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)
Posted inNews|Taggedseason 14|Comments Off on Tentative schedule for Season 14
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).
Posted inNews|Comments Off on News flash: League resuming soon
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.
Hello all you pinballers out in Lansing League Land. I hope you’ll forgive me for the brevity of this recap for the league night of 2/11, as I was first under the weather and then had a huge pileup of exam grading, all of which has left me short of time. Last time we played the bank Ceryneian Hind, which commemorates the labor in which Hercules (or Heracles if you’re old school) had to chase down and catch a deer sacred to Artemis. I went into the attic and dug out a pair of home-made Bambi ears that I wore to a costume party wedding reception (the theme was “The Movies”) back in the mid-2000s. I already have a deer hat (famously used as the sorting hat for league) and a pair of light-up antlers with ears lying around, but I thought I had to be a hind specifically, which is a female deer, so I couldn’t wear antlers. I later learned that a peculiar characteristic of the Ceryneian Hind in mythology is that she had antlers. Oops.
Joseph asks Guardians what its deal is, anyway.
I went to both school and league despite being well into coming down with some sort of cold (which later turned quite nasty). I desperately wanted to avoid giving it to anyone, so I had planned to wipe down the flipper buttons and lockdown bar after each of my balls using some sanitizer wipes the upstairs bar had lying around. Unfortunately this backfired almost immediately. On Star Trek, it started registering switches as I wiped over the flipper button, then eventually fired the ball into play for no apparent reason. Our new player Jay rushed to take control of his ball, but unfortunately he drained quickly and the phantom switch hits had killed his ball saver. I called Joseph over for a ruling as I thought I might have to be DQ’d for playing out of turn since it may have been my actions that caused the ball to go into play. Joseph studied the rule book for a long time before coming over and saying that he believed it to be “accidental interference” rather than playing out of turn since it could not be expected that touching the flippers would launch the ball. We also could not be sure that touching the flipper was related to the switch hits because it seemed to continue after I was no longer touching the game at all. Joseph ruled simply “play on,” meaning I may yet avoid getting the “worst score” award again this season.
Brian trying for the Smackdown championship on Jurassic Park.
In any case, I was afraid to touch the game after my ball after that, so I switched to rubbing my own hands down with the sanitizer wipes after that. This turned out not to be the wisest idea either since that night I looked down at my hands and suddenly realized my knuckles had a red rash all over them and one spot was even cracked open and bleeding. Yes, I gave myself a chemical burn using surface sanitizer to disinfect my own hands. I really hope no one got the damn cold after that. I ended up getting so sick by Wednesday night that I cancelled my Thursday classes.
This league night saw the return of a long-ago familiar face, Rick of Nomad Kitchen (the bar’s old restaurant). We used to all love his fries with Nomad Sauce! Apparently Rick is going to start playing in the league. I can’t recall if he ever played in league before (in the Matt days) or just played with us casually. I know a couple of times he ran his own equivalent of Tuesday Night Smackdown before we started having those, which awarded a free burger from the kitchen as a prize.
Donny proudly showing his first pinball medal.
We had a lot of other stuff going on this night including qualifying for Destrier of Death (the Black Knight tournament designed mainly to let people put authorized scores up on Stern’s leader board), the Stranger Things launch party, and the usual Tuesday Night Smackdown which was on Jurassic Park. I put my two Stranger Things scores in knowing I would not have time on the next league night, and I ended up ranting much too angrily afterward about how I never should have tried to do scores while sick (they were not good). This broke my New Year’s resolution not to get angry about pinball, which I have mostly been pretty good about, but I think being sick tends to make me more emotional and my bad behavior can be forgiven. Joseph did a new leader board-eligible score on Black Knight, though it has since been knocked totally off the board by a last minute rush of high scores in a tournament that got barely any attention for most of its run. Mike has also lost his first place standing and is in the middle of the pack.
Danny with his Smackdown medal.
The Tuesday Night Smackdown was on Jurassic Park and our champion was Danny. Joseph had designed the medals since I forgot to do it before work, and I think he put candy hearts on them. Donny won the B division on Guardians of the Galaxy and was well pleased to get his plastic medal since it was his first pinball hardware. I definitely remember how excited I was to win my first trophy (a Zen tournament, with Joseph) and in fact it is still in pride of place on my mantel.
Tonight we will be vying for the Girdle of Hippolyta, commemorating the time Hercules persuaded the Queen of the Amazons to give him her magic girdle (which unfortunately ended in tragedy due to a misunderstanding of his intentions by the other Amazons). We will also have Stranger Things qualifying before league and finals afterward, plus a Smackdown on Star Trek: The Next Generation. See you all soon!
Posted inRecaps|Taggedrecap, season 14|Comments Off on League Night Recap for 2/11/19
Update: March Hare Madness is cancelled and will be rescheduled when conditions allow.
The annual Stephen T. Kendrick Memorial March Hare Madness tournament returns to the Avenue Cafe in Lansing on March 18, and we will be bringing back our popular Critical Hit format. What are rabbits known for? No, the other thing. Magic! Critical Hit is a format that uses a deck of (IFPA-sanctioned!) cards that allow players to “cast spells” during the tournament. Spells that, for instance, allow you to force everyone in your group to replay a game, or make a game disappear for the whole rest of the tournament, or let you shake a game in an attempt to give someone else tilt warnings. Players will all be dealt two random cards to start, and additional cards may be earned by meeting specific goals during the course of play.
We will play four-player (or in some cases three-player) rounds with Pinburgh (3/2/1/0) scoring from 6:30 until 10:00 pm. After the last round, the top four scoring players will move on to a three-game final round. Players are asked to be on-site by 6:20 to register as we will begin promptly at 6:30.
To borrow from Watership Down: “be cunning and full of tricks” and you will carry home one of this year’s custom rabbit-themed trophies, one for each of the four finalists. This tournament honors my lost rabbit Stephen, a giant among rabbits, and thus it benefits the rabbit rescue from which I adopted him, Rabbit and Small Animal Rescue (RASA Rescue) of Westland, a registered nonprofit charity. The cost of the tournament is $10 plus coin drop. $9 goes directly to RASA Rescue and $1 covers our IFPA fees. Trophy costs and the cost of the Critical Hit deck are donations by the tournament organizers.
Posted inNews|Taggedmarch hare madness|Comments Off on The madness returns to March Hare Madness!
