I entered the queens chamber and locked the door behind me during the trash talker tournament. Only zero value…
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Round 10, was seeded ~37th for the round, needed at least a 6 for the round to at least tie break for Saturday. I had 2 points after 2 games, and was in last place on Alien Star walking up to my ball 3. Plunged, bounced around the pops, and landed directly on the right outlane post and hung for a second, thought I was hosed. Luckily, it rolled to the left, got the inlane to a clean spinner, and then pops -> left flipper -> dead bounce into right inlane rollover -> another spinner, which was enough for the win.
Walked up to RBION and put up ~9M on ball 1. Went from “holy shit” to “holy shit”, if you know what I mean.
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Don’t tell me about your awesome Alien Star outlane stories! I don’t wanna hear 'em! 
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Keep the stories coming guys. Such a great weekend, nice to keep the memories happening.
All my wins I can remember were scrappy ball 3s where I came back from last place. I did it twice a round for a little while, until I flamed out around round 8.
I got the ball stuck on Countdown too. Wasn’t during the tournament, so I tried to unstick it myself. Got it to hop a few mm several times before it drained. Was that ruled a drain in progress or a bounce that should have happened?
I also had a ball stuck above the center post on Countdown. As a lowly C player, the highlight for me was on Taxi, getting a jackpot on ball 1. Had crappy second and third balls, but just managed to hold on and eke out a win.
A ball which has come to rest on top of a center post, an inlane-outlane post/guide or a lamp insert/playfield divot directly above an outlane will not be considered a stuck ball. Players may choose to free balls resting in these positions through nudging of the machine, or request that an official end the ball in play by manually placing it in the drain for center post incidents, and the outlane for inlane-outlane incidents.
In both cases, I asked for my ball to be drained.
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After seeing what happened to Kevin on Alien Star I started slapping the cabinet during alley passes which seemed to negate the up n over.
My ball 1 on that game was a trap on left, to shatz up and over, so I feel that pain too :).
perfect me to lock the next player out of ANY captive ball pts T_T
Nice, great job! Yeah, I was reasonably happy with that 10.5M score, until one of my opponents got a verrrry late grace period jackpot and wound up with about 13M. A little frustrating, but hey, respect, take what the machine gives ya…
Great thread! Some of my highlights:
- Consistency! I know, not nearly as sexy as blowing a game up, but consistency has always been a problem for me… I’m a fairly decent player when I’m “on”, but there are far too many times when I’m not “on”… usually exacerbated by having a bad game or two, which can send me into a death spiral (while I literally feel my blood pressure skyrocketing). This time I was able to shake off the bad balls and bad games, and I earned between 6 and 8 points in every one of my qualifying rounds.
- Game 38, F-14 Tomcat: getting to take a victory plunge (P4) on the last ball… I took one swat at the ball and sent it into the right lane, which started multiball. I then half-heartedly played out the multiball one-handed and almost got the jackpot. I felt like an ass and a bad-ass at the same time.
- Game 40, RBION: scoring 4.5M. This is totally un-noteworthy except perhaps for being a lousy score… except that I started ball 3 with about 1M. (See above: shaking off bad balls.) The machine was chewing up 3 of the 4 players in my group (P1 was rocking it). I sweated out P3 and P4 falling just short of my score… which gave me 72 total points.
- 10:50 PM Friday: listening to @bkerins tease the crowd until I realized that 72 points was getting me into the playoffs free and clear. I’ve been in A division in every Pinburgh; been playing live to the playoffs in round 10 of every Pinburgh (I think); twice been on the losing end of a tiebreaker game to advance. So nice to make it in for a change, even if I did terribly in my playoff round.
- Getting to commentate that terrific JSharpe/Stephens/Gagno/DeAngelo semi-final round with @Snailman and @ScoutPilgrim. So much fun, such a great privilege.
And most of all, loved seeing and playing with so many old friends and new friends!
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Best thread ever. I love reading these stories!
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My favorite two moments:
- Doodle Bug. This was the first time I’d ever seen it, and went last in my group. I figured out what to do from watching the others, but didn’t have much of a game through four balls…I was around 20k I believe, while the others had 37k, 51k, and 52k. On ball four, I got the bug going, and while the 10s reel was spinning away, I managed to get all four targets and get the 100s reel spinning…but drained shortly afterwards. There is this moment where the ball is draining down the outlane and the bug is still moving, earning you points even though the ball is out of play. I looked up and had slotted my score right in between the 51k and 52k.
- Group 5. I had been trying not to think too far into the future, and not worry about my points or my ranking. In fact most groups, I wouldn’t even look at the score sheet, for fear of getting too cocky or disappointed. I found out that Jorian was in my group (as well as two other great players). Okay, well…I have nothing to lose, right? It turns out that I needed 6 points to get into A, but didn’t know that at the time. Lo and behold, I played great that round…beating Jorian on three of the four games, and took home 7 points for the round! Obviously, he is a much better player than me, but that’s what makes pinball great for us mere mortals - you can end up playing one of the best in the world - and win!
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My story is less awesome than most, but I got to go to replayFX on the sunday unexpectedly. I was supposed to be busy through the Sunday while being nearby, and got loose from that at around 11, made it to replay by 12:30, and got 4.5 hours of straight pinball in before the show closed.
Yay!
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I had one shot at a perfect round all weekend. 9 points going into game 4, and the final game was Stern Spider-Man. And my first thought was, wow, you’re going to blow this on the one game that you have been playing non-stop at home for the last six months. I just knew it wasn’t going to end well. Of course, it played nothing like I was used to, I didn’t adjust, and I didn’t win.
Despite losing, it was noteworthy that I managed two consecutive center post saves, with no rubber on the post. Our group had just been talking about how pointless it was like that, only to have it work.
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That’s the thing about rubberless center posts: if the ball hits them nearly squarely in the middle coming down from high enough up [i.e. with some speed], you will have a chance to save it. That was true on each of the ones I played, including Spidey. Going from a 50-50 (?) save chance to 5-10% is still better than zero, and favors those alert enough to pounce when it happens. Good for you!
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I love all the Doodle Bug stories. I’m pushing for Derby Day in A finals next year!
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Reaching 73 qualifying points after second game on round 10 and instantly getting a beer to celebrate the most likely play-offs spot. Reading the tournament rules while getting last on the third game to realize that top16 and a bye for finals could still be happening. Ending the qualifying to a great match on Shrek where me and Chris H. both made it to TV Wizard. Chris won the match, but we both ended up being the last players to receive the bye.
Couple of awesome defeats also happened: @keefer reaching my score on Banzai Run on his last ball with having a huge disadvantage of not being able to make any cliff jumps because of the broken switch. Being last and way behind of others on Embryon on third ball, when the right flipper switch breaks down and a back-up game has to be played. We play new game on another Embryon in the backup bank and I still finish last.
The entire ReplayFX event was more than awesome. Super big thanks to everyone who made the event possible!
–
Olli-Mikko
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Was a TD brought into this?
Yes. I already knew what the answer would be, and it was play on. Technically all it did was take away an obvious points attack (which I had clearly not been doing very well at anyway), but the worst was having to light (then collect) freestyle to beat Red Hot. I had a legit chance of beating @FunWithBonus, especially if I had managed the million (which I did not), so while it was frustrating it clearly wasn’t a dealbreaker. (If you knew the game well enough 
)
If you want a quick rundown of my strategy in this case, instead of going for broken cliff jumps, I spammed the captive ball for laps. Used jet saucer to light Red Hot. When Red Hot was lit, complete the other guys so I didn’t have to worry about saucer spots going to easily-beatable people. Then use saucer to light Red Hot freestyle. Then shoot upper playfield to get freestyle/captive ball hits. Finally, with kickback off and ball on left flipper, shoot saucer for combo freestyle/light kb, nail it, actually finally get red hot, start multiball.
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Well that was a great reminder of how little I know about Banzai Run! Also a great example of how a knowledgeable player can find a way to win.
Thanks for sharing!
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