The slamtilt has no use in games used in a big tournament but it can ( and sometimes do) cause problems.
In large tournaments players can’t abuse the tournament games simply because there is a lot of other players that will inform the tournament staff about the abusive behavior.
At the swedish championship tournaments (at least the ones that were arranged in Stockholm) we made shure that the slamtilts were secured with tejp so they wouldn’t cause any problems during the tournaments.
I really hope that Bowen will see to it that the tournament games at Pinburgh will have the Slamtilts secured on the games, so that other players won’t have the same bad experience that I had last year, with a faulty slamswitch.
I am sorry that you are still upset about this a year later. As I recall you got a ruling from another TD, who tested the machine and ruled that the slam switch was working properly. Then you asked me to overrule this decision, which is not cool.
The tech team makes every effort to secure slam switches. With 280 games in the tournament it is very difficult to get everything just right.
With 40 games per player at Pinburgh, obviously they all matter but there are plenty of chances for players to get both good and bad breaks.
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Also the hours alone to bypass 2-3 different and varying slam tilts in a game minimum(coin door, playfield, roll slam tilt, cabinet and relay board to name a few) on 250+ games. The amount of work to do all that to only possibly avoid (not a guarantee) a single possible game malfunction in the whole event seems counter productive when that time can be better spent fine tuning playing mechanics.
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was it a similar issue than the “Belisto phantom slam tilt” at PAPA maybe?
Bowen, I’m not upset, far from it, but I will be very upset IF that would happen again, and as I said, slamtilts have nothing to do in a large tournament. It’s simply not needed. Especially in a tournament like Pinburgh with a lot of players all around and three players that you play with, watching every move you do. The only thing a slamtilt can do, is cause problems.
Nope, this was a slam switch on an EM. The Belsito issue was caused by a known malfunction (thought to have been fixed before finals began).
In case of a slam, we check the machine to see if there may be some issue with a malfunctioning slam switch (a TD or tech can make this decision), and if it’s not, then it’s a slam. 
First of all, modern games have one, I repeat, one slamswitch, the one in the door, that’s half of the games.
Then all Gottlieb ss games with their crappy slam switch system, should always be bypassed on the motherboard, that’s also ony one place to take care of, old classics have mostly have three slamswitches, the door, the relayboard in the bottom of the game (if someone would kick the bottom of the cabinet and the rolltilt that sits over the hanging tiltlode. The tiltswitches in the backbox and mounted under the playfield are regular tiltswitches that dont need to be secured.
Sekond, I took up this problem with Bowen shortly after the last Pinburgh tournament, so don’t tell me that they haven’t got enough time to secure the slamswitches on the tournament games.
Slamswitches are only useful on games that are in operating.
Bowen do you remember that you had one of the tech guys with you, and that he stated that there’s was a malfuncion on the slamswitch on that game.
yeah Bowen, jeez, you’ve had a whole year! Don’t give me your lies!!! I demand things! XD
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I don’t want to discuss further how and why I was asked to rule on something that was already ruled upon. It’s not cool to ask another TD to make a ruling when the issue had already been settled by other TDs and techs.
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Ah slam tilt - my old rant.
In my perspective, slam tilt is not an element of the pinball game. Only the pinball machine - as a public coin-operated device. To disencourage lifting up the game, excisive pushing around and banging on the door in an attempt to manipulate credits added.
The nature of the game of pinball is, if you nudge too hard or too many times, you loose ball-in-play* and the bonus for that ball. That’s it. And it should be all the consequence in competition play. I mean, how can anybody be interested in games ending prematurely for players without their involvement.
When I got into competition pinball I was shocked to learn that it was custom (some places at least) to DQ a slam tilter from the tourney. This is not the same as saying that bad behaviour and abuse of equipment should be allowed. But please, decide this and potential DQ’ing as a TD.
And remember. Disabling slam tilt switches on games for competition gives a TD a couple of very nice benefits. Any slam tilt can without question be rendered a malfunction of the game. Similar to a reset. And no more concern about accidental slam tilting in cases of mid-game repairs / stock balls. Including that ever gentle handling of the coin door. Which might be tricky if the door is jamming.
So, do yourself a favor Mr. TD. Grab a roll of duct tape and remove slam tilt from the equation.
*Yes, I know about the seldom tilt ends game designs. And that’s fine.
PS. This is general commentary and a years old oppinion of mine. And not aimed at the Pinburgh incident or PAPA.
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I’m not interested in the wrong ruling from a defective slamtilt last year, but what I’m interested in, is that neither me or anyone else playing in the tournament will have a slamtilt malfunction this 2016 Pinburgh tournament.
And as I said, a slamtilt has no place in a large tournament, there’s plenty of players who will notify the staff if anyone is abusing a game.
A slamtilt is for when a player kicks the game or lifts it, to get a slamtilt for normal nudging is mot right.
I know there is a few old em games that have game over tilt as a regular tilt, i played one Gottlieb oneplayer at Pinburgh 2011. That one had a sign saying “Tilt will end the game” and that’s okey,then you know that nudging the game could cause a game over situation.
I friend om mine, who also is a pinball collecter and plays in the Pinburgh tournament, came up with a cristal clear sollution, to just add an on/off switch for the slamtilt in the coindoor. Just a switch and two wires are needed.
I am sooo gonna put in that in all my machines, so it just takes a flick of a switch to have it going for tournaments.
Well, I have said what I wanted to say, and I feel that you have said what you want, so we might give this discussion a rest.
And I do love the Pinburgh Tournament format, and I’m looking forward to compete with a bunch of other players.
On older Ballys such as Eight Ball, a common problem is the slamtilt switch mounted on the underside of the playfield. They are often way too sensitive. We had a slam tilt on EB in league not too long ago. I witnessed the player do a rage tilt at the end of his ball, but it wasn’t a kick or anything really abusive to the machine. Well, the game slam tilted. We found the offending switch and just bent the contact with the weight on it way back out of the way. No more problems!
Hot dam, if were throwing out unreasonable requests, I demand no game resets, flipper failures, or malfunctions that affect me negatively in anyway!
I mean it’s only like 400 games, forget cleaning and rerubbering those things, just deal with the potential 1200 slam tilt switches!
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I demand a get out of jail card that I can hand to any TD and they have to rule in my favor
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Sorry. There can only be one of these, and someone else already has it.
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And I see that you don’t know much about slam switches in pinball games.
But he has won Pinburgh 
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I know that your wrong on the number of slam tilt switches in a DMD, there are at least 2 - 3 not 1.
1 on the coin door, 1 in the bottom of the cabinet and even sometimes one mounted on the PF.
Either way, it would be a monumental task to make sure that every single slam tilt was disabled, and I’m sure the PAPA crew has bigger fish to fry.
IMO disabling the coin door interlock seems far more valuable then disabling every slam tilt, and even with the practicality of it, I would never consider it an expectation as you seem to with the slam tilts.
Statements like “so don’t tell me that they haven’t got enough time to secure the slamswitches on the tournament games” are ridiculous. The sheer undertaking of moving 700 ish machines, setting them up and running an event such as replayfx is insane in and of itself.
My suggestion would be, don’t man handle the machines and you’ll be fine…
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