|
ODDITIES — Dispatch from the pinball war |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Written by Dan Seymour, asap
|
|
Thursday, 24 August 2006 |
|
|
|
|
 |
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
Neil Shatz of San Francisco, Calif., takes a whirl around a pinball racetrack.
|
PITTSBURGH — A violent thunderstorm cut the power for a half-second, just long enough to reset the scores on a slew of tournament pinball games and force a chorus of shrieks from a few dozen pinball players.
Most of those in the ninth annual Professional Amateur Pinball Association world pinball championship had no idea a thunderstorm was dumping sheets of rain throughout western Pennsylvania Saturday night. They were too engrossed in the qualifying rounds of the most competitive pinball event in the world, housed in a nondescript warehouse just outside Pittsburgh.
It’s not terribly glamorous -- there are no groupies and there’s no drinking allowed -- but the stakes are high for each of the roughly 400 participants vying for a $10,000 purse.
Each has intimate knowledge of the rules of hundreds of pinball games, including how to win multi-balls, how to score big bonuses, which plays are too risky except in desperate straits, and how heavily you can nudge the table without forcing a tilt.
“A great pinball player will never do anything to the ball without an intent,” says Kevin Martin, who runs PAPA and hosts the annual tournament. “The great pinball player never just flips or nudges for no reason. He knows exactly what he’s doing and why.”
———
THE PINBALL SUBCULTURE
 |
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
New York resident Jory Rabinowitz enjoys pinball with the bunny and Bart.
|
Inside the warehouse, it’s mostly quiet except for pinging and slapping.
A quick survey reveals a pinball “type”: a white male in his 30s with a brainy job like a statistical analyst or computer programmer. He plays pinball hours a day on machines in his basement or at a local bar or arcade.
“It’s like where the cool geeks hang out,” says Emily Rickand, an Australian filmmaker working on a documentary about the pinball subculture. “This is like the pinball Olympics. There are some really fascinating characters involved in pinball. It’s such a community; it’s endlessly fascinating.”
There are 380 pinball games in this warehouse, which serves as PAPA headquarters and is idle year-round except for tournament weekend and an occasional company party. The machines span the game’s modern history, from the early electromechanical games to the more advanced software-based games of today.
All of the top 10 pinball players in the world (according to the International Flipper Pinball Association) are here for this year’s tournament and players came from as far as Stockholm, Sweden, to vie for a world title.
“This is by far the place where the most talent shows up,” says Keith Johnson, a player who programs pinball machines for Stern Pinball Inc., the last company in the world making the coin-operated machines.
———
HOW TO PLAY
Elite players cite a handful of core principles for optimal play: ball-control, touch, game management, patience. These principles entail a number of techniques, with names like slap-saving, trapping, catching, nudging, billiard-blocking and cradling.
“Some of these games are so evil, any miss can be your last,” says Sean Grant, an exchange-traded fund specialist from Brooklyn, N.Y., who quit drinking for a month to prepare for the tournament. “The games do nasty things. You have to be very economical about the risks you’re willing to take.”
Most advocate playing conservatively and with discipline, preserving each ball as long as possible rather than taking an imprudent risk to light up the machine for a big score.
“You have to make each of your turns count,” says Bowen Kerins, who won $10,000 after clinching his second world championship last year. “The best players are the ones who are controlled.”
Kerins, who lives in Salem, Mass., and writes math textbooks for a living, earned his first championship in 1994, when he won $4,000 plus a new pinball machine.
But this wasn’t to be his year. On Sunday, Lyman F. Sheats Jr., a software programmer from Chicago who is ranked number four in the world by the IFPA, became the first three-time world champion.
———
asap contributor Dan Seymour works on the AP’s financial desk. | Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. |
|
|  | "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth." | |
|  | We're not that bright, even though in our own little world, we're geniuses. We like 80s hair bands and one-hit wonders, but among us we have respectable tastes, too. Metallica, Iron Maiden, U2. Pursuit of all things trivial is a lifestyle, not just a game. We like some sports, love other sports, and can find something to say about anything. We watch TV and movies and we've read a book or two, even a few classics (Yes, Classic Comics count!)
We call it insight, you call it what you will. | |
|  | Felix Wong is an outdoor enthusiast living in Fort Collins. A mechanical engineer by day, he is especially passionate about bicycling, running, and backpacking. | |
|  | Hola Amigos! I'm Sandra. I like to believe that people are 70 percent good and 30 percent dumb. I'm stickin to that story. Reading this blog might make you want to be good, but probably just dumb. | |
|  | Donovan Henderson is editor of NEXTnc. | |
|  | Here at Nextnc we have some characters. Get a sneak peak behind the curtain and find out what amusing antics our staffers get themselves into on a weekly basis. | |
|  | What is up FoCo?
I am a recent college graduate of Minnesota State University Moorhead. After recieving my B.A. in English and Mass Communications this past August I moved down to Colorado.
I enjoy long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, and heavy metal. My hobbies include reading and writing, music, movies, and getting drunk. Some of my favorite contemporary authors include Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, and Kurt Vonnegut. My top movies are anything directed by Kubrick. I enjoy listening to anything that rocks.
Right now I am just trying to get to know Colorado and FoCo better. Mostly in order to find the best drink specials on each day that ends in Y. So if you know where I can get a cheap drunk on, let me know!
--Drew | |
|  | Life's little morsels of inspiration, observation and encouragement seen through the eyes of the Nextnc reporter.
| |
|  | Ms. Giles currently lives in Colorado where she stars in her own private reality show. She writes aphoristic accounts of her life, taken completely out of context, and embellished with characters and situations disguised to resemble something close to interesting. | |
|  | over and out | |
| | My name is Michelle Turley and I'm 28 years old. I live in Severance with my hubbie, Brandon. We have 2 dogs and a cat. We enjoy camping, four-wheeling, and just being in the mountains. I like to cook, clean (go figure), flea market, and play poker. I have so much to say about poker... | |
|
|
