Was so nice to meet so many people that I had only known as an online name up until this point. I am going to do my best to remember names and faces for future shows. Pinburgh has a permanent place on my calendar for years to come.
My play was pretty poor all weekend, but again, loved all the people I met in my groups and the conversations I had with them.
My best game came during dollar games with a friend. Felt good to put initials up on a PAPA game.
This was my first time at Pinburgh, and everything was pretty awesome (except for a few of my mistakes playing, but they were my mistakes).
My favorited pinball-wise was playing Gator in round 10. After tanking on Cheetah and Jackbot (grrrrr), I was out of contention for finals, but wanted to end on a high note. I cranked whatever music I was listening to and ended up putting up 6,198. It was great to get into the flow, it was nice to discover a game I hadnât played that I really enjoyed, and it was fun to play well on it. But the awesome part wasnât the score; it was the congratulations from my fellow group members whose fates I may have impacted, as well as from someone who walked by from the A-division group playing in the same group. He saw the score, stopped, and congratulated me for it. That kind of encouragement late into the qualifying was really welcome. Iâd had similar congrats from nearby players after a good ball on Atlantis the previous round and that was nice.
I didnât catch who that person was who commented on my Gator score, but thanks!
Best moment was when our group talked a nearby tech into turning up the sound on Class of 1812 (which was nearly silent originally), then proceeding to put up over 30 million on ball 2 while rockinâ the Clucking Overture. Made up for some otherwise crummy play that day. Other highlights: earning two EBs on Asteroids Annie (give me enough chances and I will catch up to you), and getting the casino wiz mode on HRC. That was the only bank I really scored well on. Also pulling out 3s on game 4 Spidey and CV to salvage 4-8 records on those banks.
hmmmâŚsounds like you belonged in A afterall?
My highlight list was pretty small this year, but I do have one I was pretty happy with⌠137M on R&B with 0 jackpots. Got Tri-Ball off the 2nd ramp award, bounced the ball to right flipper and lit jackpot before a ball was plunged, flail, flail, triple drain. Next 2 balls, go through all the ramp awards, Save Nell (with about 1 second left, donât ask), and light second multiball the hard way (some looping spots may have been involved), and drain immediately after lighting multiball 2.
Fortunately it was still enough to stave off a strong last ball by another player (including a doubled 32M).
Not really, those were the rare highlights. Iâm happy I salvaged some really cruddy rounds and never scored less than 4, but also only managed one score over 7. Iâd say Iâm a B player⌠if I played in more tournaments, might manage low A, but not yet.
My highlight and the thing I was most proud of was that after I was mathematically eliminated from finals I went on to win game 4.
Best one this year for me:
Intentional Shatz up-and-over to the inner-inlane collecting a 100k special on Wild Fyre to assert dominance on Birrell.
That whole round was fun. Getting to give Lee grief over a malfunctioning Snow Derby (his favorite game), losing in spectacular fashion to @metallik and his chickens on Class of 1812 (not even mad), and then finally getting a handle on Medieval Bastard with a ball 3 comeback to cap off Pinburgh. Round 10s when everyone is out are a riot to play for all of these reasons.
So this worked better than his plan to intentionally bank it off of the pop bumper to collect the special?
My first time at Pinburgh this year and I didnât get to compete, so I just soaked it in, spectated and chilled. Got to play a lot of machines Iâve never seen before. Favorite pins/moments:
1: New-to-me pins I loved: Speakeasy, Mars God of War, Dragon (BAO!), Party Zone; canât believe Iâve never played PZ before and the one with the lightning flippers was batshit! Safecracker, even though I didnât really know what the heck was going on most of the time. Too many others. Got to play a lot of my âWhite Whalesâ and attempt to put my initials up.
2: Watching the finals in the front row with my buds. Hearing Josh holler and kick was hilarious.
3: A few fangirl moments when 20 minutes after making a new friend I realize WHO that person actually is.
Too many others to name. Had a blast and at one point I turned to my friend and said âMy face hurts from smiling so much.â Definitely coming back next year and going to try and get a spot and actually compete.
Waking up the next morning and seeing that huge Pinburgh cup in my hotel room, confirming that Pinburgh 2017 wasnât all a dream.
Highlight 1 for me was being in a group with McSirTuna and putting up 140m on Sopranos which was good enough for initials. Tuna got second with 27m.
Number 2 was round 5 and playing in a group with Graeme MacAlpine (11yr) and a 14yr old. Graeme ran the show and did all the score keeping. A total professional. Had no idea who he was at the time - other than a super nice kid and a great player. We ended up tied at 8 for the round. Escher was also on the same bank (different group) which included Skateball which was also cool.
Number 3 - First game of round 6 was Dialed In on the big stage. I managed to put up over 700k and entered initials for the second time on the tourney. Seems less impressive after watching KME put up 2.6M.
Number 4 - After a 10.5pt round 6 I managed to just barely get a perfect round 7. Starting Friday with 7 wins out of 8 games was a pretty good feeling.
I believe this has happened at least once (a nonzero score tie) in every Pinburgh.
This was my first Pinburgh, and what a great Pinburgh it was for me. There were tons of great moments for me (including putting my initials into AC/DC and getting an 11 to make it into the tiebreaker for C finals), but my best moment was yet to come.
During round 2 of the C finals, I was sitting at 1 win after 2 games, so I needed to win TX-Sector and Harlem Globetrotters to advance. Hereâs what happened in TX (I was player 4) (edit: it was not a walk-off, it was a legitimate drain from a bricked shot where I didnât know that bonus would save me)
Third Pinburgh, First time qualifying. Sure, it was in D, but I went 22-2 on Friday night to get there.
I was Player 4! I tilted while the ball was headed to the outlane on Ball 3, putting myself in the tie⌠it was one of those days 
My highlight was round #10 this year. On game 1 (Counterforce) ball 1 my ball got stuck on a sunken outlane insert and wouldnât shake free. We called for help and no other than Bowen stopped over to remove the glass and free the ball and in the process he accidentally reset the game. Sorry Bowen! Everyone in my group was cool about it (I had a really great group) but we had to replay the game.-No one at this point had a very good ball one score which helped. Anyway on my new ball one I proceeded to roll the game putting up over a million points and really felt myself getting into a good groove. After picking up the win on Counterforce, I also took 1st on WPT and HMM. This round was good enough to push me into a tie for 40th place along with 11 other players which meant we needed to have a 12 player tie-break game on 6$DM where the top 2 scores moved on. I ended up putting up the highest score of the bunch with all my friends cheering me on and won my way into the B Division playoffs! It was an exciting end to a real up and down day for me in B Division and it took me a while to wind down and actually realize I needed to get some sleep and prepare for playoffs. I really think some of Bowenâs greatness may have rubbed off on me that night as I really started playing great after our chance encounter. Thanks Bowen!
