I mentioned in passing the Zen Tournament, the traditional end-of-the-pinball-season match where teams of players try to win a double-elimination contest. We had that Tuesday night and once again ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger and I were a team. The format was, apart from the teams-of-people-playing, the same as we used in league finals, best-of-three matches and a team eliminated only after losing a second round of that.
The surprising thing, especially given we hadn't practiced at all. On our very first game against the team of PCL and DG, Black Knight: Sword of Rage, we lost, but after rallying from an enormous gap, and losing by only a couple hundred thousand points. I felt great for that; bunnyhugger felt the opposite. On Dungeons and Dragons we learned that there was a brand-new code update just that day that made Dragon Multiball, the thing everyone goes for, more difficult to reach. We won anyway but it was luckier than it should have been. We lost on the last game, though, and went into the Second Chance Bracket.
But once there we were we started doing well again. This included some really dominating games of Tron, The Beatles --- I think we had a million points plus on the first ball, and that's where you'd hope to be after two balls --- and in the next round, had a game of Pulp Fiction where we made up a half-million-point gap on one ball. I count myself lucky when I get a half-million points a whole game of Pulp Fiction, never mind on one ball and splitting flipper responsibilities. If that weren't enough we managed to beat the team of DMC and RED --- my pick for the team of destiny here --- in three games, winning on Tales of the Arabian Nights thanks to a killer first ball, and squeaking out a win on Jaws on the bonus of the last ball.
So this put us into finals, against the team of PCL and DG again. They beat us on Godzilla, like we kind of expected, although we didn't do badly. On The Addams Family it took us a little while but we finally got the rhythm of the skill shot, and shooting the ramp, and shooting the chair to start modes and that gave us a very easy win. Then they picked Jurassic Park, which we never play, and rarely play well, and we just couldn't do anything. We even failed to get the T-Rex Multiball started, so the game was a loss. And with that, we lost the tournament, but we got far closer than we were expecting, We should have expected; bunnyhugger had been counting on using down time during the tournament to get some work done so naturally she would have no time.
For the side tournament --- there's always a side tournament --- bunnyhugger brought in her All-American Girl toy machine, The Flip Side, figuring there was no way this could be such a long-playing game as to make the tournament drag on. In this she was correct. She did not foresee the possibility of someone beating her long-held high score on her own table, and while RED did not beat her high score, he came closer than she was comfortable with. We also streamed this on PCL's rig, which was very funny because the rig is set up for a pinball game of normal dimensions, not something small enough for a squirrel to be able to play. I don't know that this is the first time anyone's streamed The Flip Side for an actual sanctioned pinball tournament but it's a rarity at least. So if anyone caught the stream, they got to enjoy that oddness too.
Coming up now on the photo roll: the Women's International Pinball Tournament, the thing we really went to Pittsburgh for. This used to be held the day after Pinburgh finals, but with ... well, there was a revival of Pinburgh. Without the backing of ReplayFX and the dispersed collection of games from PAPA headquarters it can't command the Anthrocon convention center, but after all, the important thing in a tournament is the playing, right? So here's how that looked ...
The new location of Pinburgh! Which we almost drove right past because we ... were expecting some kind of dedicated sports-event facility, not the upper level of a multiplex.
But here it is, the revived Women's Intergalactic Pinball Tournament. Also something held there for the first time, the pre-Pinburgh Bash At The Burgh tournament that we didn't get to.
They had the rights to the name as well as the banners from Previous Pinburgh, including the ones that reflected the 2019 champions that would have debuted at Pinburgh 2020.
And ... there's the venue, the mezzanine level of the multiplex here. You can totally date these photos to this year because there's Yet Another Alien Movie among the posters.
Players warming up. Also filling up, since they provided bagels! If we'd known I probably would still have eaten so many eggs from the hotel breakfast but still, that's nice seeing.
Spanish Eyes! And still featuring its Pinburgh 2019 bank sign, so there's a good chance I played this literal table for something that counts before. Also look at that art; it's a pity that artist didn't do more games.
Trivia: One of the Sanskrit words for 'Friday' was 'Sukravara', honoring Venus and meaning 'bright, resplendent'. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.
Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 61: King Bee and Queen Bee, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly, Editor Stephanie Noelle.
