Go here to register for it.

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:

Danny Backglass-Mandela gently macking on the Holy Mary Mother of God. (pic by ROM)

Slabtown (pic by Eric)

Fred and Dropshot crunching numbers (pic by rom)

And then Shatz is all like, 'hey guys, gimme some tix' (pic rom)

Current scores/ranks projected (pic by Eric)

Open line-up (pic by Eric)

Dennis has some 'alone time' with Royal Flush (pic by Eric)

But then Eric was like, 'wtf are you doing, Dennis? Go buff Indy 500!' And so that's what Dennis did. Here's the proof. (pic by Eric)

Opto appraises the situation, and finds it adequate. (pic by Eric)

Kevin slices through a game of Super Soccer (pic by Eric)

With the help of his eyeglasses, Soundcard accurately reads and manages a load of active entries. (pic by Eric)

Aaron Dropshot checks the temp on weather.com to help determine if he needs to apply more sunscreen before his next smoke break. (pic by Eric)

People playing the classics machines. (pic by Eric)

Open tourney mayhem. This picture isn't great... but look at Dannyb! (pic by rom)

One of our extraordinary volunteers, Sara! (pic by Eric)

Fierceness. (pic by Eric)

Neil Shatz absolutely mega-butchering Royal Flush. (pic by Eric)

ROM and PatC taking a break from the competition with some Simpsons. Pat and I never talk when we hang out. We have, like, a silent agreement to not talk. (pic by Eric)

And here I am playing Super Soccer. I was pretty okay at playing it. (pic by Eric)

Eden, Keith, and Robert play some classics. (pic by rom)

Finals! Mahaffey and Noah observe, approve. Mahaffey soon went on to win the classics. (pic by Eric)

Fred and Bowen discussing stuff or something. (pic by Eric)

We make sure to always have at least three judges monitoring each ball in the finals. That way, no one can get away with gaffling. (pic by Eric)

Former NBA player and current shredmaster, Todd MacCulloch. (pic by Eric)

Keith and Bowen, two super great pinball players (currently ranked #1 and #3 in the world rankings). (pic by Eric)

Friendly guy and strong competitor, Bob Matthews (from Thousand Oaks, CA). (pic by Eric)

Robert Gagno and Mike Mahaffey, pulverizing Zip-A-Poo and Super Soccer. (pic by Eric)

Danny Backgaffle McKillrose asks his fans to, 'just take me for what I am, man.' (pic by Eric)

Meanwhile, Pat Castaldo partakes in a between-match cocktail. That's just one of the ways it goes down at Portland's Slabtown. Slabtown: Where Pinball Dreams Are Made (and Broken). (pic by Eric)

The view from afar.

But then! The Open finals. This is the time when all us losers can sit back and relax. Deathsave, Fredly McGenocide, Videomode, Rev-Test. (pic by rom)

I enjoyed just chilling out and watching the finals unfold. I scorekept for a little bit. But then after a while I was like, 'I just want to sit and chill.' I think a lot of us were feeling that. (pic by Eric)

Maka Honig looping the fuck outta Sorcerer. (pic by Eric)

Bowen slizays Sorcerer in the final finals. (pic by Eric)

And then it was over and everyone was high fiving and victory-slapping other dudes on the butts. (pic by rom)

Money and accolades are awarded to the winners. (pic by rom)

And finally, Eric took this REALLY awesome panorama shot of the interior at Slabtown. Click to view larger.

Alright! Reminder: The pictures of the top 4 from each group are in the previous post. Thanks Eric for taking all those great pictures during the weekend.

The Classics is over. Mike Mahaffey wins! Full standings will be posted later.

Check @portlandpinball on Twitter for some updates.

FINALS UPDATE: Bowen Kerins wins the Open tournament! Congrats, Bowen.

Final four: Bowen Kerins, Cayle George, Maka Honig, Keith Elwin.

Check back in the next couple of days for a more detailed recap.

That was a whole lot of pinball!

Classics winners: Left-right: Mike Mahaffey, Bob Matthews, Bowen Kerins, Keith Elwin

Open winners, Left-Right: Bowen Kerins, Cayle George, Maka Honig, Keith Elwin

So the tournament starts today! Today and tomorrow is the qualifying round.

Hours:
February 18 3:00-Midnight
February 19 12:00-Midnight

Location:
Slabtown
1033 NW 16th
Portland, OR

The scores and rankings during the qualifying round are updated live (about every 15 minutes), and can be found here.

Open Division Live Results

Classics Division Live Results

So you can keep track of the action from afar! (Note: Those are just the rankings for the qualifying round, not the final. See above for final results.)

Discuss stuff in the comments!

Anyway, don’t forget to try hard, every body! Good luck, and have fun.

Some notes:

-All the machines in the Classics bank are set to 5 ball.
-Some of the machines have very sensitive tilts and are set to “difficult” – so be careful.

Our local tournament organizers have been busy these past few months coming up with sweet tournament ideas. The most recent one was the C-Bar Charbroiled Schoolyard Rumble. You can read about it in that post. But the gist is: Once upon a time there were four team captains. And one Saturday night those team captains got together and drank a bunch of beer. And then they each drafted their teams from a pool of players. 7 players a team. And on Sunday we all got together and rumbled like asshole school children!

The format was designed just for this tournament. In the first round, each player played four person games against the other teams’ players. After a game was over, you got shacked up with three different players from the opposing teams. Plus you were awarded points based on how you placed (4,2,1,0). And so on for, uh, 7 games in total? At the end of those games, each teams’ points were totaled.

Then the 2nd round began. In this round Team 3 played Team 4. Regular games were played, except at the same time it wasn’t very regular because the players rotated after each ball. So, the pressure was on! When you stepped up to play you knew you could only contribute one ball at a time. This made for an interesting atmosphere, with teams huddling together to come up with their plans, and everyone playing spectator – standing back and focusing intently on whom ever was up at the plate.

Anyway, Eric Hill took some rad pictures throughout the day-long event. Here they are.

Ugh, it's fricking Rhodes...

Aaron 'Dropshot' Nelson glances back mid-game to make sure people are filling out the score thingies correctly. This guy is ACES at running tourneys, man.

Noah 'Mad Eyes' 'Opto' Davis (two nicknames!), wearing a headband.

Okay, listen up, people! Probably Dropshot's favorite thing to say.

Nearly the same picture, but this time with more beard.

Who ever said pinball wasn't a spectator sport? Oh... like everyone except these people. Okay...

Scoring and drinking. Usually, you know, it's like totally the other way around in this scene (drinking, and then SCOOOORING!!). but mmhmm, yeah...

Video 'Dennis' Mode shreds Judge Dredd

Dropshot doth the same.

And then over on the other side of the room: more pinball.

Mindy crushes skulls in the final, on Black Knight 2K

Opposing force Jay 'Kickback' America tells us all to cut the crap as he steps up to jah plate

A heavenly halo slams into Kevin's dome as he battles the Black Knight. But would it be enough?

Spectating during the finals

Dropshot, ball 3, player 2, comes from behind and wins the tournament for his team

Don't forget, mad cash for the winning team

Not to rub it in or anything... (Rhodes and Mindy)

The winning team! YAYYYY. Matt, Soundcard, Dropshot, Emma, Rhodes, Mindy, ROM

Sigh, fun times.. And you can find some bracket stuff here.

For upcoming tournaments, check that section of the message board, or the Events page on the Portland Pinball Map.

First off: a reminder that the First Annual Cascadia Cup* is happening on November 7. Registration is now completely full. Thank you for those that have signed up. It’s gonna be fun!

If you didn’t know, Cascadia is the bio-region commonly known as the Pacific Northwest. It’s a lush enviro, all green-like and pretty, super casual and phased, and some people here want the United States to just get the hell out of it forever.

So this tournament is a celebration of the super rad Cascadia pinball scene. It’s an all day tournament, and you’re guaranteed to play 9 rounds! Basically, you get matched up with three others and play a game of pinball, then you get matched up with a different 3 others again and play a game of pinball and you get to do this 9 times. Then the top 12 advance to the final rounds. Dropshot’s testimony: “Those that attended last year’s event, the Slabtown Smackdown, will likely testify that this may be the most laid back tournament in the history of tournaments.”

You need to sign up ahead of time for this tournament. We are making t-shirts and stuff, and the prize packages will be SWEET. Pre-registration ends TOMORROW, Oct. 1. So sign the eff up. We currently have 29 registrants, and we’re gunning for 36 so that we have a nice clean bracket. AKA space is limited! More information can be found on the Cascadia Cup page.

Item number dos: Casual flow knows no bounds! Much to everyone’s happiness, local operator Ricochet Pinball has taken over the C-Bar. They’ve added seven machines to the place. And in celebration, they set up an amazing bounty hunt on the machines there (well, on five of them).

The bounties are thus: Whomever holds the GC on a machine on the deadline of Oct. 15 wins $100! Uh yeah… that’s huge, people. That’s $500 in total prizes. There’s already some tight competition on them. But some of the machines are still just waiting to be slayed. So have at those machines!

The machines in the bounty hunt are:

Twilight Zone
Rollergames
Judge Dredd
Road Kings
Jack*Bot

Discuss the bounties here. Thanks, Ricochet!

*it’s sort of the 2nd annual… I dunno. whatever!

Stern’s next machine, Avatar, is coming out soon. Avatar is already known among some circles (namely, the circle made up of me and my cat) as one of the most pixelated pinball games ever made. Take a look at this screenshot for an example:

It’s like freaking Monet met up with Buzz Aldrin and they had a baby together. And then they smashed the baby onto the playfield and then cranked up the pixels. Amirite?!

But wait, there’s more! Now’s your chance to finally see the pinball machine in person.

Quarterworld is being rad enough to let some top ballers get an early taste of the machine. To be granted access, all you have to do is hold a GC or #1 score on one of the two machine at the Langano Lounge by the tournament’s end.

Check out Qdub’s post about the tournament.

And here are some additional details:

Casual Span: Aug. 20 – Sept. 12.
Casual Loc: Langano Lounge. 1435 Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard.
Casual Crush: The Simpsons Pinball Party, Indiana Jones (Stern)
Casual Flow Rating: 5/5 (due to length of the tournament)

There is the potential for four people to win this tournament. So don’t fret! You have a chance. And if you win, it would be cool if you could use the message board to give us fans and early review!

Apparently after being open for 18 months, the city decided to come along and enforce this crazy old law. Think about it, someone from the city came along and insisted upon enforcing this law on the arcade nearly two years after being open, what a douche of a person. In my opinion it is some crotchety old fart who has nothing better to do that to hate on stuff. I’m guessing this law is merely the vehicle for a much darker hate that is rooted in the City of Beacon.

Probably the best thing that we can do to get Fred back in business is to write or call Beacon city council and mayors office.
http://www.cityofbeacon.org/departments

There’s a facebook group that even has a nice form letter to send in.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=139564602749976

If the city does not allow the Retro Arcade to operate in the next few days. I think then we will have to up our efforts to this cause, and I do have some very creative and effective ideas in store for that. Let’s hope that some calls and letters will do the trick first.

Check out this video about the issue on CNN

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:

Grandmaster Danny Backglass watches, approves

Eden and Cayle in the Classics finals

More classics action

Eden rocking some Royal Flush

DDT rocking the Frontier

Robert in game 1 of the final round.

ROM in the final round

See you next year!