The Lansing Pinball League will be hosting a launch party for The Mandalorian. Note: the finals have been rescheduled to May 3. This tournament is free except for coin drop and open to all. It will use a “selfie” qualifying method requiring a photo of your scores (but it does not have to include your face). Qualifying score photos may be posted to the Lansing Pinball League Facebook group or emailed to heather@lansingpinleague.com. Qualifying scores should be submitted within 24 hours.
Qualifying will be on a bank of 5 games and use 100,99,98… scoring. The best 3 of each player’s games (max one per game) will count toward their score. The game bank is:
The Mandalorian Star Wars Star Trek Star Trek: The Next Generation Attack from Mars
If any of the above games (except The Mandalorian) has to be removed from the tournament for any reason, the substitute game will be Junk Yard. (Players may record scores on Junk Yard just in case, but they will only count if the game ends up getting used.)
The qualifying will begin immediately and end at 7 pm on May 3. At this time there will be a match play finals using slaughter seeding, three games per round with 4,2,1,0 scoring, two people moving on from each group. Top seed will choose game or position, then 2nd seed, then 3rd seed.
“Significant ties” will be broken by a game of The Flip Side, except for a tie for first place, which will be broken by a game on The Mandalorian. “Insignificant ties” will be broken by highest qualifying score, then second highest qualifying score, and so on.
In accordance with public health guidelines, while COVID transmission continues to be rated as “substantial” in Ingham County, we are requiring league members to wear face masks at all times while not actively eating and drinking. This will continue until further notice. Please don’t forget to bring a mask when you come to league night!
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Mike and Josh, Season XIII Super-Ball Zen Champsions, successfully defended their title in the Super-Ball XIV championship Tuesday night. Around 11:30 we wrapped up after a second round between me and Joseph (coming up from the second chance bracket) and Mike and Josh (defeated once after coming through the winner bracket). The last round started with Mike/Josh’s choice GoT. Joseph and I managed to get from about 30 million to the mid-500 millions on ball 3, but Josh and Mike were in the high 500 millions. It was a truly high-powered game for split flipper. Then again on our choice, The Beatles, we were only at about 1 million to their 5+ million going into Ball 3 but managed to catch up to about 3.5 million before draining to end the game, match, and tournament.
A couple of old-time but rarely-playing regulars made appearances. Chris and Maribeth showed up to play as a team, although they are not making any promises to play in the league the rest of the season because of family commitments. We ended up with an odd number of people and so were able to convince Russell (who usually doesn’t like to play tournaments) to team up with Derik. Jimmy, who played in the league a few years back, also played, paired with Eldritch.
Normally we have the Super-Ball at the end of the season as a kind of post-season party, but I figured to do it mid-season during July to use those dates on something the IFPA didn’t have to sanction (since the IFPA would be resuming sanctioning again in August). Unfortunately, the Avenue had to close unexpectedly on the intended Tuesday so it got postponed until Tuesday, August 3, which would have otherwise been an off week for the league. We will resume the regular season tonight, August 10.
Since IFPA sanctioned events could not be held yet in July, we had a “just for fun” tournament as a way to ease back into league activities. It took the form of a six-hole mini pingolf tournament, using games that had been with the league the longest as the theme. Joseph and I chose the objectives together. Some had been used in previous pingolf tournaments, and some were new, but we thought they were all on the easy side. In fact, my concern was that the experienced players would find them too simple.
Derik, Joseph, and Russell in the alcove.
As Joseph likes to say, “A pingolf objective can never be too easy.” Everyone was happy to see old league friends again, and also very angry at pinball. I had expected several of the top players to get identical low scores on the course, so I made plans to have a final only among the people tied for first. Joseph contributed a great idea for having an unusual pingolf finals format which I was really looking forward to implementing. Unfortunately, the rules I made said that finals would be played between “everyone tied for first” which I assumed would be at least two to three people. Pingolf with three balls usually ends up with a lot of ties.
Josh trying for Tiger Loops.
Instead, the scores on the course were mostly not very good, except for Joseph’s. As the evening wore on I started realizing Joseph was probably going to win outright without a finals because no one was going to tie his score of 13. When past league champion Chris, who made a surprise appearance, turned in a score of 19, I knew Joseph probably had it sewn up and I actually started giving him a hard time for winning because I was worried everyone would be disappointed. It was closer than I realized at first, because Derik and Danny were only one point behind (or ahead), but the rules of the tournament resulted in Joseph going home with the plaque without any playoffs. In retrospect, I should have had a guaranteed playoff. I will revise that if we ever do a mini pingolf tournament again.
Danny playing Indiana Jones. He was the only person to get a hole in one on this hole.
I think it did end up being about the right amount of pinball for our first night back together, even if some people did probably hate me for the pingolf objectives. Medieval Madness (start any three-ball multiball) proved the easy objective overall, based on the number of people receiving 4 (worst score) versus 1. The hardest was Tales of the Arabian Nights (six Tiger Loops): 11 people got a 4, and no one got a 1. Next was Indiana Jones (collect Dogfight hurryup) with 11 people getting 4 and one person getting 1. Monster Bash (start Mosh Pit Multiball) also had no holes-in-one.
Final scores for Silver Balls in July are below.
Joseph (13)
Danny C. (14)
Derik (14)
Jason (16)
Russell (17)
Josh (18)
Chris (19)
Donny (20)
Joe (20)
Mike (20)
Heather (21)
Travis (22)
Bryan (23)
Dan N. (23)
Maribeth (24)
Shylia (24)
Joseph shows his Silver Balls in July plaque. I edited the usual Silver Balls mascot (Rudolph “Special When Lit”) to have him drinking a mai tai.
We will be having our Zen Tournament mid-season for a change, in order to try to catch up and finish Season 14 as soon as we can. We were going to have it in July since it doesn’t need to be sanctioned anyway, but there was an emergency that resulted in The Avenue being closed on our intended date. We will instead be having the Zen Tournament tomorrow, August 3, at 7 pm. Season 14 will resume regular play on August 10.
This is an important announcement. The Avenue is going to be closed for two days due to giving the staff bereavement time related to the death of someone close to many of them. Thus Super-Ball XIV “The Zen Tournament” will be RESCHEDULED for August 3 at 7 pm. We will still resume the normal Season 14 session on 8/10 (second Tuesday) as scheduled.
March 10, 2020 was the fifth meeting of Season 14. As part of our “Labors of Hercules” themed season, we played bank “Stymphalian Birds” which was Attack from Mars, Elvira’s House of Pancakes Horrors, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, and Iron Maiden.
Jason shows off his Smackdown champion medal.
Danny won the night, Derik took second, and Mike took third. Danny is also in the lead for the current season, with Mike 17 points behind him. On the other end of the spectrum, Joseph reports that he had one of his all time worst games of Attack from Mars, in which he did not so much as topple a single saucer. For full results, check the standings document that Joseph keeps updated for us.
The Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on The Simpsons Pinball party. Jason “the Mag” won the top award (a “medal” decorated with a shamrock) and Travis won the undercard bout.
Travis with his Smackdown undercard medal.
Those of us who stuck around late got to meet meet a surprise visitor, Mike, one of the owners of Pinball Pete’s, and play some games with him. When we were introduced he made a wry remark about how we weren’t really supposed to shake hands anymore.
The night had a strange feeling to it, a sense of being moments ahead of a storm. At the time we were still expecting to have the quarterly charity tournament, March Hare Madness, on March 18. But the first cases of what everyone was still just calling “the coronavirus” had just been reported in Michigan. Before I left, I stopped in the bathroom and washed my hands much more thoroughly than normal, the way that has since become habitual – in other words, almost as well as Joseph has always washed his hands.
Season 14 will resume on August 10, but July will taken up by a couple of unofficial meetings in place of league nights. We will be meeting tonight at 7 for a non-season “just for fun” mini pingolf tournament, Silver Balls in July, and for an early Super-Ball XIV (Zen tournament) on July 24. See you all (I hope) soon.
League activities will resume in one week! Schedule is as follows (all nights start at 7 pm):
Pre-season play July 13: Silver Balls in July mini-tournament (non-IFPA) July 27: Super-Ball XIV: The Zen Tournament
Season play* Aug. 10: League night #6 Aug. 24: League night #7 Sept. 14: League night #8 Sept. 28: Season 14 finals *tentative (final decision to be made after Super-Ball XIV)
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Hello, everyone. I miss you, and league. I’m overdue to give you a “State of the League” address and so this is it.When I took on directing the league, I thought the biggest ethical issues I would face would involve making rulings and dealing with the IFPA. I didn’t have the slightest idea I would end up in a situation that would require me to seriously consider broader social responsibilities. Unfortunately, that’s what happened, and it has been a very difficult and stressful position to be in. As an ethicist I’m very aware of the significance of my decisions and this has compelled me to spend a lot of time analyzing them and talking them through with my most trusted sounding board and league assistant, Joseph. Keep in mind that my concern is not primarily with the safety of vaccinated people but with the social responsibility of encouraging group gatherings at which I cannot be certain all participants are vaccinated.
Earlier this year we (Joseph and I) had arrived at the idea that if either of two conditions happened we would restart league. The conditions were A: 65% vaccinated in Ingham county or B: daily new infections of around 1 per 100K per day in Ingham county. Both of these things at one point seemed quite achievable and likely to happen by mid-summer. Unfortunately, A now seems further away than I could have imagined and B is no longer projected (unless a very unlikely shift in behavior happens).
There’s a lot I could say here but in the interest of keeping this relatively short I’ll cut to this. Despite the practical impossibility of reaching the benchmarks I had originally chosen, it does appear that right now the new cases per day in the county are declining sharply. Should this continue and should they stabilize at a relatively low level (e.g. under 5 per 100K per day), I would anticipate restarting league after the state’s broad reopening date of July 1, with the caveat that league could be suspended again if trends change. This would make our first meeting July 13 (second Tuesday of the month).
There’s some further news. As some of you may have heard, the IFPA has announced that sanctioning will resume on 8/1. This was a surprise as most people figured they would not be sanctioning anything for the rest of this year. Critically for us, they have stated that while no sanctioned play can be recognized between 3/17/20 and 7/31/21, leagues that had an interrupted season ARE allowed to resume and finish their season. In light of this, I am planning for us to finish Season 14, which we had just finished Week 5 of. However, we will have to wait until August to keep its official status. Since we are figuring on starting up again on July 13 (2nd Tuesday in July), my proposal is to have two meetings of warm-up tournaments. These will be unofficial, off-season, bragging-rights-only tournaments. One possibility, if it doesn’t seem too out of keeping with tradition, is to have the second meeting of July be Super-Ball XIV (the “Zen tournament” for Season 14) since that’s an unofficial league tournament anyway. We would have to base seeding on the partial season but I don’t think that’s a big deal. This would help with catching up since we are going to have issues getting back to our usual summer/fall and winter/spring league schedule (which may not seem like a big deal but it facilitates having a break around the holidays when most people are busy, as well as one during the summer).
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Our fourth league night of the season, taking us to the halfway point of the regular season and qualifying for finals, was on the bank titled “Girdle of Hippolyta”: Tales of the Arabian Nights, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Addams Family, Lord of the Rings, and Terminator 3. It was an action-packed night because we also had a Tuesday Night Smackdown on Star Trek: The Next Generation and the conclusion of our launch party for Stranger Things.
Josh leaning in for a picture to avoid disrupting a game Bryan was playing on Kiss.
I had an awful night. I don’t know if it’s because of coming right from school without warming up or what, but I have had a pretty weak season and this was more of the same. The less said about my Terminator 3 game the better, especially since the time it would take to say something about it would be longer than my game. But it was an up night for the league in general, specifically for attendance. We were just about to break into groups when a new player, Morgan, timidly stepped forward and asked if it was too late to play. Morgan’s last minute entry put us up to 20 people. I yelled, “Oh no! The dangerous number!” If we ever get more than 20, we will have to make an ad hoc change to our league format. We do have plans for how to deal with it if it happens, but it will be a landmark for the league. We also had a new player named Trevor, who has played a bit in Grand Rapids before. Trevor dropped a score in our just-about-to-close Stranger Things tournament when he arrived, and it got him into the top eight for the ladder tournament!
Pat shows off his excellent-crafted Tuesday Night Smackdown medal.
It wasn’t as long or congested a night as I expected for having our maximum capacity, which is a good thing because afterward we had to run the Stranger Things launch party. We did a ladder of the top eight, eliminating two per round and playing one game with the top four. Josh won the launch party, the first one he’s won. He was very excited to win it and said if he could choose any launch party to win, he would want it to be this one. He took home the plaque and the translite.
The following Sunday we had playoffs for Destrier of Death, the Black Knight tournament. Only Joseph and I showed up for what was supposed to be a four-player finals. We played one game and after my ball 3, I was losing 4 million to 6 million. Joseph decided to play his ball 3 anyway, so I stood there teasing him and posting updates to Facebook about how he was doing victory laps on me. He ended up with about 140 million and was on the verge of starting the Black Knight 2000 mode when he drained.
My B division medal, and my face, especially my glasses. I really love my glasses.
We also had the Tuesday Night Smackdown on Star Trek: The Next Generation at the same time as the Stranger Things launch. The A division ended up having to restart their game because TNG went haywire (so, you know, normal for TNG) and I randomly drew Junk Yard. So this was the first time the Smackdown champion won on something other than the Smackdown game itself. Pat won the medal; I drew a bunny on it to signify “leap day.” To my surprise, I won the B division tournament on Theatre of Magic. It hadn’t treated me well of late, but this time the left loop strategy came through for me.
Then on the off-week Tuesday we had the finals for the Super Tournament season known as Royal Rumble. It was another ladder tournament, but open to all comers, and I managed to climb up through two games to turn my fifth seed into a third place finish. I felt very good about that, especially a big rally on Kiss which ended when someone pointed out that I was already safe. Mike won the final game against Danny by choosing Star Trek: The Next Generation, which Danny was less than thrilled about. He had a few choice words to say about TNG, but I’ll spare Joseph by not writing them here.
Tonight we will be fighting the Stymphalian Birds and playing a Tuesday Night Smackdown on The Simpsons Pinball Party. See you soon!
The Avenue Cafe (a Stern Army location) will be hosting the Locking with Dinosaurs tournament, finals to be held on July 1. Qualifying will be on our Jurassic Park Pro and scores will be taken any night Lansing Pinball League is meeting. Other qualifying opportunities may be available and will be announced in advance in our league’s Facebook group. Each player’s best game will count, and finals will consist of a three-game match among the top four qualifiers.
For the latest discussion of this tournament, join our league Facebook group. For more information, contact Heather.
