Tag: recap

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).

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

On March 25 we played our sixth league night of Season 22, wrapping up the bank rotation between Bank 5, “Argo Navis,” and Bank 6, “Cetus.” As I arrived, Devon told me he had been waiting for a recap of March Hare Madness and was disappointed not to see one. I actually felt really bad about this. I had just barely had enough time to write the previous league night’s recap but had not been able to pound out the MHM recap yet. I reassured him that I was still planning to write it. When I gave the night’s announcements, I thanked everyone for coming to March Hare Madness and commented that Devon was disappointed I hadn’t written the recap yet but that I hoped to get to it soon. Later, Devon came up to me and gave me a hard time for busting his chops about asking for a recap. I explained that I legitimately had not intended to come off as saying “Well Devon here complained about not getting a recap, what a whiner,” but instead was trying to be apologetic as I legitimately felt bad about it! Anyway, that’s the kind of misunderstanding that happens when your relationship is mostly built on trash talking. More on that later. As of this writing I still have not recapped MHM.

In Bank 6, we had to substitute John Wick for Stranger Things, the latest in an unfortunate series of mid-rotation substitutions we have had to make this season. It’s been unlucky that way and while we have a way to deal with it in the league scoring, it’s not ideal. Bank 5 fortunately stayed intact and we will play both John Wick and Stranger Things in Bank 8 so everyone will still get to play them at least once (fingers crossed).

Danny took the top score on both Bank 6 and 7, and is also number one in the overall standings. In second place is Tim, and in third is Josh, as we head into the final bank rotation.

Our Smackdown game was the new addition Pulp Fiction, and Peter streamed it for us as he has been doing lately. During the finals, Devon commented that it was a “D heavy finals” since Dan, Derik, and Devon were all playing. I said, “Well, that’s only three people” and he said “three out of four!” I gestured at the B division game on Getaway that I was part of and said, “Excuse me, eight.” He replied, “Oh, well, I’m sure your little B division is very fun…” in the most condescending voice he could summon and I replied with something I will not write in this blog as Joseph would disapprove.

Tonight we will be starting the final rotation of the season, with games that have either not made it into play yet or that have been switched out for backups earlier in the season. See you all soon!

Our last league meeting started the second half of the season and a rotation between banks 5 (Argo Navis, “The Ship Argo”) and 6 (Cetus, “The Sea Monster”). An interesting fact about Argo Navis is that it depicts a ship and yet appears to rotate around the pole backwards. What the ancients made of this, I don’t know. Often such oddities are reflected in their myths about the stars, but I don’t know of any myth that involves the Argo moving in reverse. Maybe Poseidon backhanded the orbit shot.

Week 5 is officially the last week new players can join except as guest players, although I don’t believe we had any new joiners at the last minute. Erin made it out again, though, which is great. She thinks she might manage to make enough nights this season to play finals, but work makes it very iffy. Mike Stewart has let me know that he will not be playing the rest of the season, unfortunately, due to needing to budget gas money and other stuff competing for his attention. Mike is one of the league long-timers so I’m hoping he’ll be able to rejoin us next season.

Joseph and I were recently talking about how the scores on Medieval Madness just never seem to have reached the averages players used to get on our previous MM that we had when the league was new. The first half results on MM are consistent with that observation: Dan N. was the only person to score over 15 million with 38.7, and the median was 6.8.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on our newest game, Dungeons & Dragons, and the B division played off on Elvira’s House of Horrors. Danny won the A division and Tim was the champion of B.

Tonight is, of course, our next league night. We’ll finish the bank rotation and play our brand new Pulp Fiction as the Tuesday Night Smackdown game. I hope to see everyone soon!

On our last league night, we finished banks 3 and 4 and the first half of the season. It was our first league night without Ethan, which made it a hard one for many league members. People kept commenting on how quiet the night was.

We had another technical mishap as the flipper decided to fall off Indiana Jones mid-game. Joseph put up a sign saying “Indy has chosen poorly, go play Monster Bash” which was the chosen backup game. Since half the league had already played Indy, what happens is that we end up with two score tracks: there are two 100s, two 99s, etc., as people are only ranked against people who played the same game they did. It screws up the scoring for the season a bit but it’s better than making everyone replay a game from a past league night.

With the bank 3/bank 4 rotation now complete, we can say that Tim is the leader on 3 (Corvus) and Josh has bested 4 (Perseus). The overall winner at the end of the first half of the season is Danny C., with Tim one solitary point behind, and Josh 5 points behind Tim in 3rd place. The cutline for A division is below 8th place (a new rule this season), and right now Joseph and Mike are tied for 7th, leaving this reporter trailing 14 points behind them in 9th. I am regretting changing the rules to make finals shorter.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown was on Medieval Madness, chosen because it was one of Ethan’s favorite games. Shortly after Ethan died, a sign reading “ERR RIP” went up on Medieval Madness (ERR was Ethan’s high score entry). Jason also has suggested that anyone achieving a high score in March should enter ERR. Jason ended up winning the Smackdown game. Meanwhile, the B division played out on Ghostbusters. This was Scott’s first time playing Smackdown finals. He had actually qualified in the past, but didn’t realize he was supposed to stick around for the playoff at the end of the night. Joseph won the B division game on Ghostbusters.

We’re about to start another league night, which will open the second half of the season and provide the last chance for new players to join this season. After the 5th night, new players can only play as guests. If you’re thinking of joining, right now is the time! See you all soon!

We had our second league night of the season on January 28, which finished our bank rotation between the first two banks (known to me and Joseph and probably no one else as “Ophiuchus” and “Lepus”). Due to an issue with Batman ’66, we had to switch in Ghostbusters for a backup game, which I don’t think very many people were excited about. When a game switch happens midway through a rotation, we don’t have the people who played the bank during the previous league night replay, since that would be impractical. Instead, we have two separate rankings on the games, each with their own 100/99/98 scores. This does result in the weirdness that for that given night the number of total points is inflated since there are two 100s, two 99s, etc., but I decided it was the least bad way to deal with it.

The league seems to be growing again as we had more new new players: Darien (Linda’s neighbor, if I’ve got this right), who has played pinball a long time but never in competition; Luc, whom I didn’t get to talk to very much yet; and mother-daughter combo Kim and Payton. Some of the new players were curious about Peter’s streaming rig, which made another appearance tonight, and I was excited to explain to them that people stream pinball on Twitch.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on Godzilla, so Peter set the streaming rig up on that. The B division was on Monster Bash. Smackdown champion Jason asked if he could wear what he called my “bunny hat” for the photo, meaning the hat that we draw numbers out of for bank assignments at the start of each league night, a tradition dating back to the Matt days. I said sure, but it’s a deer hat, to which he responded that he just assumed it would be a bunny since it was mine. I do own multiple bunny hats (as well as a bunny hoodie and a bunny-hooded cape) but, as I explained, the hat was actually an impulse buy at a gas station somewhere up north many years ago. It was either in Grayling or Gaylord, I forget which – somewhere it made sense to be selling a deer camp souvenir. I managed to prevail in the B division on Monster Bash to join my hat in the photo.

After the first two weeks, the standings aren’t meaningful yet (since everyone drops the two lowest nights), but the final scores for the bank rotation are complete, at least. Right now our champ on Bank 1, Ophiuchus (“the Snake Bearer”), is Danny. Second place belongs to Josh and third to Tim. The winner of Bank 2, Lepus (“The Hare”), is also Danny, but this time Tim has second and Derik has third.

We’re less than a day away from our next league meeting. Peter will surely bring his rig again and we’ll have the usual fun with our Smackdown side tournament, so come early to put some games in! See you all soon!

Season 21 got off to an exciting start on January 14. The biggest development was that Peter brought the new streaming rig he had built. That’s right, after 11 years of existence*, LPL has joined the big league! It had its soft launch during the previous week’s Lightning Flippers meet, but we had trouble keeping the Internet connection live that time. This time Peter dropped the quality so we were able to stream all night, dividing time between The Beatles (one of the games in bank Lepus) and Cactus Canyon (the Smackdown game).

Another source of excitement was the return of previous league members Mark C., Nick, and Todd, who were absent last season. Now if only Pat would come back, since people keep asking me about him and I don’t know where he disappeared to.

Friend of the league Christy officially joined the league this season. We also were joined by new player Dar, who I believe is a friend of Nathan.

Bank 1 (Ophiuchus) started off the same way as last season, with Black Knight: Sword of Rage having a malfunction (I don’t remember what it was last time, but this time it was the catapult giving unearned multiballs) and being switched out. The backup game chosen from Bank 7 was Venom. Unfortunately this did force a couple of groups to replay their league game, leading to a rather late ending.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on Cactus Canyon. This was my first time trying out Matchplay as a way of running the Smackdown tournament, which allows me to more quickly see who is qualified for A and B division. As it happens, it also makes for a better streaming display, so Peter was happy. Our Smackdown winner was Jason, and the B division went to Joseph.

Prior to league I made another attempt to get my button maker to press buttons to give out and it was once again misfiring, which we can’t figure out the source of, since it’s not really something with working parts that can go wrong. Some investigation seems to suggest it might be the printer paper I’m using so I’m going to experiment with that. Joseph and I have both been very busy and much of our pinball time has been devoted to getting ready for and then running the women’s state tournament, so I hope I’ll have more time to work on league stuff now that it’s over. That’s also what has put Joseph behind on getting the league scores entered.

*To the best of my knowledge, the Lansing Pinball League is the third oldest league in the state, preceded only by the Grand Rapids Pinball League and Marvin’s Pinball League. There are other leagues that pre-date it, but they are no longer in existence.

November 12 was our seventh night of the season and the beginning of our final bank rotation. Bank 8 is always used to finish up anything that hasn’t been played yet in the season, and then the remainder is decided by vote. We had very few votes this time, but the clear winner was Jaws, followed by a couple of votes for Attack from Mars. Bank 7 contained Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but before league I heard that it might need to be pulled for a malfunction. When this happens during the last league night I use the also-rans in the vote as backup games. There were two other games that had received any votes at all, Godzilla and Batman ’66. I flipped a coin and it turned up for Godzilla, to Josh’s disappointment (he was the vote for Batman). I was certainly glad to play something other than TMNT. To my disappointment, but his credit, Derik was able to get TMNT working again, so it got put back in. However, soon after the start of league play, it was discovered that Jaws in Bank 8 had a beneficial malfunction and I decided to replace it. I initially told Josh we would go to Batman as I forgot that Godzilla was no longer needed in Bank 8, and he got excited until I corrected myself and said “Wait, I already drew Godzilla, it’ll be Godzilla.” Josh expressed dismay at my “takesy-backsies.” Sorry!

We had a surprise visit from Christine V., who played in the league many seasons ago along with her husband Jake. Christine was on her way to a job in Wixom, putting Lansing on the way for her, so she came by and played as a guest player. Strangely enough, Nathan’s friend Kristy (I have very likely spelled that wrong), who didn’t play but hung out with our group, told me she was from Wixom. I hadn’t thought about Wixom in years, then somehow it came up for me twice in one night.

Because of the Jaws substitution, the composition of groups, and the number of long-playing games, we had an especially drawn-out league night. At the end we had our usual Tuesday Night Smackdown, this time on The Simpsons Pinball Party. One of our new players this season, Emily, made the top group for finals. There were times in the past she also would have qualified to play but had already left by the time we did the playoff. It turns out that she hadn’t understood how the Smackdown worked and didn’t know she needed to stay for the final match. She took fourth for the night, marking her first time playing in an IFPA tournament finals match. Tim was the overall champion, and over in the B division on The Mandalorian, Joseph got the win.

After the Smackdown, I realized I had completely forgotten to take any photos for the night except the one of the winners at the end. Peter suggested that we stage some photos to recreate the league night using the diehards who were still around at the end of the Smackdown. Those photos follow.

In other recent news, we had both our women’s and open launch parties for Uncanny X-Men. I won the women’s launch after defeating Linda in finals, and Danny toppled Tim to win the open launch.