Pinball Goals for 2018

[ChubbyGoomba]

@ChubbyGoomba

• Qualify in A division at Kidforce I qualified in A a few times this year! With 100 or so players in the league, I feel accomplished there.
• Get my Lost World working Whooops, that’s still not even started! I moved it into the workshop but it’s such a low priority right now. Soon. Soon…
• Attend at least 2 major pinball events Pinburgh and the Cleveland Pinball Show! Pinburgh I ended up in B, and I made 8th in Classics at the Cleveland Show!
• Crack top 1000 in IFPA world ranking I finally did it, after jumping the line for the first half of the year. The points I earned from the Classics at Cleveland Pinball Show really boosted me up.
• As a TD, continue to improve the quality and showmanship of my monthly events This one is hard to measure. I’ve been tweaking the tournaments I run slightly. That’s something.
• As a tech, make sure the machines at the parlor are ready ahead of time for said monthlies I’m definitely improving on this, but I’ve also learned to just leave games out more often. Work with what’s available! Why give myself trouble with a problem I can’t fix in time?
• Run more events, outside of my monthly I started talking with some other folks. I don’t have the energy to run more events, but I can tech them! Hoping to get those started in January.
• Get as close as I possibly can to qualifying for Ohio SCS I came as close as 40th! The competition is hot in Ohio now, and I just didn’t finish well enough or compete in enough events to make top 24! Oh well. Next year’s right around the corner

Updated my goals for this year

[yancy]

• Cash in the Expo tourney. Sick for most of Expo; didn’t want to light a match to $125.
• Reassemble my Farfalla, which I left unfinished 5+ years and one home ago. Bought a fully assembled & working Farfalla instead. Still have the other one.
• Score 1 billion on The Walking Dead or reach Last Man Standing. Nope.
• Qualify for Illinois SCS playoffs. Hooray mincash! Time to get wrecked by the toughest field in the NACS.
• Go big or go home: win A division of CPL. Tied for 5th with some guy named Josh Sharpe.

Goal for 2019: ditch goals.

[GravitaR]

Pinball related goals for 2019:

Continue downward trend in IFPA rank to 450-500 range.
`Get 3rd NIB machine, not a pre-order`. Scratch this due to new taxes.
Continue to help others play better.
Play in Pinburgh again before retiring from the IFPA
Lower event count to Under 40.

Happy to say all 2018 goals were achieved.

[bclement]

@bclement

• play more non-tournament pinball
• host a tournament
• buy a Stars
• improve mental side of tournament play
• bring a new person to the hobby

Check
Check
Fail
Check
Check

Better than I thought I would do!

[ryanwanger]

@ryanwanger

• Make it to the top 210 in IFPA ranking
• Play 6 out of state tournaments
• Earn 25+ points in a single event
• Get 25 people to play in a tournament or league for the first time
• Reach Encore on AC/DC (EBs on, outlanes open)
• Make 15 consecutive shots without missing, on two different games (can be same shot, or a combination of different shots)

Fail. I ended around 244/245. 17 of my top 20 are all in the 8-15 point range. It’s very difficult for me to go anywhere without big wins.

Success. I played in 8 out of state tournaments.

Fail. There were only two events in Colorado that awarded 25 or more WPPR points in 2018, however in three separate tournaments in New York…I could have hit 25+ with one additional decent game to advance me through to the next round. So close. Basically I spent the whole year watching 8-10 pointers decay and/or being pushed out and replaced with 10-14 pointers.

Success. 29 people played their first league or tournament in one of my events!

Fail. I did not get to Encore. I probably got to 9 songs once, and 10 songs once, but other than that, I wasn’t really that close. I’m considering switching to MB all day, and essentially never trying to pick off objectives in single ball play…no matter how tempting it is with only 2 or 3 left before lighting the jukebox.

Success. I did get something like 21 shots in a row on the GOT center ramp. I also went over 15 on some other game, though I can’t remember now what it was. This time it was a mixture of different shots. I think it might have been AC/DC.

[stevevt]

@ryanwanger

I did get something like 21 shots in a row on the GOT center ramp.

Sounds like someone’s ready for some Thunderbirds.

[misterschu]

Ya, Mousin’ Around needs like 10X that number to have a chance of sticking.

[ryanwanger]

Funny you say that, I just picked up a Mousin’ Around a few days ago. The speed on return feed is wildly inconsistent from the center ramp. It’s fun trying to figure out each time if you should hit it on the fly, pass it over to the left flipper, or try an immediate cradle on the right.

[chuckwurt]

2019 goals for me!:

1. Play in 5 circuit events
2. Get top 10 in at least one circuit event.
3. Win the KY SCS on 1/19/19
4. Find a Cheetah
5. Make Pincinnati even better in year 2.

[djreddog]

While I didn’t post them here last year for reference, my goals for 2018 were mostly TD oriented, with a couple personal goals sprinkled in.

• TD at least 6 events in 2018 for Delaware Pinball (CHECK) - Ended up TD’ing 8 events in Delaware, one in DC and one in Maryland

• TD a Critical Hit tournament (CHECK) - Held the first ever Critical Hit tournament in September with 32 players attending

• Host/TD the first ever SCS in Delaware (CHECK) - We crowned our first ever Delaware State Pinball Champion in January of 2018, Rob DeStasio from New Jersey

• TD a “circuit series” in Delaware (CHECK) - We had 6 events making up the year long circuit and it ended with a Circuit Finals that paid out over $1600 in prize money with $800 going to 1st place

• To make Delaware a hotbed for Tournament pinball, since tournament pinball was not even relevant prior to September 2017 (CHECK?) - I can’t be the deciding factor here, but instead I think the proof is in the pudding. Every event in Delaware sold out in 2018 (most events were capped at around 44 entries). Players attended from DC/Baltimore/Jersey/Harrisburg/NYC on a consistent basis. The first tournament of 2019 sold out in 7 hours (40 entries).

• Play in Pinburgh for the first time (CHECK) Qualified for “B”

• Crack the top 1000 (CHECK) Ended 2017 around #2200. Ended 2018 at #570

• Get to Tour MB on Aerosmith Premium (FAIL) - Settings are 3 second ball save, toybox disabled, no EB’s. Best I could do was start Medley MB 3-4 times

• Get to Run to the Hills on Iron Maiden (FAIL) - Game is setup with 3 second ball save, no EB’s. Got to 2 minutes to midnight a couple of times and to number of the beast a couple of times, but never Run to the Hills.

• Get engaged at a pinball tournament (CHECK) - Proposed to my girlfriend and pinball partner of 5 years at the August Annihilation event.

2019 Goals:

• TD the first ever Flip Frenzy tournament in Delaware (scheduled for 2/2)
• TD the first ever 24 hour tournament in Delaware (scheduled for 10/19)
• Register for Pinburgh
• Qualify for “A” at Pinburgh
• Win the Delaware SCS
• Crack the top 500
• Host/Run a Winter Pinball Show in Northern Delaware

[JSZ]

For 2019: Win IFPA16 and never play at a tournament again.

[Snailman]

@djreddog

Get engaged at a pinball tournament (CHECK)

That’s awesome. Congrats!

@djreddog

Get to Run to the Hills on Iron Maiden (FAIL) - Game is setup with 3 second ball save, no EB’s.

Turn your EB’s back on when gunning for Run to the Hills. If/when you make it, THEN turn off EB’s and see if you can do it again.

[Frisbez]

@Frisbez

• Hit 300 WPPRs for my top 20 events for an average of 15/event. Currently at around 180~ so this should be doable but hard. This would bump my rank from 420->155~ as well.

• Qualify in A at INDISC and Pinburgh.

• Learn how to stage flip consistently.

Rank as of January 1st is 119th with 372 WPPRs. I definitely hit this goal.

I did not qualify for A at either INDISC or Pinburgh.

I was in 8th after Friday at INDISC and could not manage the 2 more decent scores that I needed on Saturday.

At Pinburgh I bombed day 1 and got placed in B but recovered nicely and finished tied for 3rd in B (then lost the $250 tiebreaker game of Genesis to finish 4th).

I also have not consistently mastered staging. I’m definitely better than I was a year ago, but watching how good Raymond and Escher and others are at it makes it clear that I still have a long way to go.

Now I’m going to continue setting ambitious goals for myself:

• Top 50 IFPA ranking

• Win something bigger than a monthly

• Finish putting together my Alien Poker and Kings of Steel.

[Snailman]

@Frisbez

Finish putting together my … Kings of Steel.

Leave out wiring up the Right Target.

[cornycrunch]

Break top 500 (currently 774th).

Came close at one point, then my ranking/rating just started slipping. Still in the 600s ranking-wise.

Break 1 billion on a pre-GoT modern “red DMD” era Stern (TWD/Met/ST).

Damn you Iron Maiden for being too addictive. Although the TWD I was gonna shoot for 1B+ on got rotated out too (having put up ~900M on it) .

Attend at least three Stern Pro Circuit events; obviously place as high as I can. Preferably ones I haven’t attended, and ones >= 1000 miles away from SoCal.

Pinburgh being the only really far one, but I suppose three count: INDISC, City Champ, Pinburgh. Though INDISC is always a given since I’m in SoCal anyway. I definitely have INDISC, Pinburgh, TPF, CAX on my radar with a few more to come, time and budget pending.

Master Shatzing and loop passes.

Dunno about loop passes but having to play games where Shatzing is really the only viable option kinda helped with that department, sooo… yeah.

Get more consistent at saving.

Hard to really objectively judge (especially from rainbows)… I’ll call this a “it depends on the day” thing.

Make more pinball friends.

Beat @mwelsh to an INDISC trivia answer.

…

[Frisbez]

We had this in a tournament here recently set up with no right target. It’s still a single shot game; the shot just becomes the left orbit. I’m honestly not sure there is a way to save this game for tournament play. Hopefully INDISC proves me wrong!

Alien Poker on the other hand…I’m soooo ready to be playing it.

[cornycrunch]

My big 2019 goal really is one thing: consistency. And maybe also “ease of mind”. I feel the lack of those two tenets proved to be a death knell in a lot of large-ish tournaments as of late.

And then crack top 500. For reals this time. Stretch goal: 300.

[Snailman]

@Frisbez

Alien Poker on the other hand…I’m soooo ready to be playing it.

Absolutely! Fun game, layout, rules… all amplified by the intensity of dealing with a double flipper. Such a great match play game, too, where your approach to each game and ball changes based on the status of other players.

Get that Alien Poker fixed!

[earthvsmatt]

Goals for 2018*

• Get to Last Man Standing on TWD. I’ve put up 80ish kills and 1.3 billion on it- no LMS though.

• Score over 1 billion on Metallica. I think my high is around 800 or low 900. Been to EOL twice though.

• Finish first in my league. Highest finish is 2rd.

• Buy another game- preferably an EM or two.

• Be in the 300 rankings by year end. 458 right now.

• Learn to tap pass/shatz more consistently.
  ————————————————————
  How I did on those goals*

• didn’t get to Last Man Standing. Got to 90? Or so
• broke 2.8 billion on Metallica but uhhh thanks to new code
• finished first in my league finally!
• bought a Gottlieb Tag Team brining my game total to 3!
• I moved up from 458 to 264 this year! Huge year for me. Won a decent amount of bigger tournaments and felt like I’m miles better than I was last year.

[speederice]

2019 Goals for me:

• Crack the Top 1000 (Currently in the 1600’s)
• Come in first in one of our League sessions
• Establish a new League at my location
• Get 5 brand new players rated for IFPA
• Get to the Emperor in Star Wars
• Make it to finals in a Pinburgh division
• Make A Division in a tournament
• Start streaming pinball (have the equipment, just too nervous to go live)