Season 9 of the Lansing Pinball League came to a close on November 7 with the final playoffs in which Chris retained his undefeated status. He has won every season in the league’s existence.
Third, first, and second place: Joseph, Chris, Mike. I try to tell Joseph not to bug his eyes like that in photos but he insists he’ll look asleep if he doesn’t.
Due to low attendance, this time we had a single division playoff with a ten person bracket. The semifinals were between Joseph and Mike, culminating in a low-scoring game of Monster Bash in which Mike edged Joseph out by about 20K in bonus.
Mike walks away happy from a ToM game in which he put two billion plus on ball 1. (EDITED: my mistake, this appears to be from a different game.)
Mike went on to play Chris in the finals once again, winning the first round and knocking Chris into the loser second chance bracket. Chris thrives on pressure and I sometimes think he doesn’t really start playing until he’s got his back to the wall. So, once again, he came back with a vengeance and won the second round and the season championship. It should be noted, though, that at one point during their matches, Mike had a ball 1 of Theatre of Magic that was so high – over two billion – that Chris decided to walk away and concede the game.
Also worth noting was my third game against Matt in the loser lower bracket. Matt was player 1 and his first ball of Indiana Jones went on for what felt like forever and finished at about 1.3 billion. He didn’t do much after that but it hardly mattered. I can say I never gave up (even when Matt, not realizing I had an extra ball to play, mistakenly went to shake my hand after I drained ball 3 I defiantly said, “it ain’t over yet!”) so I got myself 200-300M for the sake of my pride and walked away at least not humiliated.
I got quite a few good photos of the night, so make sure you check out the photo gallery as well as the final standings.
Matt, Mike, and Joseph, after the end of the playoffs.
The ever-popular Super-Ball IX split-flipper tournament, AKA the Zen Tournament, is tonight at 7:30. I always think it’s the most fun night of the season because everyone gets really into it but no one gets in bad spirits when it doesn’t go well. Pinball so rarely allows for cooperative play that it’s a rare treat when it happens. I hope you will come!
Along the way to third place Matt and I had an epic gave of Revenge From Mars. Both of us managed to get on the high score table, and I think we’re the first Lansing League players to put our names on the machine at all.
If I don’t bug my eyes out I look asleep, possibly dead.