The 2nd annual Cactus Jack’s Silverball Showdown is three days of match play pinball competition based on the Pinburgh format, with no players eliminated until Sunday. All players compete in groups on Friday, with the quality of their play determining whether they go to A or B Division for Saturday. All players compete in groups on Saturday within their Division, with the quality of their play determining whether they advance to finals. Qualifiers compete for the division prizes on Sunday, while everyone else plays in a 3-strike group knockout tournament.
Entry fee is $35, to be collected upon check-in at the event. 100% of which will go toward trophies and cash payouts. The machines will be set to coin drop which will serve as the facility fee.
Tldr; I had fun. People should consider attending next year.
Thanks to Shawn and everyone involved in putting on this event. I don’t know how Shawn managed to take care of so much through the weekend. I had a great time. Cactus Jack’s is a nice facility and the machines for the most part played nice. Special thanks to the collectors that provided the classics machines. Full house certainly won me over once I began to understand it and got a feel for it.
My wife accompanied we on the trip and had fun exploring a new city. We visited the Banjo museum today and we highly recommend it. Visiting the federal building memorial was also very striking.
I met a lot of new people. It is one of the things I like most about this format. But unlike pinburgh were you met people then they disappear into the crowd never to be seen again, here everyone was very social through the entire weekend.
Good mix of skills from strong players, competitive B+/A- players and local more casual players. I certainly felt I had a chance to succeed, but it challenging (clearly, based on where I finished. At least I might be the top non-US finisher).
My biggest complaint was that Dragon. I felt nauseated playing it. The leds strobed really badly. I realise at not everyone could see strobing at that frequency, but I had trouble with it.
Hey Ian good to see you there - definitely a fun tourney and I agree about being able to meet/hang/chat/play with new people was easier than at mega sized Pinburgh (which is also super stupid fun!).
Cactus Jacks is great and the mix of machines was nice. I wish I could have played better but was happy to make the finals which was my goal going in. Took some photos too and it was really neat to see Keri win (she’s the first woman to ever win a PAPA Circuit Event, according to Fred Richardson who I failed to help qualify by my super poor play on TRON
