You heard right: we’re getting a new Stern Jurassic Park (Pro). And that means a launch party. As usual, it will be a Lansing Themed Launch Partytm. Often imitated but never duplicated, our launch parties select five games (including the launch game) that fit a theme. Competitors are given two qualifying attempts on each game, with the top three attempts per player (one maximum per game) counting. We use linear (100/99/98) scoring. The top eight* qualifiers will move on to semifinals and the top two from each semifinal group will move to finals.
Qualifying will be from 4-8, with scorekeeper qualifying permitted from 3-4. Semifinals will start at 8 for those who qualify.
The winner will receive a Jurassic Park translite and the official Stern Grand Champion plaque. Other finalists will receive unofficial plaques.
*If fewer than 16 people are IFPA-eligible (defined as having played at least two different games in qualifying), finals will be structured as follows:
14-15 eligible players: 7 players qualify for semis (groups of 3 and 4)
12-13 eligible players: 6 players qualify for semis (groups of 3)
10-11 eligible players: 5 players qualify for semis (top 2 qualifiers get a bye, the other 3 have a semifinal round)
9 or fewer eligible players: 4 players qualify for finals (there are no semifinals).
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Season 13 kicked off on June 11 with the largest league night I can remember happening in a long while. Nineteen people were in attendance, including two new members: Bryan’s father Jim, and Lexi’s fiancé Nick. Given that we were missing a few regulars (Jason, Chad, Tyler, Dan, and Russell), it’s possible we will cross the magic 20-person threshold that will force us to alter our league format sometime this season. We have a plan for when that happens.
Lupe playing Kiss, one of the night’s league games, while Josh plays his league game of Iron Maiden.
Chris has returned after a season away, perhaps hoping to regain his title as the league champion. Chris was the sole league champion for the first 10 seasons before having the title taken from him by Mike in Season 11. Mike defended his title in Season 12, but the competition is expected to be fiercer than ever this season.
Sadly, this was the last league night for Lupe and Caleb, who will be moving to Seattle soon. They are unable to attend the June 25 league night but will be attending Rocket Robin, so we didn’t have to say farewell quite yet, but it was still sad to realize it was their last regular night with the league. I am sure I speak for everyone when I say that they really brought energy to the league and it won’t be the same without them.
Lupe ending a ball on Kiss and not looking too pleased about it.
Joseph and I revised the banks for the season, partly to try different thematic arrangements that work with the new games that have been brought to the Avenue, and partly to account for new data from last season that guides our designation of games as short, medium, or long-playing. We try to put one short game, two short-to-medium games, and two long games in every bank. I decided to keep the “Muse” names for the banks this season, though we lost Thalia (the Muse of comedy) and gained Melpomene (the Muse of tragedy), and others had their specific games changed up.
Smackdown champion Josh and Undercard winner Heather. I was so glad it was warm enough to wear my new dress. Photo by Joseph.
SummerSlam continues apace, with Lansing competitors still well-represented on Stern’s Deadpool Boom! tournament leader board. SummerSlam has turned out to be far more popular and taken more seriously than I anticipated, which is amusing but a little overwhelming. We are also still having Tuesday Night Smackdown every league night. On our first league night it was Game of Thrones, which certainly delighted Lupe (though it ended up not treating her very well). Bryan qualified for the A division Smackdown finals for the first time, which I think was his first time playing in the finals of any tournament. Josh ended up as the winner, and I won the Undercard division. I think that is my third or fourth Undercard win, though I have still never won the Smackdown champion medal.
The next league night is tonight, June 25, of course. We will be taking July off due to the organizers being very busy with other pinball tournaments, and will resume our normal league schedule in August. There will also be a charity tournament on July 9, the fourth annual Rocket Robin round-robin tournament, supporting the Capital Area Humane Society.
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The new Zen Champion team, Dan and Tim, in front of the final game of the tournament, Junk Yard.
Josh and Pat playing split flipper.
Tim and Dan became the new Zen Champions at Super-Ball XII, the league’s traditional post-season split flipper tournament, on May 28. The champs came out of the “loser’s” bracket to defeat the winner’s bracket finalists, Joseph and me, in four straight games. It was a revenge match, since we were the ones who put them into the loser second chance bracket. This year’s Team of Destiny came about through serendipity. We had an odd number of participants until the last minute when Dan made his usual fashionably-late appearance. He ended up paired with Tim, who was at that point the only person who had yet to lock in a partner. This was a lucky break for them but also for me, because it saved me from having to figure out how to deal with an odd number as happens more often than not (or so it seems, anyway). It was also a lucky break for the league as a whole, since an odd number means a longer tournament. We end up with someone having to double up on teams, which causes more waiting.
Despite Mike and Bryan teaming up again to attempt to defend their title from Super-Ball XI, the erstwhile Zen Champions bowed out in semi-finals after an upset against the top-seeded Dream Team of Derik and Danny.
Mike and Bryan playing against me and Joseph on Ghostbusters. Guess who picked that game.
The trophies, as with league finals, were supplied once again by Prime Time Awards in Frandor. Back in Season I, Matt asked them to “just give us the cheesiest generic trophy you have” for the Zen tournament. They have supplied something to fill that role each season, though the exact topper has varied. I have just been calling them up and saying “we want all the same trophies with the new season on them” each season since I have taken over the league. This season’s Zen trophy was the nicest one yet, as they took the trouble to put the league’s logo on it at no additional cost and without being asked for it specifically. I have had very good experiences with Prime Time Awards in terms of both cost and service.
We also had a Tuesday Night Smackdown tournament on Star Trek and an Undercard bout on Metallica Indiana Jones. Mike had his consolation by winning the Smackdown medal and I won the Undercard after putting up something like 150M on ball 1, which effectively iced the rest of the players. coming from behind, causing Derik to yell “uncle!” when I passed his score. (Joseph pointed out that I had mixed up two different Undercard wins when I thought of Metallica.)
Mike and Heather showing their medals for winning the Smackdown and the Undercard, respectively. Photo by Joseph.
Season XIII of the venerable Lansing Pinball League (the third-oldest league in Michigan) will begin on Tuesday at 7. We may need to switch back to 7:30 beginning at the end of August, but I will make an announcement about that when it gets closer to that date. We will continue to play the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month, but we will be having a hiatus in July (during which the Rocket Robin charity tournament will take place on July 9).
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
