A word from our sponsor

Posted: November 14th, 2009 by ROM

If our sponsor was me… which, in a way, maybe it is?

Howdy Gangsters,

The best and the brightest are off at Shorty’s this weekend (I got a little tipsy last night, and totally failed to join with the ride that was available to me at like 7am this morning). Hopefully we’ll get some news from the front, to see how it’s going. But in the meantime, let’s reflect a little bit on some stuff that’s been hurting my brain to think about (full disclosure: thinking about anything hurts my brain). Shall we?

When playing pinball, whether you’re competing against the other initials on the board, or against the replay score, or against player 2 in a heated $competition$, or just against your inner demony things, you ARE competing. It’s difficult to remove that factor when playing pinball. If you care at all about how you play, then somewhere in you is a competitive drive. During the last year, we booted up the laptop and harnessed that drive. Nearly every week we’ve had around 20 people compete against one another at one of Portland’s many great pinball venues. Many of us have had shiny moments where we did well; ALL of us have had crappy moments where we totally flailed. But however we fared – it’s always in good fun. We respect one another as players, we accept newcomers to the fray, we keep egos in check, and we learn from mistakes. I have little doubt that all this organized play has allowed us to progress as players. And it’s also helped to strengthen the pinball community in Portland.

So I hope you represent well in Seattle!

Anyway, I totally forgot to post this winner’s picture from the Slabtown weekly that was a few weeks ago.

mad cash

But it’s an awesome picture! And worth sharing, even if it’s late. l-r: Emma (3rd), Steve (1st), Videomode (2nd).

That was a fun tournament. Good turn-out. We played on some fresh machines – Dr Who, Swords of Fury, and F-14 (in addition to all the others that were already there). Congrats to Steve for winning. I believe he’s now off in Hawaii, soaking it up at a 5 star resort.

This just in: News from the front!! Cayle vs Dropshot in the first round at Shorty’s. Holy cow!


Categories: CFF,CFF Friends

Comments: 2 comments



 

2 Responses to 'A word from our sponsor'

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  1. bounceback   15 Nov 09 at 1:57 pm

    oh let’s hope we shame some pinball stars this year. i didn’t make it up there either, am still getting back on the pinball horse.

    i was just thinking the other day about how much a lot of folks in portland have improved in just the past single year– we should have a kind of annual recap post– look at all the changes! tournaments, people buying machines, better competition all over town, riccochet’s machines on the scene, and more skillful play in general. in the past year i went from being afraid to dead flip, to doing it all the time, learned how to bangback, tap pass, am working on live catches, and have gotten a lot more confident trapping balls during multiball. from never having been to a serious tournament before last year’s shorty’s, to having expanded all those skills just in 12 months, feels pretty good.

    how about others? i can think of a lot of players in town that have had their games escalate exponentially in the past year, and that’s exciting.



  2. Noah   16 Nov 09 at 10:27 am

    Couldn’t agree more bounceback! I didn’t even sign up for the Ground Kontrol tournament you guys all threw in April because I “would just be throwing my money away”. Hard to believe that was the frame of mind I had about competitive pinball just 7 months ago. All it took was one tuesday tournament where I won one match out of the 3 I played to get me hungry for more. I’ve feel like I was kind of at a plateau in my pinball playing for about 7 years, before playing with you guys. Watching and competing regularly with a bunch of folks who are better than you is the best way to improve.

    Funny that this “turning point” seemed to happen for a lot of people right around the same time. . . It’ll be great to see what everyone is capable of this time next year!




 

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