Lansing Pinball League

Tag: season 21

  • League Night Recap for 4/22/25

    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!

  • Finals Recap part 2: Tim’s Long Winter Is Over

    The long-predicted new champion of the Lansing Pinball League finally emerged on December 17 as Tim dethroned season 20 champion Brian K. in a two-round final playoff match. Many in the league had been predicting “the season of Tim” for a few seasons now, but in Season 20 Tim was defeated by Brian K. in a similarly hard-fought match. Both times Tim came up through the second-chance bracket.

    This final round took place immediately before Super-Ball XXI, popularly known as the Zen Tournament. After the dust of the final battle on Godzilla settled, the attendees finished making up their pairings for the tournament. As neither Tim nor Brian had arranged a partner, the tournament director (this reporter) suggested that they should get together and form a champions’ team, and they did. Christy, who as yet had not participated in league activities but had often visited the league, decided to play and paired with Nathan. Past league participant Orneal also stopped by, offering to play only if someone was needed to even up the teams, but we ended up with an even number this time. It was a festive tournament, being so close to the holidays, and Christy also brought candy sleighs and Christmas cards for everyone.

    Ultimately, the Dream Team of Derik and Danny defeated the Champs Team of Tim and Brian in a final match that ended up Black Knight: Sword of Rage. This is the second consecutive win by the Derik-Danny combo.

  • Finals Recap Part 1: Biff Gets Away with B Division

    Derik poses with his third place trophy. He wanted Tim in the photo, but whether Tim will get first or second remains undecided.

    Finals night for Season XXI on December 10 finished with Biff winning the B division championship and A division still left with a final match to go. This season the plan was to break before the final match and run it by appointment, since we would likely be unable to finish the 11-person bracket before closing time, as happened in Season XX. Brian, who progressed through the winner bracket, left before the second-chance bracket finished, leaving Derik and Tim to battle it out in the loser bracket until around midnight. Tim prevailed, leaving Derik to go home with the third-place plaque and setting up a repeat of last season’s Brian-versus-Tim finals. Notably, Danny was unable to attend league finals this season due to being on a cruise. Derik remarked that he was probably playing pinball on the cruise, because there is no way Danny would agree to go on a cruise ship that had no pinball machines.

    Linda plays in the Tuesday Night Smackdown tournament while Brian plays in the main tournament.

    In B division, Peter finished his first season in LPL with a third place plaque and Biff clawed his way up out of the second-chance bracket to challenge Bryan, who had already beaten him once in the winner bracket. In the first round, he defeated Bryan 2-0, so it went into a second round. It was getting late by the end and Biff decided he wanted things to get over with so he chose the league’s closest thing to a coin-flipper, Getaway. This paid off for him as the B division tournament ended with Biff winning the final round 2-1.

    Christy and Dan take a break at the bar.

    Heather also presented the usual end-of-season awards. Two of the three went to league newcomer Nathan, who won Most Improved and Worst Game. The Most Improved award is determined by looking at the growth rate of a player over the season and the likelihood that this statistical growth exceeds what would be expected by chance. Joseph runs the numbers and presents a few likely candidates and then Heather makes a final judgment about the award. The other two finalists for the award this season were Danny and Ethan. Worst Game is given to the player whose score on a game is the furthest below the mean on that game for the night, and Nathan won it for a 164M game on Attack from Mars. I’m not sure if it is unfortunate or fortunate that Nathan was ill and unable to attend finals, because when I read the score Derik made me repeat it and then reacted with considerable astonishment. Everyone agreed that it is actually difficult to get a score that low on Attack from Mars, so it is a kind of achievement.

    The Best Game award is given for the person whose score is the highest above the mean for a night, and this season it went to Brian, who scored 627M on Stranger Things.

    A Tuesday Night Smackdown was also played off on Uncanny X-Men in order to allow people to get the Launch Party badge that was mistakenly not activated during the actual launch party last month. Peter was our Smackdown champion, which also gives him his first official IFPA tournament win. Linda won the B division on Scared Stiff by a very narrow margin.

    Smackdown B division winner Linda and champion Peter.

    Brian and Tim are set to play off the final match of A division tonight at about 5:30 pm, after which we will have our post-season split flipper tournament, Super-Ball XXI at 7 pm.

  • League Night Recap for 11/12/24

    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.

    Smackdown champ Tim, and undercard winner Joseph. Sorry about the horrendous flash, but it was veeeeeery dark in that spot.

    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.

    League night (re-creation): I give instructions for the night, using the pose of Socrates from the painting “The Death of Socrates” by Jacques Louis David. Photo by Joseph.
    League night (re-creation): Mike reacts to a drain, Peter plays, Joseph and Ethan goof around. Yeah, looks accurate.
    League night (re-creation): Peter, Mike, Ethan, and Emily as themselves; Joseph as Bryan.

    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.

  • League Night Recap for 10/22/24

    It’s been a tough week, so this is going to have to be a very short league report. Our last league night was actually three weeks ago due to our returning to the previous calendar pattern of 2nd and 4th Tuesdays. Sorry, I know it makes for long gaps sometimes, but it makes it easier for me to keep track of the league schedule in advance! At least we had the Fear and Trembling charity pingolf tournament to tide us over. Congrats to Tim for a third consecutive win at that tournament!

    Erin gets quarters while Jason and Brian get down to business.

    The biggest and saddest news of the night last time is that Erin told is it might unfortunately be her last night, as she has too much competing for her time and money at the moment. She has come to enough nights to attend finals so I hope she’ll be able to do that at least. We’ve enjoyed having her in league, along with all the friends she brought!

    It’s a visit from our past league member, Sam!

    The happiest occurrence, on the other hand, was a surprise visit from past league member Sam, who played as a guest player for the night. Sam was part of a Grand Rapids contingent who used to play with us in the past.

    Mike and Bryan smacking down.

    Our Tuesday Night Smackdown was on Indiana Jones since it got bumped for Uncanny X-Men the previous night. Mike Stewart won and Bryan Johnson took the B division title.

    Smackdown B-division winner Bryan and champion Mike.

    See you all soon!

  • League Night Recap for 10/8/24

    Joseph and I showed up for the last league night to find a surprise: our Uncanny X-Men LE was in! This caused a sudden change of plans as we like to always use a new game for our Tuesday Night Smackdown, so our original pick of Indiana Jones got bumped. Don’t worry, Indy fans, we’ll be playing it at our next meeting tonight instead.

    Peter playing Jaws in the Smackdown.

    We had a new player, Peter, join us tonight and hopefully for the rest of the season. Peter is new to tournament and league play but has a burgeoning interest in pinball and seems to have gotten pretty good already in a short time.

    This meeting was the fifth of the season, and started our rotation between banks 5 and 6, Cetus (the Sea Monster) and Argo Navis (the Ship Argo). We will be finishing that rotation at our next meeting which is in just a few hours. (People don’t even bother razzing me about how late my updates are anymore.) So far, with half the league having played each bank, Brian K. is the captain of Argo Navis, and Josh is beating Cetus. The overall standings right now aren’t very meaningful until we finish this rotation, but currently Tim and Danny C. are actually tied for top of the league. Fairly close behind in third place is Josh.

    We take pinball seriously! (Joseph, Peter, and Tim watch the current Smackdown players Devon and Mike.)

    The Tuesday Night Smackdown was an interesting one as everyone had played Uncanny X-Men only a few times before. Devon ended up winning the A division, followed by Tim, Joseph, and Linda. The real action, though, was in the B (aka “Best”) division, with three of the four players (Mike, Derik, and Peter) putting up similar and very high scores on Jaws, something over 400 million. The exception was Ethan who trailed far behind, causing him to sing “one of these scores is not like the others.” Someone pointed out that with his bonus his score had gotten to 69 million, which was agreed to be “nice.” Ethan decided to call this a victory with a smug “In your face!” to Devon, who replied, “Well if it was 69 you would be in my face.” We hope that the elevated classiness of LPL does not drive our new player away.

    That’s all for my recap this week and I’ll be seeing you all in a few hours (less if you want to put in a Smackdown attempt before league)!

    Undercard winner Mike poses with Smackdown champion Devon.

  • League Night Recap for 9/10/24

    We started a new bank rotation with our third league night of Season 21 on September 10, between Corvus (“The Crow”) and Perseus (“The Guy Named Perseus”). We were back to Tuesday after a couple of Wednesday night meetings. It turned out to be a very long night for some of us, in large part because Corvus contains both Rush and Game of Thrones. Upon being drawn into a group with me and Brian K., Danny made a comment about how this was going to take a while. I don’t think he was referring to my prowess at Attack from Mars (especially when I went on to put all of 500 million points on it, AKA “an AfM nickel”). Later when I announced that our last game would be Rush, Danny said “Oh boy” with a tone of resignation that confused me. I said, “what are you talking about, you love Rush!” but he clarified that meant that he and Brian would be playing it a long time. This did indeed happen and Danny had one ball that went on more than a half an hour and ended up with over 3 billion points. It’s a score that looks like Joseph got confused about how many zeroes should be on the end of a number.

    Josh moves Foo Fighters back into position while Danny chops redwoods on Rush.

    Another contributor to the long night was a mysterious issue on Foo Fighters. Bryan J. was carefully and politely sliding the game back in place at the end of a ball during his bonus count and the game suddenly reset entirely, wiping all scores. There was no tilt or slam tilt message, just a sudden total reset. I ruled that it was a major malfunction and gave everyone involved the choice of either restarting their whole game or taking the lowest score they were certain they had achieved so far and taking compensation balls with that. Most took the total replay (I think the exception was Jason who had a very high score at the time that he didn’t want to lose) so we were all waiting a long time for that group to finish for the night. This resulted in a lot of the Smackdown qualifiers giving up and going home before the Smackdown.

    Another big score moment happened when Cyndi had her first ever high score table entry on Rush, which is a big milestone for a pinball player. I still remember mine vividly; it was on a Stern Pirates of the Caribbean at Pinball Pete’s. I still live for the anticipation of hearing high score board entry music, which in many games is used only for that ritual and nothing else, ensuring it remains special. I’m getting a little off topic but I invite you to check out the high score board entry sequence on Space Station, surely the greatest high score sequence of all time. The burst of electronic noise as it wraps up the song gives me goosebumps! I put in time on Space Station every time I’m at the VFW trying to get the high score so I can see it in person, and I never have.

    Yes, I know, Ethan. IOU a button for your B division win on Venom.

    Anyway, back to the report. The night was noticeably light on attendance as none of our big group of new players were present. This led to speculation about whether they had been scared off, and rumors that they could only attend Wednesdays and were therefore out for the season. I did hear from one new member, Erin, that she was attending a concert at Pine Knob and would therefore be absent, so I wonder if some of her friends who also joined with ehr were gone too for that reason.

    Jason gets back at the Black Knight for all the insults during his Smackdown game.

    We had our Tuesday Night Smackdown game on Tuesday once again, and the arena was Black Knight: Sword of Rage. I surprised myself by making the top group with a big qualifying game despite the fact that the Knight usually won’t let me do a damn thing. Jason got the win, though, and the B division honors on Venom went to Ethan.

    That’s the news from a fairly eventful week last week and I’m hoping to see everyone in just a few hours. We’re also still hoping for the return of some of our missing past members such as Mark and Ted!

  • Season 21 Standings

    This is the spreadsheet for the Season 21 standings:

    Season 21 Standings

    There is a separate one that includes guest players:

    Season 21 Standings with Guest Players (non-official)

  • League Night Recap for 8/14/24

    Season 21 got off to a huge start on August 14 with one of the biggest groups we’ve had in a while and possibly the most people who have ever joined at once since I became director. A total of 22 people played including a guest player. Our new players were Dana, Amy, Jessica, Donald, Erin, Orneal, Emily, and Scott, and the guest player was Lillium. I know Donald and Jessica from the Grand Rapids pinball scene. Donald and I used to frequently end up in the same group at GRPL back in the Pyramid Scheme days, and Jessica and I have played each other in GR’s Belles and Chimes. Everyone else was totally new to me and honestly I am dreading having to tell everyone I have forgotten their names already when I see them tomorrow. (I am usually pretty good at learning up to two new members’ names per night, but past that and I can’t retain them.) Of course, that’s a great problem to have and if they do all come back, we’ll know it means we did not scare them off. I did start off by telling the regulars to try not to be weird, but for some reason this instruction was not taken seriously. In addition to the new players, we also had the return of longtime, off-and-on league member Jason.

    Joseph contends with The Simpsons, which was playing a bit erratically due to issues with the lock.

    This was the first time in League history that league night has been something other than Tuesday. Our August meetings are on Wednesday due to The Avenue closing Tuesdays over the summer, a new schedule this year. We will return to Tuesday meetings in September.

    Jason plunges on Jaws in the Smackdown contest.

    Our first two banks were Ophiuchus and Lepus, named for constellations. Ophiuchus is the Serpent-Bearer, and is actually probably the most tightly-themed bank in the season. Most of the games in Ophiuchus feature a snake or serpent; the only exception is Jurassic Park, because dinosaurs would have to be good enough. Lepus, the Hare, is very loosely themed as “things that go fast” except for The Beatles, which is in there because Lepus is my favorite constellation and The Beatles is maybe my favorite game at The Avenue.

    Linda, Ethan, and Jason waiting to play in the Smackdown.

    Our Tuesday Night Smackdown – still so-called despite being on Wednesday – was Jaws. Probably unsurprisingly, it was won by Ethan, who is a big fan of the game. Joseph took first in the B division “Undercard” on Elvira’s House of Horrors.

    Ethan and Joseph celebrate their Smackdown wins.

    Will we break new attendance records at our next meeting tomorrow? I look forward to finding out! See you all soon!