..you discover that Josh Henderson, the second-place finisher in the A Division at PAPA 15, is in the field. Thankfully I didn't have to play Josh head-to-head this weekend, although I did play his father Mark in one of the later rounds in the B Division. Josh eventually won the tournament, but not by as much as you might expect...the X-Men LE table used in the final game was for some reason exceptionally cruel to its players and the difference between first and second was a mere 300K points, 15.2M to 14.9M.
Things also become interesting when more players showed up than were planned for. While the PinGolf format used in the initial qualifying rounds is fun (see previous post for more on PinGolf), it potentially involves playing two whole games on nine different tables, and so the first round that was supposed to be done at noon wound down around 3 o'clock!
It also was my first experience on tables with super-tight tilts. While the tilts at CP Pinball are as a rule pretty conservative, the tournament tables all got severely tightened up before Saturday's games...to the point where it became possible to tilt the Lord of the Rings table simply by walking near it...much to the distress of its players. And it rattles you a bit when you make what you consider a routine save and pick up a double danger from it. Hands off the machine, gentlemen!
Following the extra-long PinGolf round, we were placed in divisions and commenced a round of match play, with the standard 7-5-3-1 scoring. Top four players in each division moved to the final game; somehow I managed to squeak into the B Division finals after Twilight Zone decided to be cruel to other players for a change (I got 123M this time, about half of which came from left ramp-right ramp-piano 3-way combos - learn that combo, those 10 millions add up and can make the difference if the table's being evil and scores are low) and surviving Dolly Parton, whose pinball machine is so ugly that I had never played it before Saturday.
Unfortunately, my luck ran out on AC/DC LE in the final game, where I rallied from a pathetic 5 million at the start of ball 3 to end at around 22 million, but that was not enough and I ended fourth. But at least I got to 22M and not something embarrassing like 6M. Congratulations to Tom Vandenberg (and apologies if I botched your name) for rallying more successfully than I did, he went from 5 million at the start of his ball 3 to end at 52 million and a victory. Congrats also to fellow league player Kathy Midkiff for winning C Division on Transformers LE.
All in all, I needed that. Those following this blog know that my league performance started strong and has been rolling downhill ever since, so even making it into B Division, much less its final game, has helped salvage my self-esteem. There might be hope for me yet!
Things also become interesting when more players showed up than were planned for. While the PinGolf format used in the initial qualifying rounds is fun (see previous post for more on PinGolf), it potentially involves playing two whole games on nine different tables, and so the first round that was supposed to be done at noon wound down around 3 o'clock!
It also was my first experience on tables with super-tight tilts. While the tilts at CP Pinball are as a rule pretty conservative, the tournament tables all got severely tightened up before Saturday's games...to the point where it became possible to tilt the Lord of the Rings table simply by walking near it...much to the distress of its players. And it rattles you a bit when you make what you consider a routine save and pick up a double danger from it. Hands off the machine, gentlemen!
Following the extra-long PinGolf round, we were placed in divisions and commenced a round of match play, with the standard 7-5-3-1 scoring. Top four players in each division moved to the final game; somehow I managed to squeak into the B Division finals after Twilight Zone decided to be cruel to other players for a change (I got 123M this time, about half of which came from left ramp-right ramp-piano 3-way combos - learn that combo, those 10 millions add up and can make the difference if the table's being evil and scores are low) and surviving Dolly Parton, whose pinball machine is so ugly that I had never played it before Saturday.
Unfortunately, my luck ran out on AC/DC LE in the final game, where I rallied from a pathetic 5 million at the start of ball 3 to end at around 22 million, but that was not enough and I ended fourth. But at least I got to 22M and not something embarrassing like 6M. Congratulations to Tom Vandenberg (and apologies if I botched your name) for rallying more successfully than I did, he went from 5 million at the start of his ball 3 to end at 52 million and a victory. Congrats also to fellow league player Kathy Midkiff for winning C Division on Transformers LE.
All in all, I needed that. Those following this blog know that my league performance started strong and has been rolling downhill ever since, so even making it into B Division, much less its final game, has helped salvage my self-esteem. There might be hope for me yet!
