Coming from Canada eh! Super excited. I will have a mobile data plan this year yay! No more having to run to the desk and search the 100 papers to find my name and what bank I am at.
Is pintips.net the best resource when stepping up to pins that I have never played for a couple quick pointers?
Define “best”.
You probably won’t find a publically available database that will be more helpful. However, there are plenty of Pinburgh games, mostly EMs but also other machines, that are not covered. If you want everything covered, you’ll either need to find or create a supplement or update Pintips yourself to fill in the gaps.
For EMs withoout instruction , remember to check ipdb. A lot of repro cards. Also, some without you can often see them in the photos.
How to make good use of instructions is another story. They are often not that useful. They never say, ignore everything and crank the spinner all day. But good to know which features are important and which are a lot of work to earn a special that is not worth any points.
Also, download all the tables on Pinball arcade to have access to the tutorials.
I have found 80%+ of the people there are perfectly happy to talk strategy of the bank before the game starts. Of course, be respectful of those that want to be alone and quiet to prepare and those that would like the strategic advantage of their superior rules knowledge.
Befriend someone with access to a private repo
“Insert coin and press button to begin.”
“Do X for Special.”
“Do Y for 2 Specials.”
“Points score as indicated.”
I didn’t even know private tip repos were a thing. The sekrit underground of pinball.
I liked @pinwizj’s suggestion on WWOP to just ask his Dad.
ohhh good call. I’ll just hire Roger for the weekend 
I despise the secret sites
@haugstrup I know we’re just two days from Pinburgh, but any possibility of adding a quick Pinburgh filter/tab/thing to pintips for those of us willing to share Pinburgh-specific game data? The Transporter upper flipper tip in the other thread is a perfect example for this. Or maybe we could all agree to add a “PINBURGH2016” tag to the front of any tip added, then wipe those out afterwards?
Love it! Great idea. P.s. just finally finished watching the 6 hour stream of calex. Congrats on 2nd
Before my first Pinburgh 3 years ago, when the game banks were released, I made a database for my own use. It took tens of hours over a couple weeks. Since then, I’ve updated with other notes for machines I’ve come across, including the last few Pinburghs. It currently has notes for 321 machines. (Pintips has ~620. Nice!) Some of my notes are better than pintips. Some not so much.
I’ve shared this database with a handful of friends. Occasionally, they add a note or two.
Pintips hasn’t been around that long. 
Keeping in mind that the notes in my database come from several sources (online rulesheets, rule cards, watching gameplay or tutorial videos, my personal experience, etc.), let me propose the following to avoid being despised by Karl:
If you want access to this Google Sheets database, send me a PM with an email address (not sure if you can use a non-gmail account, but you probably can if it’s linked to the email you provide).
In exchange for this access, I request that you donate $5 or more to one of the following pinball-related causes:
A) https://www.gofundme.com/popifpa
B) Bowen Kerins | creating Pinball | Patreon
You will have read and write access to this data, but please don’t remove any significant info without asking me first. Filling in details where it’s missing is always appreciated.
Copying any of this info to pintips is totally fine.
Great idea Steve. You gave me advice and that link during my 1st pinburgh. (I was still afraid of data charges then so I didn’t use it) I forgot about that though.
So much this. But I guess I made that pretty clear previously: Pinball Strategy App! - #9 by keefer
All it does is make me not want to help people, which is generally against my nature. I don’t remember seeing league affiliations being available this year, but if I was really spiteful, I’d check someones affiliation before helping them possibly. 
Great thread, @keefer. I don’t want to derail, but +1 to sharing strategies broadly. If it weren’t for Bowen’s videos (and watching him a few times at NEPL nights) I wouldn’t know half the strategy I know. I can’t remember a tournament I’ve been to where someone didn’t give me a tip I didn’t know beforehand. Making Pinball Great Again.
Interesting read. I can see both sides of the coin. I personally am not necessarily going to volunteer all the information I know against somebody im about to play. But if they ask me I will help them out as much as I can.
I think there are different situations. If I playing motordome, we have a discussion to make sure everyone understands the selection at the start. If we are playing Dr Who, or GOT, or AC/DC I am not going to tell anyone strategy. Actually, having people come up to me and say “left ramp all day” bothers me, especially if I already know the game.
If we are grouped together I know what advice to give you now thanks
True story: I created Pintips after last year’s Pinburgh because I was talking with a friend about how unfair it was to see lots of people hoarding game rules on various secret apps.
Personaly opinion: I don’t really care either way for Pinburgh-specific game data such as “left flipper is soggy”. I’m fine with those things being shared in secret, but it makes me frustrated to see general game rules being shared in secret.
Aaaaaanyway, I can add a pinburgh2016 category when I land Wednesday night. If I forget due to jetlag just prefix tips with “pinburgh2016” and I’ll get them filtered somehow after the tournament.
Now let’s all pray that pintips will stay online during Pinburgh
Awesomness!!!
That’s a fact. I know Keith doesn’t even know me, but last year I was in the middle of a game on MB and I see Keefer standing there in a group about 4 banks away. I had a very specific question about the game and I walked right up between turns and asked him. He gave me a concise answer and I used that info to take 2nd place on a game which I knew very little about going into the match.