Rocket Robin, Michigan’s only IFPA-sanctioned round robin pinball tournament, will be returning again on Tuesday, July 9 at 6:30 pm. We will play a round robin tournament or as many rounds of one as time permits (using true Swiss pairings). Everyone plays the entire tournament and you are guaranteed not to play the same person twice! The cost to enter is $10 plus coin drop. This is a charity tournament, so $9 of each entry fee will go to the Capital Area Humane Society and the other $1 will be used to pay the IFPA tithe. As always, there will be themed trophies and plenty of fun for players of all skill levels.
As the LPL is on hiatus during July, this will let everyone scratch the pinball itch. We will also have SummerSlam qualifying open before the tournament.
The twelfth season of the Lansing Pinball League ended with Mike successfully defending his title as LPL champion. Mike became the second-ever LPL champion at the end of Season XI, dethroning 10-season champ Chris (though without actually playing him). Jason and Danny took second and third, respectively. Lupe is the new B division champ, Tyler took second, and league newcomer Jon brought home third.
Second, third, and first place winners (respectively) Jason, Danny, and Mike. I told them the dart board is to represent the target that will now be on their backs for next season.
The night began with the naming of the coveted Most Improved and Worst Score awards. Most Improved uses a metric devised by Joseph and appears on the league spreadsheet, so careful observers already knew it had been won (and, everyone agreed, earned) by Josh. Worst Score was a secret until then, as Joseph and I had to decide how to award it to something other than a slam tilt for the first time. We decided on the person whose score was the greatest number of standard deviations below the mean score on a specific game for the night. This turned out to be new player Jon. I hoped he would take this in the spirit it’s intended, a joking tradition, but since he was new to the league I was a little worried.
Third, second, and first place winners in B (respectively) Jon, Tyler, and Lupe. Jon looks very happy for a guy who also won Worst Score this season…
Unfortunately, Jon was nowhere in sight as the tournament began, so I was unable to give him the ribbon for his dubious accomplishment. Luckily someone had his number and texted him. It turned out he had just gotten home from grocery shopping and had completely forgotten it was league night. Since we were all waiting for a play-in to be resolved in the B division anyway, I put him into the bracket so he could play when he arrived. By the time I saw him, someone had already let him know of his Worst Score win, but I gave him the ribbon. I was relieved that he seemed amused. I said, “Hey, you’re taking home hardware your first season in the league!” Of course, I got to revisit that remark later when Jon won the third place trophy in B division.
Caleb playing during finals. I believe he’s playing against Lexi (blurry in foreground).
I finished in fifth, which required winning a match against Joseph (never a fun time) with a third ball rally on his choice, Scared Stiff. That makes my highest ever finish in the league. I have Pat to thank, in part, because the difference between fifth and sixth in the bracket is just a tiebreaker based on initial seed. As the seventh seed, I was much more likely to go out in the same round as someone whose seed would beat mine. As it happened, Pat and I went out in the same round and he was the ninth seed. He would have been playing in B as the tenth seed had Russell not been absent, so he significantly improved his season finish in the tournament.
Jason wanted in on the photo I was taking to prove Joseph drank a beer at finals night.
Once I was done playing I thought I would relax by getting a beer. It’s a common misconception that I don’t drink. I just don’t usually feel like drinking with pinball, plus I am always fighting with my weight and part of that is a rule against drinking calories (creaming my coffee is an exception). In the early days of the league I would usually have a couple of PBRs during the night, so I wanted to have one for old times’ sake. When I tried to order one the bartender pointed out that pitchers were the night’s special and thus only about $2 more than a glass. I said “Well… OK, I’m sure someone will share it with me.” I walked back to the alcove carrying my pitcher and that made around three different people take turns overreacting to the sight of me holding that much beer. Luckily I had brought several cups with me and poured a couple of cups and topped up other people’s cups. I offered one to Joseph, while emphasizing that he didn’t have to have any. He hesitated for a moment and then said “Sure, I’ll give it a try.” It’s also a common misconception that Joseph is a strict nondrinker. He just, as he puts it, “never got in the habit of drinking.” I also think he just doesn’t enjoy the taste. He does have a glass of wine or beer once in a while if he’s with me and I’m drinking.
Shortly afterward, Lupe came into the alcove and remarked about my beer pitcher, so to deflect the teasing I pointed out Joseph’s glass of beer. She exclaimed, with feeling, “What in tarnation is going on over here by the Tekken machine?”
Pics or it didn’t happen! Or as we used to say in the Usenet days, PPOR. (Ask your parents.)
Lupe was having a good night herself, of course, with her first B division championship. Later on I heard her and Jon discussing their match, both still excited by what was apparently a pretty hard-fought match. I heard Jon say something like, “Then I took you to Smash Town…” Lupe said, “That sounds very inappropriate.” I said, “What the heck is Smash Town?” Jon stammered around trying to think of the name of the game he had in mind and fortunately Lupe was able to fill in “Junk Yard.” Still, I’m really hoping that “taking someone to Smash Town” becomes a new league expression.
Jason playing in the final match.
The night ran long as always, though it could have been worse. It wrapped up at 1 am with Mike winning from the winners’ bracket. Had he lost to Jason, it would have gone into another round, which might have seen us closing the bar out. Instead, he came from behind with a big third ball rally on Game of Thrones. Mike was Player 1, and Jason actually went to shake his hand before playing his own last ball. Mike pointed out that the game wasn’t over. When Jason failed to reach Mike’s score, Mike said, “Now you can shake my hand.”
The SmackDown tournaments by then had long since finished. Derik won the main division (on Scared Stiff) and I won the B division on Metallica. I hadn’t played Metallica since last playing it in league, yet somehow I had a runaway Ball 1 to the tune of well over 100 million that pretty well disheartened the rest of the competitors. I played a Crank It Up on that ball and had it lit again Ball 3 when I drained. That’s a far above normal game for me.
I really need a better flash for Avenue lighting conditions. Anyway, here’s Wonderwall. I mean, Derik with his SmackDown medal.
See you all very shortly at the Zen (split flipper) tournament, beginning at 7 sharp! First person to comment on my late recap has to play single flipper without a partner.
Posted inRecaps|Taggedseason 12|Comments Off on No New Champion for Season XII (Recap for 5/14/19)
April 23 was the eighth and final night of the regular season for Season 12. As such, it would decide who got that juicy top seed position and who would play A and B. We were on the randomly-chosen bank Calliope, the “adventure” bank, sparing us another night of South Park.
The night stands out in my mind because I nearly doubled my previous personal best on Game of Thrones. I got Blackwater going on Ball 1 (contrary to my usual GoT strategy, “just try to lock one ball per ball”), started hammering the hell out of the battering ram and shot whatever else I could. This ended up with my shooting one more Super Jackpot after multiball ended and the announcer voice was giving the final two seconds of a countdown. My group (Lexi, Lupe, and Jon) were all very excited by this. I rarely look at the score while playing as I just find it distracts me, but Lupe blurted out “You’re over a billion!” I was stunned because I have never broken a billion before. My previous best was in the 600 millions somewhere. When Ball 1 ended, Jon began shouting that I was the new queen and that he would gladly bend the knee to me. I think he was more excited than I was! Although I got another Blackwater going on Ball 2, I didn’t do anything like that Ball 1 and ended with “only” about 200 million more on the next two balls. That score earned me top game for the night on Game of Thrones and I can thank it for the fact that I edged out Josh by 1 point for the season. For my troubles I earned the right to play Danny instead of Mike first round. Yay?
Jon playing Indiana Jones.
Speaking of Jon, he told me again how much he loved the Critical Hit format we used for the March Hare Madness tournament and asked when I would run another one of those tournaments. I had to tell him that I was only planning to use that format for March Hare Madness, once a year, since I like to rotate formats for my charity tournaments. He asked if he could borrow my cards to run his own “just for fun” tournament and I said that as long as it was a day I could come that would be just fine. He said that he would also need my help drawing people to the tournament because, as he said, “you know how to get people to come.” I laughed at his overestimation of my sway, but of course I will do what I can. (Our next official charity tournament, by the way, will likely be in July. It will be the annual round robin tournament known as Rocket Robin.)
Lexi and Lupe watch Jon play Game of Thrones.
The other notable occurrence that I’m aware of is that Mike finally took the Grand Champion on Theatre of Magic back from Joseph, who had held it for at least two years. Joseph’s old score was around two and a half billion, and Mike knocked it down with 3.6 billion in his league game. Mike says Joseph gave him a death glare that he’s sorry I didn’t capture with the camera (although I’m not sure I would have wanted my lens shattered).
Lexi and Joseph playing league games.
The Smackdown tournament for the night was on Deadpool, of course, since we are trying to get our league players on the Stern Deadpool Boom leader board. The league has been well represented so far. SummerSlam has subsequently taken over the job of giving Boom entry opportunities, so we will go back to picking a random Smackdown game for finals and Super-Ball/Zen night. Interest in SummerSlam has been surprisingly high already, with a lot of competition for scores, considering that it will run through the start of August. Mike won the night’s Smackdown on Deadpool and Pat came from behind with a strong third ball rally on The Beatles in the Undercard division.
Smackdown champion Mike and Undercard winner Pat.
The league season will be officially over after tonight’s final playoff tournament, with trophies going to the top three in each division. Will we have a third Lansing champion or will Mike defend his title? We’ll soon find out! See you at 7 pm! (And don’t forget you can check the regular season finishing positions on our league’s Google doc, here.)
Posted inRecaps|Taggedrecap, season 12|Comments Off on League Night Recap for 4/23/19
This summer we will be running an extended tournament which we will call the SummerSlam. It is open to all, not just league members, and costs $1 for the entire season of qualifying (this covers the IFPA costs).
This is not a “selfie league” – at least not exactly – because we will require a tournament official to record scores. For the purposes of this tournament, the officials are me, Joseph, and anyone we delegate during extended periods of unavailability (as we will likely be on a summer trip sometime during this period). We are designating seven games and each player’s top score on every one of them will count for qualifying. You may put scores on any of those games anytime a tournament official is on site to record them. We will have intermittent dates, announced on our Facebook group, during which players can come and record scores. Scores may also be recorded during league nights and the summer Rocket Robin tournament. Normal Lansing-modified IFPA rules will apply, except that players may play unlimited extra balls on qualifying games. Death saves, bangbacks, etc., are still disallowed.
The qualifying games are Attack from Mars, Deadpool, Game of Thrones, Iron Maiden, Lord of the Rings, Medieval Madness, and Tales of the Arabian Nights.
Qualifying is open immediately. Playoffs for this tournament will be on August 7. Top 8 (or half of eligible players, defined as those who have played at least 4 of the 7 games) go to semifinals, which will be a three-game match with PAPA scoring (4/2/1/0). The top two from each group then go to finals. This tournament will be eligible for IFPA WPPR points, which advance your state and world rankings in pinball.
Note that this tournament allows for qualifying on Deadpool for Stern’s BOOM! leader board (until July 31).
Posted inNews|Taggedsummerslam|Comments Off on Announcing the Lansing SummerSlam!
April 9th was the seventh league night of the season and, as we have only six banks, I randomly drew from among the sixth to see which one we would be repeating. The answer was Clio, the “Cartoons” bank, which includes The Addams Family, Deadpool, Iron Man, The Simpsons Pinball Party, and South Park. Yes, that’s right. We have had to play South Park three times this season. On the up side, I did not draw Polyhymnia (the other South Park-containing bank) for our final night.
Jason and Mike.
Prior to the start of the night, Joseph had a great game on The Munsters, setting the Grand Champion score as well as every one of the vanity scores (such as the various character champions). For my part, I had a quite-good game on the Smackdown game, Iron Maiden, in the process beating Joseph’s qualifying score by 2 million. Er, sorry, dear?
We had just a little bit of candy left from March Hare Madness. Needless to say, it was gone by the end of the night. No, I take it back. There were about three bird’s egg malt balls left and I ate them. What we did not have is the shirts people won in the drawing at MHM, because they arrived in the mail the day after league. Of course they did. I will bring them to league tomorrow.
Back to South Park: Mike ended up putting a high score on it, which he was suitably ashamed of. So, after years of no one breaking into the ridiculously high default score table, suddenly everyone is doing it. Mike also threatened to start putting my initials in. For those just joining us, this is a reference to Chris’s past habit of putting my initials all over Austin Powers. I think I still nearly owned the high score board on that infernal thing when it left.
Bryan playing in the Undercard division of the Smackdown.
Our Smackdown game was Iron Maiden. What a refreshing change of pace. Don’t worry, though; soon we’ll be back to overusing one specific game for the Smackdown. This time it will be Deadpool, which is receiving its own version of the leader board tournament from Stern. Derik won (and, prompted by me, stated his approval of the “April Showers” motif I had drawn on the medal). Lexi hadn’t competed in a Smackdown finals before, and ended up just below the cut line for the Undercard division. I went to break the bad news to her, but suddenly Joseph decided he didn’t need to play after all, so Lexi got to play. The Undercard was on Ghostbusters. No one ran away with it, but I walked a bit faster and won with something like 30 million.
Derik holds up his Smackdown medal.
Tomorrow (yeah, yeah, actually today) we will have our very last night of the regular season. At the end of the night we will know how many people can qualify for A and who is in (or at least who is guaranteed in if everyone shows up to finals). We will be meeting, as usual, at 7 pm. In the meantime, you can check your current standing in our Google spreadsheet.
Me with my Undercard medal. Photo by Joseph.
Posted inRecaps|Taggedrecap, season 12|Comments Off on League Night Recap for 4/9/19
It was an exciting week-plus for the league as we had League Night #6 on 3/26 followed by March Hare Madness, the Stephen T. Kendrick Memorial Pinball Tournament, on 4/2. (More on that second one in another post, I hope.) We would be playing Polyhymnia, the bank created to account for the fact that Munsters gave us our 26th game, disrupting the plan to have five banks of five. For Polyhymnia, league members got to vote on their favorite “short,” “medium,” and “long” playing games (according to the categories created prior to the start of the season to fill out the initial banks). The chosen games plus The Munsters would make up bank Polyhymnia, whose name means “many praises.” Next season, there will be a new vote, so the bank will probably change.
Undercard competitor Josh plays on Star Trek.
For some reason, enough people voted for South Park to secure it a place in the bank (partly through luck, since I had to randomly break a several-way tie). Worse, some of those demented individuals didn’t even come to the league night where the rest of us had to play it! And worst of all, the random bank I drew for Week 7 (tonight) is Clio, which also has South Park in it. Thanks, guys. The other games chosen for Polyhymnia were Attack from Mars, Indiana Jones, and Iron Maiden.
Speaking of Iron Maiden, my entire group tore up Iron Maiden, with 9-digit scores all around and me earning my first 300+ score ever. Then we all got beaten up by The Munsters. I think no one broke 100M on Ball 1. Bryan asked, “Did someone do something to offend it?”
Bryan goes on an adventure with Indiana Jones.
Attendance was light, a stark contrast with the previous night’s record attendance. We were missing the Chad/Tyler combo and the Caleb/Lupe/Lexi nexus. I believe the K12 schools’ spring break had something to do with this. (College spring break is always a lot earlier.)
At one point Todd asked me why I hated South Park, having noticed all my cranky remarks about it in league Facebook posts and being relatively unfamiliar with it himself. I can’t remember what reason I gave beyond “it’s South Park,” but later in the evening Todd came up to me and declared, “I love South Park!” Apparently it treated him well. I started out bad on it and complained, but Tim said, “Doing well on South Park is a mark of shame.” Tim went on to put up over 300 million and get the first high score entry anyone in the league has ever done (the defaults are ridiculously high). Later, Joseph beat him, and ran over to me pointing at the game angrily and complaining, “Look at this! Look at this!” as though he were dismayed by doing so well on it. I ended up having a not-terrible game after all with a third ball rally. I won the video mode, and without any exaggeration, I was out of breath afterward. (Postscript: Tim went on to take the high score on the game back away from Joseph a few days later. Joseph says he would congratulate Tim, but “it means he played a lot of South Park, or at least a game of South Park.”)
Mike confidently shows off his Tuesday Night Smackdown Undercard medal while Joseph makes sure you can see his green Champion medal over his green shirt.
On Attack from Mars, someone noticed the initials “DAS” and wondered who that is. Mike suggested that Derik had put his real initials in, rather than his standard “RED.” “Derik Allen Schimberg?” someone asked, and this set off a string of guesses: “Alex,” “Arthur,” and so on, until Mike came up with “Derik Amadeus Schimberg.”
Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was Road Show and the undercard was Star Trek. Joseph bulldozed his way to a Smackdown championship medal. The Undercard went to Mike. It was our first time having an upstairs game in Tuesday Night Smackdown in a while, and I think people were relieved to get out of the alcove for a change. (I’m sentimental about that alcove, though. That used to be where all our games were, in the early league days.)
Tonight we’re playing bank Clio, the “cartoons and comics” bank, and will have our Tuesday Night Smackdown bout on Iron Maiden. I hope to see you all at 7 pm (or hopefully a bit earlier so you can start laying the smack down)!
Posted inRecaps|Taggedrecap, season 12|Comments Off on League Night Recap for 3/26/19
The league night of March 12 was our fifth of the season, meaning that Season 12 is officially over the hill. Time to go buy some black balloons from Party City. It was also a surprisingly short night, finishing by 9:30, despite high attendance.
We played bank Calliope, themed to “adventure” (yes, it’s a vague theme). Calliope was the designated backup bank, but we hadn’t needed to switch out any games so far this season. Star Trek: The Next Generation is now in this bank, replacing Getaway, so it made its first appearance as a league game. Originally I had announced that we might not be able to play it, because it was locking balls when lock wasn’t lit and lighting locks when they shouldn’t be. Derik really wanted us to be able to use it, though, so he put in some work on it over the weekend and it was working fine by league night. Actually, I think it did have a malfunction: it was sucking balls to the outlane and refusing to let me do anything. I think Derik needs to give it a stern talking-to. There’s also the weird fact that my ST:TNG score for the night was almost exactly the same as my Game of Thrones score.
Jason plays his Smackdown game while other contenders look on.
Lexi returned to the league after being away a season or so. Reports were that she had some very good games; Lupe told me, “I think she might be a natural.” Our turnout was 19 people, the most this season. If we ever crest 20 we’ll have to take some creative measures, since the league format isn’t designed to accommodate more than that (five games with four players on each one). My plan is to add a sixth game and then take each player’s best five results for the night. That way players who can’t stay for an extra long league night can leave after five games, making their sixth optional.
Derik plays his Smackdown game on Kiss.
I had a great Lord of the Rings game (after complaining heartily about having to play it) but the rest of the night was a downhill slide, starting with a mediocre Game of Thrones and ending with bad games on everything else. Meanwhile I was trying to grade (halfheartedly) and chatting with Lupe about WPPRs, those famous “invisible Internet points.” Actually called World Pinball Player Ranking Points, they are what gives every player who has played in an IFPA sanctioned tournament or league (like ours) a world ranking. They qualify people for the state championship as well as a separate world championship (and the Women’s World Championship, which I played in back in 2017). Love them or hate them, they shape the pinball landscape, especially here in Michigan. Lupe wanted to know more about how the system works and I explained that our Smackdown tournaments are a way of raising the “value” of our league from the IFPA’s perspective, in addition to having become a popular tradition. Lupe was very eager to know where she could go to mine more points. Uh oh.
During the night I posted a poll to determine the composition of our miscellaneous bank. Now that we have 26 games we needed a new bank with our new Munsters plus four more games. The bank is called Polyhymnia (the Muse of religious poetry; her name means “many praises”) and its composition will be decided by a new poll each season. I voted for Indiana Jones, which we were about to play as part of bank Calliope, and then I wished I hadn’t because I played it awfully. I could have changed my vote but I decided to stick with it and it won a spot. I hope I don’t regret that tonight. For some reason, several sick so-and-sos voted for South Park and we’ll have to play that too. (I think one of those sadists was Lupe, who isn’t even going to be there tonight because she’s on vacation!)
We had a Smackdown game on Kiss, with the Undercard playing off on Deadpool. Danny won the Smackdown and Tim was the Undercard winner.
Tim is ecstatic over his Undercard victory on Deadpool.The Smackdown finalists Mike, Danny (the champion), Derik, and Jason. Mike looks like he’s aiming a bit low. Just saying.
I’ll be seeing you all tonight at 7 pm for our sixth meeting of the season!
Posted inRecaps|Taggedrecap, season 12|Comments Off on League Night Recap for 3/12/19
It’s almost time for another league meeting and that means time for me to finally post the recap for the last one. Our fourth meeting of Season 12 was the largest in recent memory, with 18 participants. (And that’s not even counting Danny, who showed up late and played his games by himself.) Despite this, we managed to keep things moving and still finished at something close to a reasonable time of night. I’m a little worried. If we end up with more than 20 people showing up at once we’re going to have an issue! Still, I must say that the growth of the league in that direction would be a great problem to have.
Derik makes a quick fix to the catapult on Medieval Madness so it can be our Smackdown arena for the night.
In addition to a good turnout by our regulars (minus Chad and Tyler), we had a surprise guest appearance by Ann Arbor residents (and AA Pinball Pete’s tournament directors) Audrey and Justin. The league also welcomed back Lexi, who played a few meetings in a past league season, and Todd, who hadn’t played in league before but made his first Lansing appearance at the Munsters launch party.
Our bank for the night was Urania, themed to “stars.” This bank contains neither Star Trek: The Next Generation nor Star Wars. Originally, the bank was Star Trek, Junk Yard, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Elvis, and Star Wars. Star Wars and Getaway left the Avenue (temporarily for Star Wars, according to Derik) and we gained Kiss and Star Trek: TNG. In order to follow the long/medium/medium-or-short/short playing game rule we’ve been using for banks, we had to slot Kiss in for Star Wars, and Star Trek: TNG went into bank Calliope (“adventure”) to replace Getaway. It still works thematically, just not quite as neatly as if Star Trek: TNG replaced Star Wars.
As I was getting ready with my paperwork and checking people in, a woman sat down at the big table upstairs and asked if it was OK that she was sitting there. Of course I didn’t need the whole table so I said it was fine. After a while her curiosity got the better of her and she asked what I was organizing. I explained that it was a pinball league, and she was delighted by this idea and began asking many, many questions about how it worked. Each answer led to another question until the next thing I knew, I was explaining the IFPA ranking system and the state championship. I learned her name was Julia, and by the time I finished talking to her, the rest of the league had clustered around and I think people were assuming she was a new league member. She said she couldn’t because she had a prior engagement for the evening, but she asked to be added to the Facebook group. I hope we’ll be seeing more of her as it’s great to find someone so enthusiastic about what we do in our little league.
Various league members playing upstairs.
In my group, Derik blew up Star Wars (getting to Kobayashi Maru early on) and had a pretty darned good run on Junk Yard too. This led to Mike, midway through his own high scoring game on JY, coming over and wanting to see Derik’s score so he knew what he needed to beat. Ultimately he did beat Derik’s score, about 54M to 41M. Mike is getting very concerned about his standing this season.
The Smackdown game, despite Tim asking if we could “pretty please” play an upstairs game this time, ended up being Medieval Madness. Blame the random number generator. I’m sure no one was thrilled given that MM has been an Undercard game already at least once this season. When we first arrived, Joseph started playing Medieval Madness and quickly discovered that the catapult wasn’t firing balls out, which spoiled a pretty good game he was having. I had actually drawn another Smackdown game when Derik walked up and I told him of the problem. I made sure he knew this was just for his information; he’s not at work during league and I wouldn’t ask him to make a fix other than getting a ball unstuck. Nevertheless, he went out to his car and came back with his tools to do a little soldering. In a short time Medieval Madness was back in action. I was glad no one noticed it was temporarily out of commission because everyone surely would have started lobbying me hard to pick a new game!
Lupe battling the genie in Tales of the Arabian Nights.
Medieval stayed in fine health throughout qualifying, and at the end of the night, Josh was the Smackdown champion. Lupe took second, which I think was her highest Smackdown finish yet. Come to think of it, my third might have been my best Smackdown game. It surely helps that Danny was too busy playing his late league games to get involved this time. Over on the Undercard, Mike took first on Scared Stiff. Joseph got second, despite his valiant attempt to win by looping the right ramp approximately 37 times. At one point he emitted a plaintive little “Help?” as he was compelled, as if by an occult hand, to shoot the loop again.
It should be noted that Audrey was actually the second highest qualifier for the Smackdown (after Derik) but had to leave before we could start the tournament. Lexi would have qualified for the Undercard, but also had left. Lupe was disappointed on her behalf. Now that I have submitted the results, Lexi is going to get her very own IFPA player number. This is her first officially submitted tournament, because when she played in the league she didn’t attend enough meetings to “count” for IFPA purposes (they require any players who did not play at least half the qualifying games for a tournament or league to be removed before official results are submitted).
Josh shows off his Smackdown medal.
Tomorrow (or today, depending on perspective) we will be having our fifth meeting, meaning we have crested the halfway point of the season. Keep in mind that members must attend four of the eight league meetings to qualify for finals, so this is the last chance for new members to join and still play in the final tournament. New players are always welcome, though, regardless of whether they are able to play in finals.
Cue the cracks about how I’m always “right on time” with my league updates. Done? OK, let’s move on…
Jason shows his moves.
Our third league night of the season was a snowy night. So much so that we worried Mike wouldn’t make it (but of course he did, the thought of missing two meetings was too much!) and Todd (a prospective new player whom we met at the Munsters launch party) sent apologies and a promise to come next time. We did have a new player this time, Jon, who has recently moved to the area from New York, where he lived in Brooklyn and Queens. Jon has previously played in a team league in NYC as well as the Sunshine Laundromat league. I chatted with him a bit about Brooklyn as my brother has lived there for around 15 years now.
Derik fills new player Jon in on the league gossip.
When I was having people draw for groups for the night, I came up one slip short, and realized there was one more person present than I had accounted for on my list. I was being driven crazy trying to figure out how the count was wrong, when suddenly I realized who I forgot to count: myself. It was also a fairly cramped situation trying to get league started because they were in the midst of noisily building a bar upstairs, plus I was told we could not have the “good table” (you know the one) because a D&D group wanted it. As a result I had to set up operations in the alcove. I got the groups sorted out and was just sending people off to their games when the aforementioned Jon arrived. I added him to my own group, which is lucky for him, because we were traveling behind Danny’s group and got to farm his credits all night, making for a cheap session.
Unfortunately I had to work while trying to keep up with league. I had my laptop with me and was grading student reflection papers online in between balls. At one point I thought (it turned out incorrectly) that a student had plagiarized something, and that got me temporarily so upset that I tanked on Medieval Madness as a result. I swear that’s why.
Pat shows off his first Smackdown medal, for the Undercard competition on Medieval Madness.
I was due to have a sleep study later in the week, and began explaining to my group what that would entail. Everyone agreed that no one would be able to sleep normally under those conditions. I can now report back: I didn’t. I got probably an hour of sleep over the ten hours they gave me to try to do it, falling far short of the minimum time for the test to mean anything, so it was a big expensive waste. I’m about as happy about this as you might guess.
The Tuesday Night Smackdown was held on our brand new Munsters, which really and truly was drawn by the random number generator. I’m not sure everyone believed me about that. The smack was laid down by Mike in A division and by Pat in B division (his first hardware, locally at least). The B division played on Medieval Madness, which (to no one’s delight) has been drawn as tonight’s Smackdown game.
Smackdown finalists Mike (winner), Bryan, Tim, and Josh (who apparently didn’t want to quit eating).
League night is, of course, tonight at 7 and I hope to once again see all of you there.
The annual Stephen T. Kendrick Memorial March Hare Madness tournament returns to the Avenue Cafe in Lansing on April 2nd, this time with a new format. This year it will be a Critical Hit match-play tournament. To the best of my knowledge, this will be the first Critical Hit tournament in Michigan. 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.
For the latest updates and discussion of the tournament, visit our Facebook event page.
