Had a situation at our SCS yesterday with Roadshow and was curious to know what the official ruling is for this particular incident. Ball 1 for Player 1, started a mode and the shaker motor came on and tilted the game. Tilts were set very high. Both players called for me (acting TD), and when I made my way over they both had made a decision together so I didn’t get a chance to make a ruling. Player 1 only had 30 million at the time of the tilt and both players agreed to void the game and start over after the tilt was adjusted. I adjusted the tilt, played a test ball, and the shaker motor did not tilt the machine. Both players started a new game and there were no issues.
I don’t know what a by-the-rules reading of this would look like, but I think this was a fair decision.
I would also have reprimanded both players for agreeing to a ruling-based decision without correctly consulting the TD.
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No idea either (on the ruling), but if you have the key, disable the shaker for competition. Tilts should be tighter in tournament play. A shaker handicaps a player going in and punishes a player for doing well.
Not so tight that a shaker sets it off. If that happens, the problem is the tilt setting, not the shaker, IMO.
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Why have it turned on to begin with? It adds nothing competitively and punishes a player for doing well by moving the tilt bob. I don’t want anything moving the tilt bob, even slightly.
If it’s a weekly at Crazy Bob’s and you don’t have the key, sure. But if it’s a state championship, that’s not the place IMO.
My first thought was: play-on. It’s game configuration. Mistake by the TD, if the game is essentially unplayable. But, configuration none the less. Eat it.
But on after thought, if a game configuration for whatever reason is unintended, it could be ruled a malfunction, I guess.
Road Show. Say the “problem” instead was that Red would not register. And because a connector was not assembled after maintenance the day before. I would fix it on discovery and, likely, offer a replay/rematch. And maybe with an option on keeping the best score of the two games.
As for shaker motors. I disable them for competition. As long as I remember to do it, anyway. I generally do not see the point.
I have lost a match because of the shaker tilting out my ball 3 on Roadshow. It’s absolutely maddening. That thing should probably be disabled for any competitive play, but it was a situation where we didn’t have control over that. In my case, I didn’t get a favorable ruling and the result stood. I can’t say I was very happy about that.
Seems like the correct ruling on ball 3 since the shaker has probably gone off several times already. If it hasn’t tilted before ball 3 the shaker alone isn’t likely to have tilted the game on it’s own, the tilt bob was likely already in motion. If the TD sets off the shaker and it tilts every time then considered premature loss of ball.
https://papa.org/learning-center/directors-guide/
“Plumb bobs continue to move far longer than most players choose to wait (usually a number of minutes). This can lead to situations where a small nudge will elicit a tilt after a larger, previous nudge did not. There is nothing a tournament director can (or should) do about this situation other than be prepared to open the coin door, if the situation warrants it, to show the offending player the still-moving plumb bob. Pinball is a game of subtle nudges, and it is not uncommon for a player to continually move a machine with slaps, shakes, or gentle pressure without realizing what he or she has done.”
Edit: If a TD were called mid-game how would s/he test the shaker? Could it be done without giving the player points or progress? Seems like they would have to finish the game before testing?
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The ruling, by the book, was correct, but I wasn’t happy about it. It had been giving tilt warnings. There had been some question as to whether or not it should have even been in use by that point, but it was. I just had to accept what happened. Doesn’t mean I liked it, however.
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I’d say a game that tilts simply by making shots is malfunctioning, but the key is to convince the TD the shaker is the ONLY reason the game tilted. Maybe the player was inadvertantly shoving the game with each flip as they hit the dozer during New York? One of my Pinburgh opponents last year tilted out of HRC during multiball. He called a TD and was swearing the game malfunctioned, but the rest of us clearly observed him getting excited and shoveflipping… even saw one of the tilt warnings flash up but hey, whatcha gonna do?
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I find this intriguing because I’ve never had a tilt on road show I’ve attested to the shaker… so much I often wondered if there was specific ‘ignore’ logic in the tilt when the shaker was active.
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I know I have shared this story before, but it seems relevant here. We once had a TWD that was dangering often on shaker (many times on ball kickout since it rumbled then). It turned out the bob was low enough and things out of place enough that it would hit the shaker casing before the ring. If it happened to fire at the moment it through it hard into a danger, often a tilt.
Moral of the story, sometime a very loose tilt can also cause this type of issue.
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