Archive for the ‘Pinball’ Category

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).

The Pinball Map is Multi-City

Great news, people! Please read this general pinball service announcement:

As most pinballers in Portland know, the Portland Pinball Map serves this city well as the go-to source for locating pins in town. The map has an army of pals, many of them unknown and unacknowledged (until now: thank you), keeping the data up to date. When you stop into a spot and notice a machine has been swapped out, it’s only a matter of moments until *click click BAM* the website is updated. Easy as that. And with the next version of the iPhone app coming at ya shortly, users will be able add/remove machines and stuff straight from their phone. Plus what’s more, the Android app is shaping up curvaceously, and will be available sooooooon!

So, as I’ve pointed out, the map works well here because we have 1) a ton of machines, 2) hot data, 3) a really user-friendly website, and 4) an active user base that helps keep everything up to date.

But there are some other cities around the country with a bunch of public machines, too. And they wanted a map like ours – So! the Portland Pinball Map has expanded to cover other cities. First up are British Columbia (aka Vancouver, BC), and Seattle, WA. Their maps are basically separate sites, all under one domain. And it’s easy to switch from one to the next. See:

British Columbia

Seattle

The new link for the site is http://pinballmap.com (though http://portlandpinballmap.com still works, too).

If you already have the iPhone app, the next version will have these regions added to it. And any additional regions we add will be automatically added to the apps (no updating necessary).

We’re excited about these new regions. VRPA is managing the BC data, and they’re surely going to be on the ball with keeping things up to date. But for both regions we need to get the word out! If you live in either of these areas, please start using these maps! The cool thing about these is that you don’t have to send machine updates to someone, and then wait for the updates to be made live – you can do all the updates yourself. Cut out the middleman!

And we’re always adding more features to the maps. If you have suggestions, sock ’em to us.

Trackie!!!! Day

It’s been well over a year since the synchronized flipping of a fleet of tracksuit-clad warriors hit the streets of Portland. We swish-swished from bar to bar, tearing up machines, staying hydrated, stretching before and after, calibrating our stopwatches, and checking our pulses as we simultaneously checked on the pulse of the Portland pinball scene.

And now tomorrow’s the day when we do it all again! So, pump up your shoes and step into a lifestyle of comfort and leisure. (Personally, I think of tracksuits as like stylish pajamas that are acceptable to wear outside…)

The day starts off at Ship Ahoy at 1pm. We’ll play there some, and then move on to the next spot, and after that the next spot, etc. DDT (pictured above) has planned all kinds of cool shit. Such as! Mini-games, like skillshot tests and various other styles of casual tournament play. So bring dollars ($$) to wager against your fellow tracksuiter. There will also be open casual play, if that’s all you’re feeling. But the real fun comes from betting! And trust me, there will be some fun and unusual mini-tournamos.

And there will be prizes!! We’ll have shwag and stuff, plus a load of VISO to fuel us along the way! The good folks at VISO have supplied us with goods to keep us fired up for the whole day. Attentive readers will remember about a year ago when we created a fake VISO logo and put it on this site for a couple months in order to pretend that we were sponsored or something (pictured right). Most of us drink a ton of the stuff, and we wanted to show our support for the local brand. Well, now they’re giving us stuff for real! Thanks, VISO!

If you don’t plan to be at Ship Ahoy at 1pm, but you still want to catch up with the group at some point, I will make a point of twittering our current location on the Portland Pinball tweetertweet. So, check that for the latest loc.

Also, bring cameras!

This is gonna be a rad day. See you tomorrow.

Iron Manticide

Just like what happened when the last latest Stern machine erupted onto the scene – which was that operator Quarterworld held a two day “Casual Flow” tournament on it for $100 – that same deal is going down right now to welcome in the even laterest machine, Iron Man.

The tournament is happening at:

Slingshot Lounge
5532 SE Center (right off of Foster)
Portland, OR, 97206
(503) 445-6649

I was at Slingshot last Saturday with DDT, and I ate a Deluxe Garden Burger that was so freaking delicious you don’t even know!

The tournament ends tomorrow (5/6). The winner gets $100. Come check out the new game! And then go see the movie!! Discuss the tournastuff here.

Enter the Pinbrawl

WE ARE CURRENTLY AT 127 REGISTRATIONS.

REGISTER HERE AT: http://groundkontrol.com/wordpress/?cat=12

The time is nearly nigh for the 2nd Annual Portland Pinbrawl. So, bone up on your skills – your pinball skills, your pre-registration skills, and your metaphor skills – because soon you’ll be punching suckas in the face left and right, via your scores being higher than theirs.

Details:
Ground Kontrol – 511 NW Couch St.
Sunday April 18, 2010
11am til death
$20 for entry

Machines: There are a lot lot of them. Check the GK site or the Portland Pinball Map for the list.

I don’t have my datapad in front of me, but last year there were like 120 people (128?). This year’ll be about the same, except that shit’s being capped! 128 en toto. Pre-registration is open now, so you better pre-registrate now or die forever, okay? As of this writing there are 61 pre-registered. Still over a month away and it’s nearly half full? That should tell you something right there…

Note that this year it’s going to start a little earlier. 11am SHARP. Very sharp.

There will be two mini-tournaments happening during the main event, run by your favorite hometown heroes, CFF! The mini-tournos will be a split-flipper tournament, and a one-handed tournament. The split-flipper will be on Viking. The one-handed will be on Dr. Who.

There will be a food cart nearby for tasteful all-day grub.

The format for the main event is 1 on 1, best 2 of 3, double elimination.

The grand prize is a Johnny Mnemonic DVD Pinball Machine!

Stay up to date with Ground Kontrol’s Pinbrawl blog posts. Also, click that link to pre-register.

Okay then, see you then! Don’t forget to try your hardest!

Portland Pinball Map iPhone App

And now, some brain-exploding words from our favorite Portland-based pinball locator service:

Have you ever thought about how in the future you could have a big list of nearby pinball machines… listed on your phone? Good – glad you’ve thought that. It’s a great thought to have. Well, ladies and everyone, that future is technically NOW. Introducing the next step in advanced technology: the Portland Pinball Map iPhone App.

Art by Drew! UI by Isaac!! Consultation fees and extensive kickbacks awarded to ROM and SSW!!! Yea!!!!

Features:

• Tracks 340+ pinball machines in 170+ locations all over Portland (and Vancouver too!)
• Find locations by proximity (an iPhone app exclusive feature!)
• Filter locations by those having four or more machines
• Stay up to date on your favorite spots, or find new favorites
• iPhone and iPod Touch 3.0 compatible

It costs .99 galleons.

Updates will be rolled out. Feedback is encouraged.

GO HERE FOR MORE INFO (INCLUDING SCREENSHOTS), AND TO ACCESS THE APPLE ITUNES STORE.

Two Day Casual Flow Buck Hunter Pinball Tournament

Howdy partners!

Remember how much you used to like Bambi when you were a little kiddo? Wasn’t he so fuzzy and cute, and he had those little animals friends who bounced around the magical forest with him and cracked jokes and stuff?? And don’t forget! That back then while you were young and didn’t know much about what life had to offer, what you did know was that you wanted to hug him and be his best friend 4 life??? I remember that, too. That ruled.

But then remember how you grew up a couple years and watched it again, and at the part when Bambi’s mama got shot up and killed by that heroic hunter the whole thing stopped being sad and was instead totally funny? I don’t know about you, but that part made me go, “FUCK YES!” And it was at that seminal point in my life (after I got grounded for swearing) where I decided for forever that the best animal is a dead animal, and that deer in particular can kiss my butt.

In that respect! Local pinball operator Quarterworld has delivered to Portland the newest pinball machine from Stern: Big Buck Hunter Pro. And to kick off the launch of this new bloody beast, Quarterworld and the Bar of the Gods (BOG) has set up a sweet two-day tournament on it.

Details straight from Qdub:

When: 2-16-10 to 2-17-10

Where: Bar of the Gods
4801 SE Hawthorne
503-232-2037

Rules: They are quite simple. You have two days to Grand Champ the table. Who ever is the GC at midnight on Wednesday wins.

What do you win… a cool $100.
#1 score walks away with $50, and yes you can win both GC and #1 score.

If you put up a top score at any point tell the bartender. He’ll get your info so we can get ahold of you. Just in case you’re not there on wed. at midnight. Oh yes, and there’s NO entry fee.

He also noted that the scores on the machine will start out at a measly 1 million or something. So, somebody is going to get the GC – guaranteed!

Now, go shoot the shit out of some motherbucking bucks.

Shorty’s 12th: Total Success!

Once again we drank, we ate dogs and we played pinball.  However, this year we seemed to be better at the latter.  The event was kicked off (set-up weeks in advance) with our own Deathsave against good friend Carlos on Medieval Madness.  Jeff maintained his confidence, even though Carlos dropped twenty credits into the machine as the doors opened, and took his first win with Strongbow in hand.  Looking back now I probably should not have told everyone in the joint I wanted Cayle round 1 on TOTAN.  Well I got my wish, kinda.  We played TAF and let’s just say he hit 65+ bear kicks, toured the mansion 7+ times to put his score around 1.8 Bil and never even looked at ball 3.  Those numbers may actually be a little low considering I had found myself more interested in the heated battle between CAP and some dude on Fathom next to me.  And like most matches PDX pulled through.  There weren’t too many games on day 1, I think only 3-4 hours was how long it lasted.  Fred had the unfortunate fate of playing 3 matches, 2 of them back to back while others only played 1 match.  Sadly, he did not survive. Neither did Kickback or Emma, to my knowledge.  So with day 1 over at 7:00pm  we all headed to Deathsave’s for his half working line-up, including Flash Gordon, Centaur, Johnny Mnemonic, Firepower and Medusa.  The rest of the night gets hazy for some while others dozed off, some drank all night, some ate acid, some ate cheeseburgers, and I heard Mortal Kombat was even busted out.

Come Sunday morning with fresh donuts in our bellies (thanks Davis’s’s’ss’) and even more Strongbow in others our confidence was high.  Jake, Noah and myself all felt we had a long day ahead of us knocking people to the curb before we would fall fate to that which would happen to us all.  But for the most part we were unscathed:  Soundcard, Videomode, Rob “just call me JT” Timberlake, Slam Tilt, Zoe, Deathsave, Sauce, Eric and DannyB wer all still on the winners side.  Early in the day Zoe put a hurting on this guy 2-0 who may have seemed a little to confident on Speakeasy.  And when I mean a hurting I am talking doubling the score and if you remember those funky little outlanes she was nudging those draining balls back into play.  About this time the battle of the giants was taking place on TAF, however this time we weren’t so fortunate as Todd MacCulloch took down Autofire.  There was also some questionable play on IJ4 between Sauce and Eric.  The culprit was those pesky bangbacks,  there was no mention nor was it written that they were illegal and I witnessed Trent use a few as well.  Sauce prevailed.  Later in the day DannyB and Zoe both had monster wins on IJ4 as well.  Trent Augenstein knocked out the youngest and one of the strongest players in the event, Robert Gagno on IJ4 too.  Those matches were well into the 2, 3, 400 mil range.

Unfortunately DannyB lost to Robert Gagno’s mother Kathy (who is a solid player) on Evel Knievel, eliminating him completely.  At about this same time Soundcard was facing Lonnie Langford on TAF.  On this particular TAF the GC was 6.6 Bil with LWL right beside it.  Oh and Mike hates this game, so he’s fucked right, especially since Lonnie put up 400 mil to take game one.  Well you’re dead wrong, Soundcard won, call it luck, call it skill give the cred to the intimidation of the colors but CFFs own Soundcard has moved on to be one of the only 8 still undefeated. Rev-Tests untimely departure came at the hands of Noah on TOTAN.  It was a well fought 3 game series but the mighty Rev struck out. And I lost a friendly fiver on it.  Actually the next few big matches all happen on TOTAN as well,  Zoe fought hard and lost to some dude from Australia.  If she had only skipped the skill-shot and went straight for the lamp like she did on her battle against Sauce 3 matches later she too could have been primed for the top 8 in the winners circle.  But prior to Sauce and Zoe, Slam Tilt, Deathsave and Cayle were mowing down the field.  Rob was next to face one of Seattle’s favorites Lonnie on Fathom, after splitting the first 2 games and a malfunction on game 3 it was moved to Surf Champ.  Once again PDX prevailed and another big hitter was eliminated from the tourney by our own hands alone.  Soon after Rob faced Kathy Gagno on TOTAN.  At the same time Zoe was playing IJ4.  Both being in the losers bracket at this point and both being the only females left made this a huge match.  Zoe won 2-0 and Rob battled it out and won the 3rd game to clinch the top female prize to Portland’s own Zoe Vrabel.

We were getting down to the nitty gritty, Mike played STTNG and at one point he looked frustrated but upon looking at the score and watching him make 7 straight shots and easily clinch the victory I was able to walk away to watch the big match-up going on between Trent and Eden on Fathom.  Trent won game one, Eden won game two and Trent put up 4+ mil on game three to seal the deal.  Maka was next on the list, and he still owes Soundcard and myself lots and lots of drinks for setting this one up.  For some reason (only a few still know why) he got to play Trent on Evel Knievel which everyone thought had been removed from the tourney but now was somehow back in.  Well, Maka is a machine, and what do machines do?  They produce! At this point I would like to apologize to Trent’s wife, Karen I believe it is, on behalf of Seattle from Portland.  It’s a shame and disgusting that amongst all our very friendly battles for the title there was a thief that rummaged her purse leaving things everywhere with no wallet to be found.  Her ID’s and credit cards were found later under a booth and I am hoping her flight was not missed because of this.

Zoe’s strong(bow) run finally came to an end on TAF, she won game 1, lost game 2 by a 4 mil bonus with scores in the 80 mils.  Very hard loss, and on game 3 Andy Pettersson got 2 EB’s and was just to much.  Soundcard played Elijah on TOTAN which was described by both as ugly ugly pinball, well more ugly for Seattle than Portland.  So Soundcard’s next opponent was either going to be Deathsave or Cayle.  Slam Tilt beat the guy who owns the Tiger Lounge on Champ Pub to make it to the finals and on game 3 Deathsave was playing split flipper with Cayle on his EB’s on Monster Bash.  So it was Soundcard and Deathsave on Champ Pub, very bad draw for Sound.  He conceded the second game to fellow CFFer stating the only money he had ever put in to CP was the 4 quarters to play those two games.  Also at this time Slam was getting beat by Cayle on MM.

And then there were 4. Deathsave and Andy on Speakeasy could be arguably the closest game of the tournament.  It came down to game 3, Deathsave got screwed by subtract-a-ball but then got 4 jokers to get it back but then lost it again.  He was up 400 thous to under 200.  Only Andy had 2 balls to his 0, Andy also got an add-a-ball and on his final ball he drained 48 thousand short and with 36 thousand bonus….but….he drained down the outlane and that means a free spin which landed him 15 thou and gave him a 3 thousand point win.  So next up Andy v Slam on Surf Champ.  Slam won game one and Andy won game two on his 5th ball double bonus.  It all came down to game 3, after ball 3 Slam had a strong lead, I told Fred all he needed was to get it up to 30 thou and he got it to 40 thou.  And two balls later the place went nuts.  CFF had finally made it to the finals at Shortys and we had our shot to take down Cayle once again.  Everyone got a beer and a smoke and after 5 we all gathered up front around Barracora.  It was going to be a single game match, which means Slam still had to beat Cayle twice.  Cayle opted to go second and watch how it played first.  After ball 1 Cayle had Slam 65 to 52 thousand.  After ball 2 even more bad news  Cayle had him 364 to 113.  But just to refresh your memory, it is a 5 ball game.

On ball 3 I witnessed some of the finest 2 ball multiball flipper skills in my life.  Slam was slaying and he brought his score up to 783,000 by the end of it.  With 2 balls left Cayle fought back and made it close.  Going into Cayle’s 5th and final ball Slam was at 1.3mil to his 1.0 and when the bonus settled Cayle came up short with his 1.2 mil.  Which could mean only one thing.  Cayle’s veins turned to ice.  He chose to go first on this match and tilted his first ball, so things were looking good.  However, I later thought about it and am assuming he tried to tilt it to see what he could get away with.  I also forgot to mention during game one Cayle was slowly mastering the game.  He found the way to lock 1 ball and if his newly plunged ball drained the locked ball would be released essentially giving him an EB.  Oh and mentioning EB’s he figured that one out too.  Slam had no chance. Not even a lucky pecan was going to stop Cayle.  At 3.4mil on ball 2 with the ability to get an EB on every ball, not to mention locking 1 or even 2 to get the 3 ball multiball, the question of whether he would roll it or not was circling the room.  However, to many cheers and some boos, including from myself (for not rolling the machine,) Cayle won his unheard of 3rd straight Shorty’s Annual Pinball Tournament.  Congratulations to Cayle, you truly are a Pinball Wizard. There were many prizes given out.  Zoe won $50 plus a shirt or something.  Noah also got a shirt along with Soundcard who took 5th (one spot shy of cash)  Deathsave took 4th and won a roll of quarters and a hat/shirt.  Andy/birthday boy won something and a shirt but I can’t remember, I think it was $50 though.  Slam Tilt who battled so hard to come up just short won a pair of long john underwear.  For second place.  What a joke! Oh wait it was, he also received $100 and a PBR snowboard.  The long johns are just to keep those skinny little legs warm this winter.  And of course the grand prize.

So in short recap CFF had 3 in the top 5.  PDX probably had 8-10 in the top 25 or 30. Strongbow is good.  Kitty burgers should never be eaten.  Cayle will beat you.  Eden still has lightning bolt burns AND failed to bring me Molson.  For how much we all bitch about Shorty’s and said we will not go back next year, you all know we will. And if you are 135 yards out, use an 8 iron!

Standard Regulation Blog Post

The results are in! After much pinball playing, and water and/or beer drinking, and Dodgers watching, one man and one man alone stood tall on his hindquarters, chin toward the stars, cash in hand, points in process, and said to all us losers, “Wot wot?” And that mensch of a man was… REVTEST. Congrats Jake “Revtest” McGhee, for winning the Standard Regulation Tournament at The Standard (22nd and NE Burnside).

Here are some action shots.

Dropshot, after being relieved of his duties as… I don’t know, what did he used to do again? Run weekly tournaments for a year straight? Something like that, who knows… anyway! here he is enjoying his freedom.

Also in that photo is our trusty laptop, which I just named Reggie, that contains the precious tournament bracketing software; plus Eric, monitoring Dropshot’s progress; and in the background is Zoe, maybe competing against Sauce.

And speaking of Sauce!

The battle rages behind him (l-r: Emma, Revtest, Jeff Weston, Dropshot), but all he’s thinking about is how awesome it is to be alive and playing pinball with pals. What a positive thinker, that dude. Little did he know that in just like an hour or two he would LOSE IN THE FINALS. Ha! Funny to look back now… that smile, once so full of hope.

The final match begins! On Black Rose.

And then it was over.

The final three celebrate their agreeable placements. (oh wait, Sauce is still smiling. I take back – partly – the stuff I may or may not have said about him earlier in this post.) Revtest with 1st, Sauce with 2nd, Dropshot with 3rd.

The place was kind of dark, so I didn’t take many photos. And my camera doesn’t do well with focusing when I use a flash in dark rooms… but rest assured, many other fun/fine folks were there, and they fought valiantly, and lost sadly. Your hero, me, got a respectable 5th place. I only played Twilight Zone and The Getaway all night! But the random game generator-picker for this tournament was my trusty 4-sided die. One can’t argue with that die. But I wish I could have at least played some Dark Knight 2K… oh well.

The machines were in top order. Ricochet’s Jeri was on hand the entire time, so when a ball bounced unexpectedly we were able to immediately whine to her, rather than wait until we were home and on the message board.

Until next time!

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