Lansing Pinball League

Note: Last time I declared my recap the Worst League Update Ever because I somehow forgot to take a single photo. This time I also forgot to take a single photo. In order to avoid having to call this the New Worst Ever, I am presenting it with dramatic recreations. The part of everyone is played by Joseph, the part of The Avenue is played by my breakfast nook, and the part of every game is played by Tri-Zone.

November 8 wasn’t just the midterm elections, it was also the third meeting of season 17. I wore my “I Voted” sticker which I had hoarded since delivering my absentee ballot three weeks prior, but otherwise not much election talk went on. Not that I noticed, anyway, but I was trying to organize a rather large crowd to play the second week of a two-bank rotation. We had started on it the previous league night because we had a crowd of over 16 people, the new threshold for splitting people up across two banks. It’s just as well, because there was actually a large crowd again this time. This included new league member Linda. Linda previously played in a Lightning Flippers women’s tournament, and had shown up a bit late so I had to start her with a strike. This time she showed up right at six, which is when Lightning Flippers meetings start, and said, “Am I on time?” I had to break the news that league meetings start at seven and she had an hour to warm up.

In the past we would expedite starting the second half of a rotation by just putting people in the same groups as much as possible, but people had requested that we redraw the groups each time this season and so that’s what we did. This required using two hats. In addition to the deer hat that we always use as the sorting hat, Joseph grabbed a black furry hat that I’ve had since high school. I bought it from some Russian schoolkids who were traveling around doing hockey exhibitions and were selling stuff in order to get some US currency. I believe it is a cheap imitation of a proper “Russian” hat that was made in Russia for the tourist market. I had to walk around remembering which hat each person should draw from for the A or B banks and I kept getting mixed up. Pat said “B is for black,” and that really helped at first, but then at one point Linda joked “B is for brown” and then I could never keep it straight again after that.

We had a new game in The Avenue this time – well, sort of. For some reason we now have a second Godzilla, so our original Godzilla LE is still in the alcove, and the new Godzilla Premium is upstairs. The gameplay is the same between the two models, so the only reason to have both is is that there is one free while Danny is in the building. The rule is that we always use a new game as our Tuesday Night Smackdown side tournament game, so I decided that extended to the Godzilla Premium, or as Joseph has dubbed it, “Mezzagodzilla.” (Godzilla on the mezzanine, get it?) We also were playing Godzilla in one of the two banks, so it was a Godzilla kind of night. Joseph wrote “You’re welcome, Danny” on the rules sheet for the Smackdown tournament.

Folks thought that we should have the B division for the Smackdown also be on Godzilla, so I departed from my usual practice of picking another game in the immediate vicinity of the A division game and went along with that. Joseph and I both played in the B division so we designated Mike as a backup TD to keep track of the A division game. Mike became the main Smackdown champion on the upstairs game, and Bryan J. won the Undercard bout on the downstairs game.

Tonight is our fourth meeting of the season so there is still time to join the league and qualify for finals if you’ve been on the fence about it. We will play a single bank if there are 16 or fewer people attending and will start a two-bank rotation if we get more than 16. I hope to see you soon! And please, remind me to take pictures.

I’ve probably said this before, but this is the worst league update ever. The reason is that I apparently did not take any photos. Or I did but they got lost somewhere, which is a possibility. I’ve been having issues transferring photos from my various cameras to my computer which has also put my previously neatly sorted files into disorder. It’s really hard to believe that I didn’t take a single photo during the last league night, but if I did, I just can’t find them.

This is especially too bad since we did have a new joiner on 10/25, Mark. Mark is an old-school pinballer and said he hasn’t played the modern games very much. He’ll be getting a lot of opportunity given how many shiny new games we have at The Avenue! We also had the return of two previous members who didn’t play last season, Jen and Joe. Strangely, league regular Jason has yet to be seen this season still.

I had previously announced that if we passed the 16-player threshold on a given night, we would return to rotating banks. I didn’t think it was likely to happen, and I was wrong, since it happened on this night. We had 17 people play, the most in a long while, and we accordingly started a two-bank rotation. Since it was night #2, this will mean that if the crowd doesn’t thin back out later, we are going to have to have one especially long night at the end of the season to even things up. We’ll worry about that when it comes to it. In the meantime, after tonight, if we have another night of 16 or fewer people we will return to playing a single bank. (Tonight we have to play the second half of the two banks we started last time.)

The Smackdown game was on Ghostbusters, which Allen won. He had to give up a good game of Godzilla to play in the finals, which is just as well because my dice roll chose Godzilla as the undercard game. The undercard champ was Joe. Sadly I still have no medals to give out as I have not had a chance to find a new source of them since Michaels discontinued them. I will continue giving out IOUs to the winners and make good on them eventually!

I’ll see you all at league soon. Don’t forget to come early as we will be playing a Smackdown side tournament on … the second Godzilla, “Godzilla 2,” which is now upstairs in The Avenue. (Godzilla 1 is in one of the league banks for tonight.) Smackdown qualifying games can be put in before league or after you finish your league games provided league is still going on. When league finishes we play the finals, a one-game match. Although it’s a tiny tournament, it’s registered with the IFPA, so it helps the league’s value if everyone plays in it. (That was the original reason we started having those tournaments, although I think they’ve ended up being pretty popular in their own right.)

Last league night seems like ages ago, since after that I got caught up in a blur of getting ready for Fear and Trembling (the fall charity tournament). (Stay tuned for some pictures from Fear and Trembling later. I’m having some issues with my computer that’s affecting getting photos from my camera.) It was a very exciting one, though, since it kicked off Season 17 and saw the return of some people who have been absent a while.

I had announced before the start of league that this season we would return to playing a single bank per night unless more than 16 people attend on a given night. This is a compromise between those who prefer two banks because it gets league done faster and cuts down on waiting, and those who prefer the classic single bank which has various advantages like allowing people to see their true league standings at the end of the night instead of at the end of a month. I found that last season we ended up with so few people on some nights that having two banks seemed silly and we would have gotten done just as quickly with one. Unfortunately, after a big boom for the league a couple of seasons ago, it contracted quite a bit last season. I thought it unlikely that we would get more than 16 people, but I left open the possibility of expanding to two banks if we did.

As it happened, we got 15 people, so it was a lot closer than I expected! But we started the season, at least, on a single bank, “Apollo.” Joining us after a season or two away was Todd, who played all but one of his games early due to his work schedule. He did save one game to play with a group. A surprise that I tried and failed to keep from Joseph was that our Grand Rapids guests Jake and Sam also returned after a long absence, bringing a lot of energy with them. Sam brought his usual Puckish humor, at one point drilling me about how I would make various rulings and whether yellow cards would carry over for the season or just the night. Unexpectedly absent were Jason and Brian K. I don’t know the story with Brian, but in Jason’s case I suspect it has to do with Monday having been Columbo’s Day. I remember in the past he told me that when there is a federal holiday on Monday, he has to work late the next day to make up for it.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on Attack from Mars. Unfortunately, our source for Smackdown medals has dried up – Michaels has discontinued the buttons we were using – so we are going to have to owe people until we figure out what we’ll be using instead. Even more unfortunately, I somehow managed to miss taking any photos of the winners. Dan was the Smackdown champion, his first win as far as we could remember. In the Best Division, Sam took honors, surprisingly eclipsing Tim, who usually dominates the Undercard but this time had to settle for second.

At one point, while we were talking about the Best division, someone – I don’t remember who, but it might have been Sam – suggested that the A division was the Ass Division. I responded by filling that in after “A” in the scorecard. Then someone (again, I forget who) said “Hey, it does look like it says Ass division!” apparently not realizing that it said that because I had just written it in. For some reason this made me laugh until I nearly wheezed. This is the high quality humor you’re missing if you haven’t been to league yet this season.

Speaking of the season, it’s not too late to join! You only need to make four nights of eight to play in finals, and your lowest night of eight gets dropped so if you start now you’ll still get a full seven nights of scoring in. Hope to see you shortly!

Before I get to the recap, I have to set the record straight. The Capital Combo is a reputable news organ, and as such, we correct all errors of fact. Jason pointed one out in last time’s recap, when I said that to my surprise we had never played a Tuesday Night Smackdown on Rush. I based that on the fact that my list of what games we had played so far in Season 16 (to avoid duplicating them) did not show we had played Rush, and I mistakenly thought that this was the first season during which Rush had been in the venue. Jason pointed out that we did have Rush as a Smackdown game, but it was during Season 15. It’s been around longer than I thought. I should have remembered, though, because that Smackdown was the one in which a catastrophic malfunction forced three of the four players to replay an entire game which had already gone on for ages. Jason certainly would have remembered, because he had blown the game up and was far in the lead when it happened, so it was very unlucky for him.

August 23 was our eighth league night of Season 16, which means that it was our last qualifying night. The positions at the end of the night would determine who went to A division and B division and what the seeding would be for the finals on September 13. The most contested positions were for the top seed and for the bottom seed in A.

After a season which saw a record turnout and therefore the largest A division finals we have ever had, a surprising inversion happened. This was our least attended season in the time I have been the league director, and we ended up with only 15 people qualified to play finals. We thought it was going to be 14, but then Wolff reappeared after a couple of weeks absent, and since it was his fourth night, he was just in time to squeak in for finals. Unfortunately, it didn’t make a difference for how many people could go to A division, because the IFPA requirements mean that we have to cut at least half the field going into finals. We will therefore be having a 7-person A division, with the rest of the people who attend playing B. This makes the top seed especially attractive, because that person gets a first-round bye while the other six play off. The question was, who would this be: Mike, or Danny? They were very close going into the final night.

The dividing line between A and B was also a very competitive position, with several people only a few points apart. I was sitting in 8th place, 4 points behind Joseph in 6th and 1 point behind Josh in 7th. Jason was relatively far behind me in 9th, as I had 13 points on him.

At the end of the night when we got home and Joseph put all the scores in (which he always does surprisingly quickly), I got to see how the dust settled, and there was good news and bad news for me. Good news? I ended up in 7th place. (Meanwhile, Jason had an incredible rally – after a couple of underperforming nights, he jumped up from 9th to 6th with a very strong finish.) Bad news? Mike won the top seed spot. Bad news for me because that meant I would be playing Danny in the first round.

We had our usual Tuesday Night Smackdown, of course. The main game was Game of Thrones. Joseph often writes little quips above the rules sheet that he posts, and this one in small letters said “You’re welcome, Mike.” Mike certainly loves his Game of Thrones and this time it also loved him. Predictably, he won the A division. Tim continued the tradition of being the “Best” division champ on Metallica. Jason, as usual, wanted a true “Smackdown” photo and this time he had the idea of sparring with “swords.” He ran off and then reappeared holding two pool cues to use for a mock swordfight, followed about 7 seconds later by a semi-disgruntled person who said, “We were using those” and collected them back again. Jason went off again to find different cues and this time no one showed up demanding them back, at least not before I got the photo.

And that was that: Season 16 was all over except the final battle. Will Mike defend his title again or will the league have a new champion? In about 24 hours we’ll know. I hope to see you tomorrow at finals.

The league night of 8/9 was the 7th meeting of season 16, so it started our final bank rotation. We had a vote to fill in two empty spots in Bank 8 (known as “Zeus”) and the most popular choice ended up being Getaway. In second place there was a tie between Cactus Canyon and Stranger Things, and I did a random drawing to break the tie, landing on Cactus Canyon. Stranger Things was designated to be a backup game if needed.

Our average league night attendance has been dwindling this season, raising the question of whether we should continue using the rotation format or return to having everyone play the same game on the same night. There are some advantages to both formats, but if we continue averaging about 12 people per night, rotating really won’t be necessary. It’s a question we are going to want to consider before the start of Season 17.

We had both a surprising absence and a surprising reappearance this time. Allen let me know that Derik wouldn’t be attending the rest of the season, as he didn’t have a chance of making A division and didn’t want to play in B. I was surprised, and said that I thought he must be wrong about not having a chance to make A. Then I went and looked at the numbers and realized he was probably right. Derik has always been a power player in the league, so he must be having an off season. The reappearance was by Wolff, who I thought might have drifted away from league after we didn’t see him for a few meetings. It was great to have him back. It was also good to be finishing the season with Allen still around. He was originally going to be returning to his home in Texas at the end of July, but it turned out he would be in Lansing a while longer and would be able to complete the league season after all.

I ended up in a group with Allen and Jason. I had just finished a rotation in a group with Jason, so we’ve been playing together a lot lately. There was a time when being in a group with power players like them would have made me feel a little embarrassed about my B-level abilities, but these days it often has the opposite effect and ups my game. This was one of those nights. Although I didn’t always match their scores, I played games that were at least above my usual average on every game.

Whenever Danny isn’t around during league, someone or other always asks me, “No Danny tonight?” People are always very interested in where Danny is in the league standings, for some reason. Danny often plays his games late due to his work schedule and this was one of those times, though he squeaked in right at the 10 pm deadline that I have started enforcing this season. We got done with league so fast tonight that we were starting the Smackdown finals right as Danny walked up.

The Tuesday Night Smackdown random drawing chose Rush, causing me to be surprised it had not been a Smackdown game already. Usually I will make something the Smackdown game if it’s new to the venue, but I never did that with Rush. It may have been forgotten in the frenzy of new games we have gotten in the bar recently. Unfortunately, we only had six people present to play, and only seven put scores in (which means we can’t count qualifying toward IFPA points; qualifying has to halve the field to count). We had the usual four playing in A but just two people, Bryan and Dan N., played off in B. The dice chose Star Trek for the B game, which is funny considering how many times recently Junk Yard has ended up being the B game. It’s like the RNG didn’t realize Junk Yard had moved, because Star Trek is now in the former Junk Yard spot.

Tonight we’ll be finishing the qualifying season, and there is still a lot of possibility for people to move across the A/B cutoff line, considering that we will probably only be having a 7-person A bracket this season, our smallest ever. It should be an exciting final night. See you all soon, I hope!

The league night of 7/26/22 was our 6th night of the season and, being an even numbered night, finished up a rotation of two banks. The banks were “Athena” and “Hades,” according to the naming scheme that only Joseph and I – mostly I – care about. Athena was originally slated to include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Avengers: Infinity Quest, Rush, Jurassic Park, and Black Knight: Sword of Rage, but ST:TNG had left the venue and was replaced by its successor, Cactus Canyon. Hades included AC/DC, Indiana Jones, Deadpool, Ghostbusters, and Stranger Things.

I didn’t take any photos of league night until after Tuesday Night Smackdown, which is probably a consequence of my working on Calculus homework during league (a common occurrence this season), so I’m sorry for the relative lack of photos in this update.

I continued in my previous night’s group with Jason and Danny. We ended up finished last of all the groups, by far. This is no credit to me; I had a very poor night, including an abysmal game of Black Knight in which I had the opportunity to start the last chance multiball and was screaming in frustration as I failed over and over to lock the last ball needed. No, it was mostly due to Danny, who blew up a few games. I mentioned this to Mike, who replied with the advice, “Always be Danny.”

Tuesday Night Smackdown was on Metallica, with the B division playing finals (and rubbing elbows) on Stranger Things. Mike won the A division and Tim, as usual, won the B, or as he would have it, “Best” Division with another big Smackdown game. After the Smackdown, Joseph, Tim, and I played a game of Stranger Things together which I won, making me feel a little bit better after my embarrassingly bad league night. By then, almost everyone else had left except Mike, who was chatting with former league member (and founding member) Russell. Joseph and I had to leave in the morning for our short summer vacation trip so we packed up and headed home.

Starting tonight we will have our final bank rotation between “Ares” (The Simpsons, The Walking Dead, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Attack from Mars) and “Zeus” (Tales of the Arabian Nights, Scared Stiff, Guns N’ Roses, Cactus Canyon, and Getaway). See you soon!