Lansing Pinball League

It’s been a while since our last league night because we took December 29 off to play the annual Silver Balls in the City charity strikes tournament. Unfortunately, I didn’t take notes about the night like I sometimes try to do (it helps with my unfortunate habit of writing up the recap two weeks later) and my brain has subsequently been churned repeatedly by a record grading marathon, then the holidays, then scrambling to prepare a new semester. Frankly, it’s amazing I can remember my own name. Fortunately, I do have pictures for you this time, and I can remember a few highlights, so here goes.

Our last league night on December 13th was the fifth of Season 17. We had a relatively small turnout again last time so we played only one bank, “Athena.” I was considering playing two banks no matter what on the assumption that at some point we’ll need to again and so we won’t want to end up with an odd number of banks left. Joseph convinced me I should stick with the rule about playing one bank with fewer than 16 people so that’s what we did. We were missing regulars Pat, Brian, Mike (who let me know he was out sick), and Allen (who was back home in Texas for the holidays). On the other hand, we had the surprise return of Nate F., Jake’s brother-in-law, who hadn’t played this season. Nate walked up to me, gave me a hearty pat on the shoulder and said it was good to see me again, and I was so embarrassed because I felt I had to own up and admit I could not remember who he was. Fortunately he took it in good humor.

Dan asked me what Jurassic Park had to do with the bank theme of “Athena.” I responded “It needed to go somewhere and I couldn’t make everything fit.” I did point out that I was proud of including Rush in the bank because Athena’s symbol was an owl. I realized later that I had forgottne that I did have a reason to put Jurassic Park in Athena. It’s because Athena was the goddess of wisdom, that is, she was a clever girl. (Cactus Canyon is really the one I have no real justification for.)

Danny came very late and since all the groups were done by the time he arrived we just gave him a score sheet and sent him on his way. Joseph noticed he had something like 850 million after ball 1 on Rush, so he let him know that he had already beaten everyone else and could go on to play the rest of his games. I was desperately behind on work and trying to do some work at this point so I think Joseph just wanted to help me be able to go home as soon as possible. Danny was actually able to go back and continue his suspended Rush game, still just waiting for someone to shoot, after finishing the rest of his games for the night. He was still playing as we left for the night.

The Smackdown game was Monster Bash, which I did terrible at. I had a score of 5 million and insisted on playing a second game just so I didn’t have to leave a score that embarrassing on the score sheet. On my second try, I got 3 million. Tim ended up winning the Smackdown, and since we only had six competitors, the B division was played between me and Mark. I had a narrow victory on Attack from Mars. This was Mark’s first official IFPA tournament, though he quickly followed it with a second one by playing at Silver Balls in the City.

Speaking of Silver Balls, I will eventually have a pile of photos from that tournament and I promise to upload them to the league Flickr pool (which exists) and the Facebook group eventually. I don’t promise when.

Our last league night was the fourth of Season 17, and it was also two days before Thanksgiving, which I predicted would result in a low turnout. This was good, actually, because we needed to even out the banks. We had started with a single bank session, then did a two-bank rotation for the next two nights, so if we could have another single bank night that would get things straightened back out for the likelihood that we would need to rotate the rest of the season.

We were down a few regulars, including Allen (who had gone home to Texas for the holiday), Dan, and Donny, but more people showed up than I had figured on. Just before the start time we still had few enough people to get everyone into four banks, which is our cutoff for a single bank this season, with a couple of empty spots in case anyone came late. I was just about to get things started when we were surprised by the appearance of a couple of new players: Rick K. and Abby D., late of the Indiana scene, but newly relocated to Grand Rapids. We were still all right with four groups of four until Linda made a late appearance. Joseph split himself off from one of the other groups and formed a two-person group with Linda, returning us to the “good” old days of having a group on every game in the bank. There were some backups, but it wasn’t too awful, and at least we can return to rotating banks the rest of the season.

I’m not sure if Rick and Abby are going to come back regularly – I think they didn’t realize that only the overall season results get submitted to the IFPA – but Rick did get the second highest score for the bank. He asked where the good places to play are in Michigan that are within an hour drive of Grand Rapids, and besides the obvious choice of RLM Amusements in Grand Rapids, some of us also recommended the Clubhouse Arcade in Fremont.

Jake and Sam made it out from Grand Rapids again, and one of the first things Jake said to me was “Heather! Take a picture!” This was in reference to the dramatic re-creation photos in the last recap and my asking people to make sure to tell me to take photos next time. He added that he was torn about it because he actually kind of wanted me to forget to take photos so I could do more dramatic re-creations. I admitted that we kind of ran out of ideas after we did three of them.

Todd has been playing his games early this season because of his work schedule, but he was able to play with the rest of the league on this occasion, and even stayed to play in the Smackdown B-division playoff. He said it was his first ever Smackdown finals, since he usually can’t stay for it. Todd ended up beating me in a two-person match on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to win the Undercard. Meanwhile, Tim won the A division championship on Star Trek.

Our next meeting tomorrow is the fifth of the season, bringing us past the halfway point, which means this is the last chance to join and still qualify for finals. I am planning to play a two-bank rotation unless turnout is very low. This will be our last league meeting before the New Year, since our next meeting will be postponed for Silver Balls in the City. See you soon!

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.