Archive for the ‘CFF’ Category

Showdown at Slabtown III Recrap

Th’ third Showdown at Slabtown is complete. So here’s a picture post.

But first, some fun facts:

The final results can be found here.
A quick recap on pinballrankings.com is here.
Drew Multiball interviewed Bowen, Neil, and Todd MacCulloch:

The tournament was awesome. Competition was way srsly tight. Pretty good CFF turnout and showing, and a good Portland turnout; solid Seattle and VRPA turnout; and some solid ballers came from other places (Neil Shatz and Bob Matthews and Keith Elwin from Caliornia, Bowen Kerins from Massachusetts). Gotta say – this tourney is really developing into Portland’s biggest and best one. The Ground Kontrol Pinbrawl is another big one… but it’s a different format. Thanks everyone for coming out and entering and trying really hard. And thanks to all the organizers and techs and scorekeepers for putting this together and keeping it running. I can’t wait for next year.

Eric Hill took most of these pictures. But I took a few, too. So I captioned them. Thus, hot pics:

Read the rest of this entry »

Showdown at Slabtown III

We are getting close to the big event.  I hope everyone is looking forward to it.  Thanks to everyone who has offered to volunteer.

A few exciting changes this year include following the progress in real time on the internet.  Also the top 12 will qualify for Classics instead of 8.

This year’s unofficial side contest is the dannyB look-a-like contest.  Anyone who dresses up like dannyB will receive 1 free game entry.

Check back for updates.

C-Bar Schoolyard Rumble Jan. 2nd

We are going old school on it.  4 teams, 4 captains, 8 rounds and someone will be picked last.  In the NFL, they call this player Mr. Irrelevant because most of the time they do not even make the final roster.  However, in our case, every single player makes the finals and has a great chance to win it all!  Unfortunately, you won’t know who it was, or when anyone was picked…but chances are it was probably this kid.

Details:

The tournament will start at 12:00 (noon) Sunday Jan. 2nd.  You must sign up by Jan 1st though.  I don’t need your money but I do need your word that you won’t be a no show, or Rom gets to punch you in the gut!  No one will be allowed to sign up day of and that is because there will be a live draft on Saturday.  Let me reiterate, NO late sign ups, and a no show means ROM WILL PUNCH YOU!  The entry price will be $20 that can be paid in advance, or the day of.

The 4 team Captains will be Jake, Noah, Fred and Aaron.  The draft will take place Saturday afternoon.  Who ever picks last in the 1st round will pick first in the 2nd round so we should have some very even competitive teams.  The tournament will consist of 8 casual flow rounds where every single match-up will consist of 1 player from each team.  After the qualifying rounds are over the team points will be added up to determine which team qualified in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th.

Here’s where it gets fun, so stick with me here, it all makes sense in the end. Every single player/team makes the finals.  The format we are going to use is a ladder system.  The 4th place team plays the 3rd place team in a best 3 of 5 series.  Once we determine the two teams (3rd and 4th) a machine will be randomly chosen for the 1st match and a quarter will be flipped to decide order.  At this point each team will need to discuss in private who they plan to have play ball 1.  Both teams will submit who plays at the same time.  After ball 1 is over the same thing goes down for ball 2 and finally again for ball 3.  A player cannot play again until every single team member gets to play a ball, and if your team is player 2 and do not have to play ball 3 that given player would still need to play a ball on another game.  For the second game the machine will be drawn randomly again and whoever wins the previous game can choose which team goes first.  Same deal on a new player for each ball.  First team to 3 wins moves on!

Same exact format for the next round vs. the 2nd place team. However play count is reset for each round unless a player doesn’t get to play a single ball in the previous round.  They must play before anyone plays a second time.  Feel free to ask question in the message board if this is confusing.

Flip a coin to decide order on the first game, switch players every ball, winner        chooses play order for subsequent games, every player must play once before a player may play twice.  All machines will be chosen randomly and first team to 3 wins moves on to the finals against the 1st place team.

Same exact format for the finals as the two previous rounds.  First team to 3 wins claims all of the cash to be split evenly amongst themselves!

This event should be a lot of fun with a great chance for anyone to win some good cash!  If 28 people are playing the winning team of 7 would each get $80.  Not bad.  To sign up you can either text, PM, or just post on the message board.  You must let us know prior to Jan 1st at noon.  You can sign-up, and then cancel prior to then as well You can wait to pay Sunday too.  If you get drafted and do not show up Rom does get to punch you though, regardless of your excuse.  No shows will mess everything up.  I cannot stress that enough.  Feel free to ask any questions in the message board  where a list of participants will be list as well as right here.  This tournament is in response to our failure to successfully come up with an adequate structure for a Seattle v Portland tournament other than it just being 4 on 4.

Sign-up by Jan1st. 12:00 (noon)  Tourney Jan 2nd. 12:00 (noon), entry is $20

Those in:

Jake McGhee (captain)
Noah Davis (captain)
Fred Franken (captain)
Aaron Nelson (captain)

Draft Pool:

Chris Coyle
Isaac Ruiz
Mike Smith
Mindy Bert
Dennis Brenhaug
Eric Hill
Mike Hassenpflug
J.D. Yeager
Pat Castaldo
Kris Fast
Emma Eichhorn
Ryan Gratzer
Josh Brake
Chris Rhodes
Paul Kalk
Denise Johnson
Matt Fentress
Jon Davis
Kevin Kerr
Jason America
Steve Lampros
Jeff Spaziani
Zoe Vrabel

Casual Flow

When: Tuesday 14th, 7:00pm (be there early)

Where: C-Bar
2880 SE Gladstone St. Portland, OR 97202
Phone: (503) 230.8808

Why: Rom willed it.

What: It can’t be explained but here is how it works…

Please sign up as soon as you arrive, entry is $10. Once 7:00 comes around and registration closes it will take another 15 minutes so to set everything up. This doesn’t really need to be known but I will explain how it we are doing it. When you sign up you will randomly write your name on any of the 44 spots on a piece of paper, once everyone has signed up the paper will be unfolded and reveal what number you are 1-44. So let’s say we have 28 players though, well we will go through and write in player 1, 2, 3, 4 and then nobody got number 5. We will then go to the first number over 28, so 29 becomes 5. then 6, 7, nobody got 8, the next number over 29 will be 8. Get it? No? It doesn’t matter, it will all be taken care of for you.

So we are going to be using either a 28 player matrix, 36 player matrix, 40 player matrix or 44 player matrix. Everyone must sign up prior to 7:00pm or let me know you are on your way. Once we start filling in the matrix it will be very tough to start adding late players. Like Cascadia people will be playing 4 players games with different players each time for a total of 4 matches. If there are more than 28 but less than 36 there is a good chance you might be playing with someone more than once, sorry. Scoring will be 4, 2, 1, 0. If in any case there is a bye in your group (only 3 players) the scoring will be 4, 2, 1. Top 6 will move on. We think there are most likely going to be ties for qualified positions, all of which are very crucial, as you will see later. So there will be a 1 game playoff for any tied qualifying score on a random machine.

Finals

We are going to have head to head best 2 of 3 in the first round, pitting 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5. Top seed will get to pick two machines. The two winners will then join 1 and 2 in the finals where it will be three 4 player games set up the way described below.

Now that we have the top 4 figured out they are going to play a 3 game series with scores (4, 2, 1, 0) being the same as before. This is where rank is important, before any game is played the 3rd highest player (either 3rd,4th, or 5th seed depending on who advances) gets to choose a machine, then 2nd highest player (2nd seed) gets to choose a machine and finally the 1st seed gets to choose a machine. Now that the 3 machines have been chosen the top seed can choose machine (of the 3 picked) or position, followed by 2, then 3, 4 or 5. After the first game has been played the winner of that game gets to choose machine (of the 2 left) or position followed by who got second, third and then 4th. Same goes for the 3rd game, where I would assume whoever wins game 2 would choose position since there is only 1 machine to choose from. After the 3 matches whoever has the most points wins! I hope this all makes sense.

Payouts

Based on 28 people:

1 $120
2 $70
3 $50
4 $20
5 $10
6 $10

Based on 36 people:

1 $160
2 $80
3 $60
4 $40
5 $10
6 $10

A side note, mostly for Steve. If a ramp isn’t registering I don’t care. Especially for this format. We need all the machines in, and the game will be playing the same for everyone.

Other than that, this is gonna be sweet! Be sure to try and show up early. I think there is going to be $1 PBR special for all pinball players. Also, for those that it matters C-Bar is all ages until 10:00pm so feel free to bring the little ones.

Cascadia Pinball Cup Registration

Registration for Cascadia Pinball Cup. is now limited to 48. Please contact Aaron/Dropshot to register. Thank you to those that have signed up, so far there are 46 players this year. Looking forward to seeing everyone in November.

We had 7 people pre-order a t-shirt, we plan to make a few extras to sell the day of. If anyone knows they are going to probably buy one please let me know.

Registered Players (48): All full

Fred Franken Aaron Nelson James Edes Cayle George Kris Fast Maka Honig Zoe Vrabel John Stein Ryan Gratzer Andrew Nunes Jason Hill Robert Gagno Kathy Gagno Isaac Ruiz Kevin Kerr Dave Dimoff James Nye J.D. Yeager Mike Smith Miles Craig Paul Kalk Chris Coyle Chris Heilig Coryn Walker

Jared Kramer Danny Backglass Belrose Julie Gray Emma Eichhorn Mike Hassenpflug Dennis Brenhaug Jake McGhee Steve Lampros Jeff Gagnon Mike Mahaffey Louie Hamlett Maurizio Gagno Bobby Conover Rachel Cooper Brandon Smith Jason America Pat Castaldo Ben Applebaum Jamie Beth Einsohn Bob Skinner Adam Johnson Mindy Bert Billy Brown Rodney Olsen

Showdown at Slabtown II Finalcap

‘Tis over! After three days of tournamenting, and mini-gaming, and plain ol’ regular playing, it has come to an end. Let’s get to details!

58 people competed in the Open tournament, and 49 in the Classics tournament. Strong turn-out! And folks really put a lot of work into their qualifying entries. You had to put up some hot scores in order to make it into the final rounds.

And then once the final round started, oh man, things got shaken up fast. Some big names got eliminated in the first round of the finals.

And through it all Robert Gagno emerged victorious in – get this – not one, but BOTH tournaments! He swept it! No easy feat. He played great throughout the tournament. And when crunchtime came, in the final rounds, he pulled it off like a champ. He came down with this parents, Kathy and Maurizio, and they all basically operated as a team throughout the weekend. Team Gagno. (On a personal note: I got 2nd place in the Open, and while I felt like I played pretty well, I’m not sad! It was totally cool to watch Robert sweep the event. Major props.)

Nice showing by Portland players in the event. All our constant playing and competing must be paying off… with DIVIDENDS! Whatever that means. Nice showing by the core CFF contingent, too. But there were some notable absences (Replay!).

Here are photos taken by Robert’s dad of the winners line-ups. Check out their flickr page for a lot more great pictures.

Classics Division Winners. l-r: James Edes (4th), Cayle George (2nd), Robert Gagno (1st), Aaron “Dropshot” Nelson (3rd).

Open Division Winners. l-r: Fred “Fred” Franken (4th), Robert Gagno (1st), Steve Lampros (3rd), Ryan “ROM” Gratzer (2th).

Eden Stamm was top qualifier in the Open. Cayle George was the top qualifier in the Classics. Zoe “Legs” Vrabel was the top female qualifier, and she also won the PBR skateboard in a mini-tourney (thanks PBR!).

Big thanks to Aaron, Jake (Revtest), Fred, Eric, and Noah for organizing the event. And thanks to Slabtown for providing a rad venue. Mega thanks to Ricochet for their tight tournament machines, and for their really awesome mini-game machines. Here’s a video of Jeri from Ricochet showing off the NES Light Gun game.

Danny Backglass won the Time Machine reverse-flipper tourney, and Mike Smith won both the Tommy Bad Cats and the Star Trek NES Zapper tourneys. Way to go! Also, thanks to Quality Entertainment for their machine. Thanks to Chris Rhodes for bringing in Aztec, and for everyone who brought in their sweet machines. The line-ups were nice. Very well-rounded and interesting.

Check out this page on the message board for the full results.

Lastly, some pictures:

See you next year!

Showdown at Slabtown II – Casual Flowblock

At the stroke of midnight – two hours ago – dropshot called out, with his grotesque horsevoice, the final games of the qualifying round. And not too surprisingly, some mad rank exchanges took place right at that final toll. Danny Backglass, on a heroic 900,000+ game of Aztec, leaped from 12th place in the Classics (not a qualifying placement) to 4th. And in the Open division, Opto did something or other on Whirlwind to skyrocket his placement from so-so to good! A moment after these games were registered, all the machines were swiftly turned off – the mad shuffle complete, the qualifying round OVER!

There’s a lot to go over right now. And I do not think I will be able to cover it all, late as it is. But I will try to note the things that pop into my head. First off, Eden Stamm arrived today from Canada and succeeded in posting a slew of big scores in the Open division, thus securing his 1st place qualifying position. He was solid all the way through. And in the Classics division, Cayle George ended the night on top.

There was a very strong turnout in both tournaments. It was busy all day, but the final few hours were especially crammed with contenders jockeying for qualifying positions. Mega thanks go out to Sara, Nhu, and Katrina for managing the scoring in the final hours. It looked really hectic, and you all really took care of business. Also thanks to Emma for her superlong day shift. Plus thx to Isaac, Noah, DannyB, Jake, Dennis, and EVERYONE who helped out and/or took a scoring shift (I am missing many in that list).

Here are the leaderboards:

Open leaderboard (top 16 qualifies)

Classics leaderboard (top 8 qualifies)

And the individual machine scores:

Open:
Simpsons
Demolition Man
Whirlwind
Terminator 2
Frontier
Seawitch

Classics:
Royal Flush
Aces and Kings
Aztec
Solar City

Okay, I am super tired. Here are a bunch of pictures I took today! Click each image for full size. The pictures cover some afternoon action, mini-games (NES Gun Flippers, Reverse-Flippers, and Tommy mode), Classics set-up, and more.

And here’s a video I took with my camera of some Classics action! That’s Eric Hill, one of the event organizers, in the foreground playing Aztec.

So! The Classics finale matches start tomorrow, Sunday, at noon! If you’re in the top 8, ya gotta be there on time. This is IT!

And during the classics matches, there will be the side-battle for the PBR longboard. This battle will be with the 17th-20th place finishers in the Open Division (but it also depends on how they qualified in the Classics…?? I don’t get it, really – JUST BE THERE OKAY!), and will be starting at noon.

Then, around 2:30pm, the Open division final matches will begin. If you qualified in the top 16, be there earlier than 2:30pm. Don’t be lame (looking at you OOO).

The Ricochet mini-games! In the fourth picture above, you can see Jeri Ellsworth, one half (with Trish) of the inventive minds behind the fun set-ups, using the NES laser Gun to play Star Trek. As far as I know, Dave (10th picture) has the current high score on that machine – around 34 million. And Danny B (7th picture) has the current high score on the reverse-flippered Time Machines (around 4.2 million). I’m not sure who has the high on Tommy Bad Cats – but I’ve heard it’s around 25 million.

Alright, I’ll have another round-up tomorrow once it’s all over. I hope you found this post informative, and I hope I didn’t anything crucial out. See you tomorrow!!

Showdown at Slabtown 2010 Friday Wrap-up

Day 1 of qualifying at the Showdown comes to a close, and what do we have? We have this:

Open Leaderboard

Basically:
Robert Gagno – 1st
Cayle George – 2nd
Danny Backglass – 3rd
Romulanx – 4th

and etc.

Open division machine scores:

Simpsons
Demolition Man
Whirlwind
Terminator 2
Frontier
Seawitch

And the Classics Division Leaderboard

Royal Flush
Aces and Kings
Aztec
Solar City

Nice turn-out tonight. It felt busy. We’re showing 40 entries so far. Even stronger than last year at this point. A lot of the weekly regulars have shown up (though not all! what up), as well as some fresh faces, plus there’s a solid contingent from Seattle, and from British Columbia. And more of them to arrive tomorrow. Action starts tomorrow at noon. And there’s, no doubt, gonna be a lot of shifts in the leaderboard.

Ricochet has set up some rad side-games. Get this! They have a Data East Star Trek machine with flippers that you activate using an NES Gun! There are sensors at the bottom of the playfield, and you shoot the gun at the left or right sensors, accordingly. Its really difficult! But I was definitely improving with each try. Whosoever has the high score by the end of the tournament wins half the coin box. 25 cents to play.

Plus, they set up Bad Cats Tommy Style – with the bottom foot of the playfield covered up in black tape, so you can’t see the flippers!

And – third side-game machine – Time Machine is set with reverse flippers. The right button triggers the left flipper, the left button triggers the right. Super challenging. Top score on any of these machine by the end of the tourney wins half the respective cashbox. They are really fun, unusual, and creative side-games to be running during the tournament. Fun ways to step away from the qualifying machines and just get wild!

Sorry, I did not take pictures of anything tonight. I’ll take and post some pics tomorrow. And I’ll also post another status report after the qualifying rounds ends, midnight tomorrow. Good luck tomorrow, everyone. Let’s see some sick scores!

Second Annual Showdown at Slabtown

Hey hey, next weekend is the second annual Showdown at Slabtown!! It’s a three day tournament, with big cash payouts to those who qualify for the final day’s matches.

Check out the Showdown page for more details, plus some stuff about the rules.

And read the message board thread for some hot discussions!

This style of tournament, though different from Portland’s weekly tournaments and from the Ground Kontrol Pinbrawl, has a strong focus on an individual’s skill and strategy. While you are trying to beat other people’s scores, you’re also allowed the time and space to do your best without having to worry about being eliminated after just a couple bad games. Two days of casual flow qualifying on Friday and Saturday! Hang out, watch the players, watch your placement go up and down, and have fun!

But then on Sunday, things change! Once it’s down to 16, you’ll be matched up against the other players, playing three 4-player games, and then advancing (or not) from there.

A lot of people will be entering this tournament. It’s a good way to check out the scene, get sorta serious about your game, TRY HARD, and maybe win some money!

Here’s an overview:

Slabtown
1033 NW 16th
Portland, OR

Open Tournament will be held on 6 machines and qualifying will be held from:
Friday, July 30 3:00-Midnight
Saturday, July 31 12:00-Midnight

Finals will be held on: Sunday, August 1 following Classics finals

Classics Tournament will be held on 4 machines and qualifying will be held from:
Friday, July 30 3:00-Midnight
Saturday, July 31 12:00-Midnight

Finals will be held on:
Sunday, August 1 at 12:00pm

1 ticket=1 game
1 ticket- $3
4 tickets- $10

Open tournament machines:
Seawitch
Frontier
Whirlwind
Demolition Man
The Simpson’s Pinball Party
Terminator: II

Classic tournament machines:
Aces and Kings
Royal Flush
Solar City
Aztec

Machines are provided by Quality Entertainment, Ricochet Pinball, and some individuals. Thank you to all y’all, and to the organizers, and Slabtown! It should be a lot of fun. There are two big pinball tournaments in Portland each year, and this is one of them!

In the meantime, read our excellent (live)blogging coverage from last year’s Showdown:
Showdown at Slabtown – Updates
Top 16 announced
Showdown at Slabtown wrap-up

And like last year, we’ll try to keep this blog up to date with the latest qualifying scores (daily round-up).

Trackie!!!! Day recap

So, Trackie!!!!! Day happened about a month ago, but I know you’re all still on the edges of your respective seats to know how it went and/or relive it through my sparkling prose.

Trackie!!!! Day, the most beloved of holidays, where fashion meets Fathom, where velour meets Viking, where DDT’s bare chest meets your eyeballs, occured on Mothers’ Day weekend, so those of us who prefer pinball to parents met up at the lovely and quant Ship Ahoy tavern for some meat and cheese (there was, natch, no love for the vegans at this fest) and dollar games on WCS.

Invisorated, we headed onward in our van of sin and destruction, blowing smoke in the faces of our enemies (or, I guess, Opto’s car, which was following us). Next stop was Apex, a pretty new bar on 12th and Division that you should check out. First off, they have a TV dedicated soley to the type/name/brewery/ABV% of their tap list (word to the wise: beer/cider only, folks. Also, cash only! Act accordingly)! Also, a separate pinball alley that houses Theater of Magic, LOTR, IJ4, and Ripley’s! Thirdly, a bank of mirrors on the wall above the machines, serving both your rabid spectators and yourself, should you choose to look up. 

So obviously we had to have a mini-tourney to test our mirror-pinball chops. It was on ToM. ROM won, possibly because his name is very similar to the name of the game. We also discovered that I am actually the girl on the Xenon backglass (see right). Next on the list was GK, because what kind of pincrawl (meh, I’m ambivalent about that word) doesn’t stop by the largest pinball destination in Portland? There, we did a one-handed mini-tourney on Demo Man (if I remember correctly, you had to use the handles, not the flipper buttons), which DDT won one-handily. (Ha!) We stayed there until the bar opened, so that those of us ammenable to the notion could slam a Pabst before we started off toward Slabtown. Slabtown’s challenge of choice was sit-down Party Zone. Scoop kicked ass with 30+ million.

Then, we were hungry, so we went to Opto’s Parlor of Pins, a private venue also know as the Davii household. We ate pizza and drank beer.  DDT and Dropshot both GCed Centaur on the same game (DDT exceeded the original GC as Player 1, Dropshit went above and beyond to re-GC it:

We also met the youngest tracksuit!  His name is Vinnie and, according to him, he’s “four and a half.  But I’m still shy!!!!”  Those were the only two sentences he said to me before grabbing the juice I poured him and running away.  I’d hate him if he hadn’t inherited his dad’s dashing good looks:

the PatC legacy. (credit: PatC; also I still rule at MSPaint)

Isaac took some cool pictures in Noah’s garage, but it took me like half an hour to make that Pat and Vinnie thing happen so I’m gonna cool off on the nÜ media for a while (also, oh my Lord, I hate PCs).  I’m just gonna cut to the chase instead, because this is already a month late and I think my boss may fire me if I don’t start doing my actual job instead of writing in my pinball journal.  After Noah’s we went to the Standard.  Mini-tourney: straight-up highest score on Black Rose.  Prize: a super cute piece of Shell Bell’s homemade jewelry.  Kickback won, and his lovely ladyfriend got some pinball-related bling.

We finished it off, 12 hours later, across the street from whence we started.  At C-Bar, there was a battle between the winners of the four mini-tourneys (to refresh your memories, I know I’m long-winded and parenthetical: ROM, DDT, Scoop, Kickback) on Indiana Jones.  ROM was victorious and got some sort of lightsaber thing that you’ll see in the final picture if I ever post this.  Emma was also spotted with a pinball lamp of some kind, I don’t remember why.  The whole PatC family got some schwag for being a family of trackies!!!!  And Sauce won worst tracksuit.

Okay, that was Trackie!!!! Day.  We’ll do it again next year.  Stay tuned for ROM’s much more timely Portland Pinball Map announcement.  Here, have a picture:

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