Maiden during league. Stern is currently running a high score tournament called Up the Irons. In order to qualify for it, a player must set a high score on Iron Maiden at a Stern Army location while playing a game for an IFPA tournament or league. Only games played for the event can be submitted. That means that this was the first chance for LPL players to take a whack at it. I posted the current-as-far-as-I-knew cutoff score for 10th place (the bottom of the leader board) and three players all exceeded it during the course of the night. Unfortunately, Joseph’s and Derik’s scores turned out to fall short of 10th place by the time I submitted them to the IFPA the next day (Joseph’s by a mere 2 million). Danny’s 779 million score, however, put him in third place and put LPL on the map. As of this writing he is still in third, with the title “Cyborg Eddie.”
Sure, Iron Maiden is great and all, but it’s no “Dr. Dude.”
Our Smackdown game was Getaway. Thanks to the very long night of people having epic games of Iron Maiden, the Smackdown finals were quite late. My group finished but another was still playing, so I went upstairs to drop a single score on it like I usually try to do for completeness’ sake. I had a pretty lousy game of 20 million or so, noted it, and started to wander off, when Jason walked up, handed me an extra dollar for his entry fee, and started a game. He said, “Want to play two players?” I’m not sure quite why, but despite not planning to play again, on an impulse I said “Well… sure.” The next time I did something like 130 million, not exactly a normal result for me on Getaway, so I ended up in the finals. I think I bumped out Mike S. last minute with that. Sorry, Mike. In the finals, Tim ran away with it (appropriate, right?) by, among other things, having a multiball with a big old super jackpot. I ended up trying my darnedest on Ball 3 to come from behind and while I did a lot of work and got to a pretty decent score, I kept missing the multiball start shot that would have been my only hope.
We hadn’t done “beat-em-up” pictures for the Smackdown finals in a while and someone (I forget who) really wanted to, so here you go! So many people had left that the two finals divisions consisted of everyone still present, leaving the Undercard with only three players. I wonder if some people don’t realize we have a second division.
Derik, Danny, and I beat up the Smackdown champ, Tim. (That’s me about to hit him with a chair.)
Mike and Bryan beat up the Undercard winner, Joseph.
Our next league night is tomorrow. It will be the sixth of the season, meaning we are getting close to the final stretch. Don’t forget that players have to be present for at least four league nights to qualify to play in the season finals. New players can still join, but they won’t be able to play in the main tournament on finals night (though they will be able to play in the side tournament). See you all tomorrow at 7:30 at The Avenue!
Danny concentrating on Iron Maiden. Guest photo by Edward Hopper.
Way back at the end of June (July was a busy month, OK?) we had the second league night of Season 11. The new Stern Army banner had been moved to its permanent location, so as we came in, we were greeted by Uncle Gary guarding the alcove.
We had our first game switch-out of the season, as Tales of the Arabian Nights went down after the first group played, so we had to switch to World Cup Soccer. Joseph had put up 21 million on TotAN so he cried out in agony when I told his group they would need to replay their game on WCS. He ended up having a perfectly respectable 438 million on WCS, but I don’t think that did much to console him.
The final Smackdown scores. Player 4 won with a very lucky extra ball plunge.
I used the random number generator to choose a Smackdown game as usual, and it chose Star Trek for the second night in a row. I had previously been doing completely random drawings, so I decided I had to go with what the gods of randomness decreed. Since several people expressed a preference for this not to happen again, I changed the rules so that from now on, we will randomly draw only from games that have not yet been played this season. As it happens, that would have deprived us of one of the craziest tournament finishes I have ever seen. Player 4, Derik, finished the game about 6 million points behind Player 3, Danny. Derik had an extra ball to plunge off, which he did. That extra ball proceeded to bounce into the lock and start multiball. Balls kept hitting the kickback and going back into play, so that his hands-free multiball lasted a good while. Combine that with a good bonus multiplier and he managed to make up the difference and a bit more. When the scores came up showing Derik’s narrow victory, everyone watching cried out (so loudly that Mike S., who had retired downstairs to grumble after a bad last ball, heard the commotion).
The Smackdown finalists, minus Mike S. who was too busy having an epic game downstairs: Danny, Derik, and Lupe.
The Undercard competitors, in front of the game they played off on, World Cup Soccer: Joseph, Karen, Terry, and me.
Mike and Karen, playing in the Smackdown and Undercard tournaments, respectively.
This was to be our last league meeting for over a month. The league took July off due to Pinburgh scheduling complications, although we had two tournaments instead, keeping things as busy as always. Reports on those tournaments (the Rocket Robin charity tournament, and the Battle of the Bands/Iron Maiden Launch Party) will be forthcoming when I get another free moment. In just a few hours we will be having our third league night (yes, it’s tonight, not next week) so come on over after you vote and put a score on the Smackdown game, Game of Thrones. Don’t forget to say goodbye to league member Kristen, who will be having her farewell night with the league. She is moving out of state in just a couple of weeks. Thanks for being a part of the LPL, Kristen!
Mike sent me a message saying “Give Uncle Gary a hug for me and tell him I don’t like Game of Thrones.” So here I am giving him a hug…
…and here I am telling him that Mike doesn’t like Game of Thrones.
June 12 was our first league night of Season 11, and it brought with it an exciting development. The Avenue is now Stern Army location #104! Derik and Pinball Pete’s helped me get us enrolled, so now our league and tournaments are eligible for prizes (e.g. translites) from Stern and we can host official launch parties for new games. Members of the league will also receive Stern Army Recruit dogtags. Those who attended our season opener already have theirs, and I will be passing out more at our league night tonight. We also got the Stern Army banner featuring “Uncle Gary” (as I call him… but not to his face so far). Even though we are past the official window for Iron Maiden launch parties, Zach Sharpe of Stern graciously sent me an extra trophy plaque he had on hand so that we can have our first Stern Army launch party. That will be coming up on July 12; more on that later.
There was another unexpected development at The Avenue: Fish Tales and Jack-Bot were out (boo! I loved gambling with my points!) and Elvis and World Cup Soccer were in. Elvis is totally new to The Avenue, but World Cup Soccer had a previous term of residence before being removed for quite a while. Meanwhile, Joseph had chosen the league games for the night based on a new rotation scheme of skipping five between each entry in alphabetical order. A similar idea was suggested by former league member Todd as a way of ensuring we didn’t end up with games being played in the same blocks this season. When we arrived and found the alphabetical order now disrupted, we had to stick with the already announced games, but it set our new plan already in partial disarray. As someone or other said, “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ league runners gang aft a-gley.” I think it was Gary Stern.
Chris playing Star Trek in the Smackdown.
We had 12 in attendance at our first night, not too bad of a turnout but a little low due to the conspicuous absence of several regulars including Lupe, Caleb, and Mike S. (Yes, Mike S. I can’t remember the last time he missed Lansing league.) We did have a brand new member, Bryce. Last season Joseph had attempted to work out a scheme for allocating groups that would avoid putting any of the top players together while also balancing the group in other ways, but in the end it did not appear to speed up league play in the way it was intended to, and it also meant people missed out on the fun of meeting new people in random groups. So I brought back the original group sorting method, famously employed by Matt in the early seasons of the league: I brought back “the hat.” Well, not literally the same hat as I assume Matt took that one with him to Kalamazoo. I actually used my hat with deer ears and antlers that I usually wear to the Silver Balls tournament. It’s a very “me” version of a venerable league tradition and drawing our groups from a hat seemed to be a quicker and more flexible way of allocating groups last time so I think we will be sticking with it for now.
Tim playing Demolition Man in the Undercard match.
The Tuesday Night Smackdown side tournament has also returned for Season 11, with a couple of changes. Since we probably won’t have as many people eligible to play as rookies this season, we are now just going to have an A and B division for qualifiers 1-4 and 5-8, called the “Smackdown Championship” and the “Undercard” respectively. The other change is that to help cover a possible shortfall from dues in funding the league’s expenses, we are now allowing everyone one free entry in the Smackdown tournament, with additional entries being $1 each.
Our next meeting is in just a few hours (yes, even in the summer I’m late with the recaps), and it’s still a great time to join since your lowest night of the season is dropped, so missing the first night won’t hurt you. We are going to be taking July off of league due to the league runners needing to get ready for Pinburgh, but we will be filling in the gap by having two July tournaments: Rocket Robin, the annual round robin charity tournament for the Capital Area Humane Society, on July 10; and the Iron Maiden launch party on July 17. The latter is also a celebration of our induction into the Stern Army, so it is going to have a Stern “Battle of the Bands” format. Competitors will qualify on AC/DC, Elvis, Iron Maiden, and Metallica, with the top 8 going to playoffs.
Smackdown finalists Derik, Chris (the Champion), Danny, and Terry, with our new Stern Army banner.
The Undercard finalists, Tim, Kristen (the winner), Joseph, and Tim.
