I’ve noticed KME and a few other top players use this type of shot over the last year or so, but not really seen any discussion of it. Maybe there has been and I just haven’t seen it. Regardless, here’s a perfect example:
The move seems to be to hold the flipper up as a ball is rolling through the inlane to the flipper, not as an attempt to trap it and bail out when you realize it won’t stop, but to slow the ball and give it a hop, drop the flipper and make a shot that’s a little more on the fly, but seems to be surprisingly more in control than I would have thought.
In the Andromeda match, it seems pretty clear that the angle of hitting the multiball start was much more doable from this move than from a trap or normal rolling shot from the inlane, due to the pop being in the way given the angle of a normal shot. The angle of the shot from the flipper seemingly would be different if the ball has downward momentum going into the shot instead of horizontal momentum. I didn’t go through and count, but Keith seemed to have a much much higher percentage at hitting the multiball directly when doing it this way than from a trap. Or maybe this move doesn’t really change the angle, but it slows down the ball enough that you have a wider timing error margin to hit the shot?
This also seems to be a good way to set up an alley pass when the ball is on the fly as well, as was seen before the multiball start.
Anyways, taking shots this way seems valuable in a number of situations, but there isn’t a commonly used name for it, and don’t really see the tactic discussed on streams. So, is there a name for it? Or what should it be?
If you see me doing that, it’s because I’m trying to stop the ball on that flipper, and have realized that it won’t…and now it’s time to fling it away.
It hadn’t occurred to me that others were doing it intentionally. Excellent post!
That’s what it looked like to me. When this happens (ball coming medium fast down inlane), your reptile pinball brain (which is in charge of survival) kicks in and raises the flipper on that side defensively. You don’t really even think about it. Then when the rest of your brain catches up to what’s happening, it quickly realizes the ball isn’t going to roll cleanly to the other flipper without help. He could’ve tip passed over to the other flipper, but the shot he wanted was only available from that flipper, so he dropped the flipper and took a swing at it.
This and it also makes the shot weaker which is nice especially on early SS games where a target you might need to hit will regularly send the ball to an outlane.
Yep, It’s basically a change-up. I do this on a shot that doesn’t need to be hit hard to register to maximize response time on a brick shot. Not sure if there is video of my High Hand game from last Pinburgh finals but I used this move to successfully shoot the saucer a few times.
While in the audience for finals this year, I was trying to describe what you did last year on High Hand. I thought you were somehow half-flipping…but this makes a lot more sense. No one else was able to shoot directly at the collect and make it stick.
I was just going to post that. That game of Andromeda had really bad hop, so taking a shot rolling from inlane was near impossible to hit the MB start, I think.
The main thing on High Hand is to have the ball going slowly and not straight up-and-down playfield angle-wise in the vicinity of the hole. Slower means more likely to fall in - - like a golf hole, a too-hard shot will rim out unless dead center, while a slower shot can fall in from the edge. The highest percentage is the rattle-out-of-the-angled-lane nudge-in, made via shooting up top, but that’s indirect. Next highest is the sling bank; the advantage here is it both slows the ball since the sling kicks either not at all or weakly at the proper shot angle, and that if it misses, the ball can continue higher up and turn into one of those lane rattle-out-and-ins - - thus while the shot itself isn’t the highest percentage, it gives you two chances which total your best odds. The bank shot off the tip of those angled lane sides is #3, but that’s a really fine angle, although a close miss again gives you a chance at a rattler. Straight in can work, ditto off the bumper, but the problem with these is that a rejection or a too-weak shot is likely to center drain.
