Our last league night was actually held only one week after the one before it, due to wanting to leapfrog over Halloween. I was at the bar on Halloween myself, and I can attest that we would not want to have had league night that night. Despite it being a Tuesday, it was very crowded indeed. Plus, my costume offered only non-binocular vision and poor finger dexterity, so the games I did play that night were not exactly my finest.
Devon and Danny, hard at work in the pinball mines.
Anyway, the night of 10/23 was the end of a rotation between banks 5 (Argo Navis, and if you try to tell me it’s not a constellation anymore I’m just going to put my hands over my ears and yell “I CAN’T HEAR YOU”) and 6 (Cetus). With the rotation complete, the standings on the banks are now final. Danny C., probably to no one’s surprise, took the lead on both banks. On bank 5, Brian K. and Derik tied for second place; on bank 6, Brian took second and Derik got third. Danny is still at the top of the overall standings with a comfortable lead over Tim. Brian is in third place but has only two points on Derik in fourth.
Grant, Ann-Marie, and Adam take a break from pinball to play some hockey.
Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was The Simpsons Pinball Party, which is a challenge since it is currently unable to start TV modes except from the mystery award. It’s hard to believe it, but somehow I managed to get a good game going and win the finals. Joseph took the B division honors. It was a late-running league night so we were definitely ready to pack up and so, it seemed, was almost everyone else since we had no one to take our picture for the Smackdown honors. Here, then, is a selfie taken with my phone’s incredibly bad camera. (If you’ve seen my phone, you’ll understand.)
Great job getting the button the right away around, Heather. If only you’d had some kind of reflection to look at…
Tonight starts our final bank rotation which will mostly finish all the games at The Avenue, except for James Bond which will have to be pulled for an issue and will be replaced by The Beatles. Bank 8, Coma Berenices, includes three “wild card” games previously used this season that were voted on by the league: Attack from Mars, Batman ’66, and Indiana Jones. I hope to see everyone soon!
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What’s this? Heather is writing a recap of a league session that was only one week ago? Is this a sign that she has begun fighting her procrastination habit? No! It’s a sign that we’re having league night tonight because we want to avoid meeting on Halloween. While a Halloween league night at The Avenue sounds fun in the abstract, it would probably be a bit too much chaos in reality. So, we will meet tonight and then again in two weeks, skipping Halloween in between.
Our last league night was our fifth, so we started a new rotation between banks 5 and 6, “Argo Navis” and “Cetus.” Yes, the banks have names and I’m going to keep insisting on using them. These two together might be called the Ocean Rotation because they mean “the ship Argo” and “the sea monster” (some people translate it “whale”). Argo is the ship the famous Jason and the Argonauts sailed on in a quest to retrieve the golden fleece; Cetus is the monster that Perseus had to slay to save Andromeda.
I ended up in a group with Tim and Danny C. When I drew that assignment I promised that I would do my best to bring the average ball time for my group down, and I want you to know I made good on my promise. To my surprise, though, I somehow ended up tying Tim for third on Bank 5 for the night. Less surprisingly, Danny took first on the bank. Meanwhile, over in Bank 6, Derik took first for the night. We won’t know how things have shaken out on the banks as a whole until after tonight when we finish the rotation.
The big news at The Avenue is that our Venom LE has come in, so we made it the Smackdown game for the night. It complicates things for us a bit because if people log in on Insider at the start of the game it will save progress in the game. Luckily, it turns out that there is a simple workaround to have people not log in until ball 2, which still gives people credit for their games but prevents progress from carrying over. That is going to be the rule for the rest of the season for games involving Venom. Danny won with a huge game in finals. The B division played on Medieval Madness, which meant some people had a lot of Medieval that night, since it was also in one of the banks. The B division winner was Donny.
B division champ Donny and Smackdown grand champion Danny showing off their winner badges.
That’s it for the league report. Of course, we had something big happen since then, which was the Fear and Trembling charity pingolf tournament. That deserves its own recap when I have time, though, so I’ll conclude here.
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Our October 3 meeting wrapped up a rotation between the banks that I dubbed Corvus and Canis Minor. Corvus was originally set to have Elvira’s House of Horrors in it, but Elvira was misbehaving (surprise?) and Black Knight: Sword of Rage got subbed in. Canis Minor contained Guardians of the Galaxy, the game that was actually the reason for naming the bank Canis Minor. If you can figure out what that reason is and you’re not Joseph, I’ll buy your league games for a night.
Sadly, since last league night, Guardians of the Galaxy has left in order to make room for Venom. When Derik broke the news to me about what was leaving, I told him, “Oh, Joseph is going to be so sad.” He replied with exasperation that heknew someone was going to say it was their favorite game. He did say there’s a chance it will return at a later date, at which time The Beatles will leave instead. I thought he was serious – I honestly wouldn’t be that surprised if it’s not the best earner there – but then he told me he was joking with (or at) me. Anyway, it’s lucky that we did finish the bank with Guardians before it left, and Venom will be placed in the eighth bank, Coma Berenices.
Speaking of The Beatles, that was our Smackdown game for the night. I was rather frustrated by this because it’s one of my favorite games there (as Derik and everyone else knows) but I was grading student journals and therefore highly distracted. I didn’t think I would get time to put a game in on it and even if I did, it would probably be lousy, since I tend to play badly when I combine pinball and work. Ultimately, though, I was able to drop a mediocre score on it which got me into the B division finals. We had a particularly long league night with several players having very long games and also a couple of “super groups” with power players clustered together. I don’t think I managed to get out of there until almost 11 pm by the time the Smackdown was over.
The Smackdown winners’ photo: Brian for the B division and Joseph for the A division.
There was a bit of a hitch with the Smackdown as I had discovered just prior to league that I had lost a part for my button press and could not give the usual buttons to the winners. I subsequently found the part and pressed the buttons and will give them to the winners tonight at league night. Those winners, by the way, were Joseph on The Beatles – not surprising as it is one of his strong games – and Brian on the B division game, Indiana Jones.
With the bank rotation finished, I can now report that the winner of Bank Corvus was Pat, and the winner of Canis Minor was Tim. The overall standings have Tim at the top, Pat in second just four points behind, and Danny in third with a somewhat bigger points deficit to make up.
Before signing off I want to give a reminder that the Fear and Trembling Charity Pingolf Tournament, supporting the Capital Area Humane Society, is Thursday. You can start the nine-hole course anytime before 7 pm. Cards cost $10 and players are responsible for coin drop. Each game will have two objectives to choose from. Finals will also use a pingolf format, with the top seed getting to choose either a bank of three games or which objective on each game each opponent will shoot for. Whichever isn’t chosen by the first seed will go to the second seed. We will also be raffling three large gift baskets of merchandise donated by local businesses. Let’s make this our biggest pingolf tournament ever!
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During our last league night, we started a new set of banks, “Corvus” and “Canis Minor.” When I reminded everyone of the names of the banks (as though anyone but me cared about the names I always insist on picking out), I explained that they were “Corvus, the Crow, and Canis Minor, the Little Dog.” When I said the name “Little Dog,” that prompted an “Aww!” out of Cyndi, so at least that bank name has one fan. By the way, there is a specific reason that I used Canis Minor instead of the better-known and brighter Canis Major, and it has to do with Guardians of the Galaxy being in that bank. If anyone besides Joseph can correctly guess why I put Guardians in a bank called Canis Minor, I will buy their games for an entire night. Good luck!
This is 2/3 of my other group members, Tim and Dan N. Not pictured is Danny. So I had both of past league seasons’ A and B champs in my group, plus Tim. I promised everyone I would do my best to bring the average ball time of my group down.
Before the night started, I had let everyone know that Black Knight: Sword of Rage would be the backup game if Elvira’s House of Horrors was still having issues. I knew it had been having a switch firing nonstop the previous week which had caused us to have to pull it from a Lightning Flippers tournament. Derik told me it should be good to go, but just before league started, Dan N. said to me, “Derik says he’s 90% sure it’s fixed.” It’s apparently a recurring problem; Derik says sometimes he thinks it’s fixed and then he walks away and it immediately starts doing it again. Unfortunately, that’s what happened during league play. The first group (fortunately) to play it had the issue start again, and despite asking if they could just leave it going awhile and keep the score, I pulled it in favor of Black Knight. It seems like Elvira just doesn’t like us this season, since we also had to pull Scared Stiff during a previous bank.
Derik concentrates on an Avengers game.
Longtime but intermittent league member Jim, Bryan’s dad, made a reappearance, and everyone was happy to see him. He isn’t sure how often he’ll play this season but he did pay a full season’s dues, so I assume he’ll be coming back.
Cyndi, Ethan, Jim, and blurry Bryan hang out.
Black Knight was very unkind to me as is typical, so I was sorry for the substitution. Still, I would have had to play it eventually. I like the art and the music, I just don’t like how it slaughters me in competitive play. I didn’t have such a good night game-wise, but I did get several compliments on my new “Pinball Witch” shirt (which I got from the Stern merch store) so overall I’ll call the night a positive.
Ethan writes a score down for his game. I seem to remember he was rather annoyed with it.
Our Smackdown tournament was a good old fashioned castle-off on Medieval Madness. Despite some other high scores, Danny blew it up on Ball 3 and as player 4 he got to walk off. The Undercard game was Attack from Mars, AKA the other Medieval Madness, and the winner on that one was Ethan, who is starting to get a collection of Smackdown buttons.
Ethan with his B division medal for winning on Attack from Mars. I wonder who could be giving him bunny ears?
That’s about it for my league recap but before I finish this post, I wanted to remind everyone that we have an upcoming charity tournament, “Fear and Trembling,” on October 19. This is our annual pingolf tournament, with the unique format of allowing a choice of two objectives on each hole. It supports the Capital Area Humane Society and we will also be raffling three valuable gift baskets donated by local businesses. Everyone will get one raffle ticket with their $10 entry fee and can buy more for $2 each. I’m hoping this will be our biggest pingolf tournament to date, so please encourage your friends to come and make a golf foursome with you!
Danny playing his winning Smackdown game on Medieval Madness.
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September 5 was the completion of our first two-bank rotation, including the banks I have dubbed “Ophiuchus” and “Lepus,” as part of this season’s theme of constellations. Unfortunately, Scared Stiff ended up having a flipper issue and had to be substituted for its designated substitute game, The Addams Family.
Cyndi plays The Beatles. I don’t think she likes it as much as I do.
This was our first time using a new league rule I have introduced this season: if a game goes down during the second night of a rotation, rather than scrap all the games people played on it in the previous league night, only the people scheduled to play it that night will play the substitute game, and their scores will only be compared against each other. This will cause the results on the two games involved to be slightly inflated, but I’ve decided that’s better than making everyone replay. In general, this was a somewhat cursed league night. I had to make as many rulings as I often make during an entire season.
Bryan plays Star Wars.
That said, it was a night full of the usual hijinks too. At one point I overheard a conversation in which Shylia was declaring that we should all wear leotards. I have no idea what that was about, but Ethan was quite insistent that it should be put into the recap. Later, Josh broke out into a dance as he somehow managed (without activating the super skill shot) to have the ball bounce into the scoop and start Crank It Up on his plunged extra ball. Fortunately it was on Ball 3, as I don’t think he would be doing a happy dance if he had spoiled a Crank It Up earlier in the game. (That’s why the league rules permit someone to tilt out an extra ball if they choose.)
Me after winning the Undercard match. Joseph told me to do a superhero pose.
It was a hot night, with a lot of the relief coming from fans. During Joseph’s game on The Beatles, Derik pointed one of the big fans right at him, which blew his hair around so much that he had to play for a while with one eye covered.
Bryan shows off his Smackdown champ button.
Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on AC/DC, and the champ was Bryan J. I won the Undercard match on Avengers.
That’s it for last time’s recap. I’ll be seeing you all shortly to play banks 3 and 4, Corvus and Canis Minor!
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We started Season 19 on August 22, with some revisions to our rules and structure. One is that we will be (mostly) meeting every other week this season instead of the second and fourth Tuesdays. That pattern was created to avoid meeting the same week as Grand Rapids Pinball League, but as there is little or no overlap between the leagues anymore, the reasons had become obsolete and many league members voiced a preference for every other week. We will also be counting the best six of eight nights rather than the best seven of eight. Otherwise, the league continues to have a similar format to before, with players switching between two banks of five games in order to retain our “best game” format but avoid having to get the entire league playing the same five games in a night.
The Smackdown tournament in progress with Dan on Indiana Jones and Tim on Guns N Roses.
The big news of league night was that after having spent until 4 am the previous night shuffling things around on a spreadsheet to get the banks arranged for the new theme, “The Constellations,” I walked in and was told that there was no longer a Lord of the Rings, which had chosen as the Smackdown game. Further investigation revealed that Iron Maiden had also been removed. This was apparently done to allow for the placement of a photo booth. I told everyone we needed a moment of silence for LotR: it was one of the original four games the league started with in 2013. Two of those (our original Medieval Madness and Johnny Mnemonic) are already gone, and so the only remaining one is Indiana Jones. I hastily changed the Smackdown to Willy Wonka, and Joseph almost immediately got a ball stuck on it and Derik was eating dinner so we didn’t want to make him unstick it right away, so we then hastily changed again to Guns N Roses. I also then realized I had forgotten to make Smackdown medals. I admit I got pretty stressed, feeling like the league was starting off as a bit of a mess, especially given that we had a new player. Someone remarked that we always have stuff go wrong and I said, “Yes, but he doesn’t know this is supposed to be a shitshow yet.”
Watch out, Linda! I once dropped my glasses off the balcony doing that and Joseph had to run down and find them for me (a metal show was going on at the time).
Our attendance was a little low for opening night, but we did have a new joiner in the form of John L. John has played a lot of tournaments elsewhere in the state and has been at one or two Avenue tournaments in the past. He was in my group and was having a very unlucky and frustrating night, except when we went to Jurassic Park and he gave the rest of us a clinic on it. He definitely understood that game at a higher level than I do (but then again, that’s not saying much).
Chaos agents Linda and Ethan ended up in a group together along with Devon and, as Joseph put it, they were “rather merry.” At one point I was playing near their group when I observed Linda pretending she was going to bump poor Devon, who was obliviously concentrating on his actual pinball game. She and Ethan were asking me if that was against the rules and I said “yes, it’s called interference, and I could give you a yellow card,” but they pointed out that she had not actually touched Devon and he hadn’t noticed, so I had to admit that they had not actually interfered with him. Then for some reason, perhaps mocking how I had asked people to put comma separators into their scores to help Joseph make fewer data entry mistakes, Ethan started asking about putting commas in his scores. “What if I put a comma here?” he said, and put one on the end of the score. I pointed out that this would not actually change his score since it would still have the same number of digits in it. Anyway, that’s the kind of tomfoolery that was going on in that group.
Undercard winner Dan and champion Josh.
We did have a Tuesday Night Smackdown on Guns N Roses and an undercard on Indiana Jones. The champion was Josh, and the undercard champ was Dan N.
We’ll be starting our second night very soon but it is certainly not too late to join for new players because we drop the two lowest nights. I hope to see you soon!
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The league spreadsheet is a Google doc available here. Note that the preview of this post will not make that link selectable so you have to click/tap through to the post before it will work.
Derik and Danny battled it out with Jason and Josh in a late-night final match to become the Super-Ball XVIII champions. The previous champions, Joseph and Heather (this writer), failed to defend their title, losing to Derik and Danny in the winner bracket and Jason and Josh in the second-chance bracket. The traditional post-season split flipper tournament ran nearly as long as the season finals, in part because the final match went to two rounds. Jason and Josh had come up out of the second-chance bracket and managed a first-round win against Danny and Derik, but were unable to prevail a second time.
Derik and Danny show off their coverted Zen trophies in front of the final game of the tournament, The Munsters.
The tournament had a surprise entry as Brian K., who had not played in league this season, asked to join and ended up paired with league member Mark C. Although they received the lowest seed due to Brian having no league points, they made a good showing and ultimately received third place. Brian’s appearance was welcomed not just because everyone likes having him around, but also because it meant that we had an even number of people for a change. It seems as though we have had a disproportionate number of Super-Balls with odd numbers of competitors, resulting in someone having to play on two teams, which gets awkward and can hold the tournament up.
Mark and Brian K. play AC/DC in the Zen tournament.
This was one of the league’s best-attended Super-Balls, as often the turnout for them has been low in the past. Due to the unusually high number of teams – ten – Joseph realized he did not have the correct double-elimination bracket printed out and ran home in order to get one. Fortunately he made it back only a short time after Heather finished giving rules and announcements.
Josh and Jason play James Bond in the Zen tournament. Jason seemed to prefer taking this low angle on the game for split flipper.
There was also a Tuesday Night Smackdown side tournament on Star Trek, which Brian won with a blowup game. The Undercard (B division) was originally going to be on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, simply because that is the game that was randomly drawn from those in the vicinity. Joseph had written on the rules sheet, “top 4 players don’t have to play the Ninja Turtles Undercard!” and showed this smugly when I announced the random selection. As things got organized, Danny started a game on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so rather than kick him off or wait I just drew a new game. Ted was the winner on the substitute game, Rush.
Derik and Danny play Batman ’66 in the Zen tournament finals.
And with that, Season 18 has truly been put to bed. Season 19 starts tonight at 7 pm with a new set of banks and some new rules, most notably dropping the two lowest nights instead of one. It remains to be seen whether the recent growth of the league will continue this season.
Smackdown Champ Brian K. and undercard winner Ted with their buttons.
Results for Super-Ball XVIII
Danny C. and Derik
Jason and Josh
Brian K. and Mark C.
Donny and Shylia
Heather and Joseph
Dan N. and Bryan J.
Pat and Tim
Ethan and Ted
Jimmy and Ro
Linda and Cyndi
Linda plays Rush in the undercard of Tuesday Night Smackdown.
For Season 19 we will have a completely new set of banks for the first time in a while. The new theme is “Constellations: Or, the Starry Skies Above and the Pinball Rules Within.” The banks will be rotated two at a time, with half the league playing each bank at a given meeting.
Bank 1:Ophiuchus: Metallica, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Scared Stiff, Jurassic Park, Black Knight: Sword of Rage
Bank 2: Lepus: The Beatles, High Speed 2: The Getaway, Tron, Star Wars, Batman ’66
Bank 3: Corvus: Lord of the Rings, The Munsters, Rush, Elvira’s House of Horrors, Attack from Mars
Bank 4: Canis Minor: Indiana Jones, The Simpsons Pinball Party, Monster Bash, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ghostbusters
Bank 5: Argo Navis: Guns N Roses, Iron Maiden, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Star Trek, Willy Wonka
Bank 6: Cetus: The Mandalorian, Godzilla, Deadpool, Medieval Madness, Stranger Things
Bank 7: Perseus: Avengers Infinity Quest, Cactus Canyon, Foo Fighters, James Bond 007, Game of Thrones
Bank 8: Coma Berenices: The Addams Family, KISS, AC/DC, other games TBA
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Season 18 came to a close on July 25 with a hot, sweaty night of playoffs at The Avenue Cafe. Danny C. ultimately retained his title as league champion after a battle with Jason. Returning B division champion Dan N. also repeated his victory, this time in a final battle against league newcomer Devon. Receiving third place trophies were Pat in A division and Bryan J. in B division.
Second place Jason and champion Danny C.
Third place Pat.
This was our largest ever final tournament because the league reached the largest ever membership. We had 28 qualified players, which according to the league rules we were using at the time meant that A division would be a 14-person double-elimination tournament. This beat our previous record of a 12-person finals. That one was a very long tournament that barely finished before last call, so I arrived at the Avenue full of trepidation that the tournament would outlast the bar’s open hours and that we would have to have the two finalists meet on an additional day. Fortunately, that did not happen, but it was a real fear that loomed over me throughout the night.
B division champion Dan N. and second place Devon.
B division third place Bryan.
It didn’t help that I held up my own A division matches by having to make an unusual number of rulings and also sort things out when players entered themselves into the wrong branch of the second-chance bracket.
We did have a Tuesday Night Smackdown tournament, for which we used The Simpsons Pinball Party, chosen because it was excluded from the main tournament due to wonkiness. Since people could not play in Smackdown finals if they were still playing in the main tournament, we had few people available to play when it was time. As a result, Ethan received the B division win by default, which he was very excited about. Mark C. won the A division, which he said was his first pinball tournament win. As it happens, my first ever tournament win was also a Smackdown tournament during a finals night a few seasons ago.
Smackdown winner Mark C. and undercard “winner” Ethan show off their buttons.
It was a night of upsets. In A division, #12 seed Ethan defeated #5 seed Derik in the first round of the tournament; #7 Pat defeated #2 Tim in the winner bracket and then #4 Josh in the second-chance bracket; and #9 Heather (that’s me) defeated #2 Tim and #6 Mike (who was undervalued due to missing a couple of league nights) both in the second-chance bracket. Meanwhile in B division, second place went to dark horse Devon over league stalwart Bryan J.
During the finals in B division, I asked Devon which match he was on with Dan. I meant whether they were in their first or second of the two matches, since if the person in the second-chance bracket wins, they have to then win a second match against the person who had been in the winner bracket. Devon said “this is it, this is for the tournament” but I wasn’t sure he had understood me correctly so I asked Dan who clarified that they were only in the first match. Devon, who was in the second-chance bracket, was heading toward winning his game which would win him the match, and I said to Dan, “I think Devon doesn’t realize he is going to have to beat you a second time.” Indeed I was right. When the game finished I explained that they would now have another round and Devon exclaimed, “We have to play again?”
Devon and Dan play off in the B division final match.
The final match in A division started around midnight and pitted Danny against Jason, with Danny having the better seed. Danny chose Willy Wonka, which he won. Choice then went to Jason, who chose The Munsters and won. Choice went back to Danny and he chose Stranger Things. I have to admit that at this stage I had very mixed emotions. I always find it more exciting when finals goes into a second match, and I also kind of wanted to see a new league champion (Jason has never won the season), but part of me also really wanted Danny to win so that the tournament would be over before they started kicking people out. Danny did win that final game on Stranger Things and it was a few minutes before 1 am when I had him and Jason line up for photos. A single bar patron, who had gotten out of the way for the photo and was standing nearby, clapped. I then packed up my stuff and took Joseph’s car home, as he had long since walked home to go to bed in order to be rested for work the next day.
Jason playing Willy Wonka in the final match against Danny.
Danny playing Stranger Things in the final match against Jason.
That wraps up Season 18, except for our traditional post-season split flipper or “Zen” tournament tonight, Super-Ball XVIII. Season 19 will begin on August 22.
The final results for Season 18 are as follows:
Danny C.
Jason
Pat
Josh
Joseph
Heather
Mike
Jimmy R.
Tim
Derik
Biff
Ethan
Donny
Ted
Dan N.
Devon
Bryan
Shylia
Mark
Jim J.
Grant
Adam
Travis
Ro
Linda
Ann-Marie
Cyndi
Mark H.
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