Baby's First Ranked Pinball Tournament

 Minneapolis, MN

My First Pinball Tournament

Today Donna and I headed to Falling Knife Brewing for my first official IFPA Pinball Tournament.  We both played in a league when we lived in San Francisco that had weekly tournaments but it was just a fun league and didn't give IFPA points.  Once you add IFPA points you get all kinds of players, some are way too serious and the tournament leaders in SF wanted to keep it casual.  Anyway today I played in an official IFPA tournament and it was a lot of fun.  I got to play with 3 players that are rated top 750 or better in the world (according to IFPA ratings).  They were very nice and very good.  I was able to watch their play and view their strategy.  I have a long way to go but it's a fun journey.

Before pinball, coffee!

The host left us some Vietnamese Pour Over packets so we checked them out.  it was a cool little disposable pour over system and it came with sweetened condensed milk.  Pretty cool!

This is a great shot of me preparing for the tournament.  I am watching tutorials on games I might be playing today.  It's kind of like the scene in Rocky where he is punching the sides of beef but way less violent.

They had a really great Barleywine on tap.  You got a free beer along with the tournament entry fee which is $5 and the beers are normally $7-$9 so it's great value. 

Donna bought this sour beer that wasn't as good as we had hoped.  It was still good but not amazing.

The tap handles were fallen knives 

This is a Pull Tabs Minnesota State Lottery Machine. 

Donna got me practicing on a James Bond 007 machine.  The guy to my right was rocking the Game of Thrones machine.  I was hoping to not draw Game of Thrones because it's the game I know the least about.

This is me showing a competitor photos of Francis.  I use all of my resources to take people out of their "killer instinct" game mode.

My first game did end up being Game of Thrones and I had this guy in my group.  He ended up winning the whole thing and is 618th in the world.  I took my first strike by getting 3rd or 4th in this round.  I have 2 more strikes until I am out.

They had a nice looking light box tap list.

Col Pitfall! art.

I ended up getting 12th out of 17.  I played 5 games and got a strike on Game of Thrones, then got 2nd on Robocop (no strike), 1st on Foo Fighters (no strike), 3rd on Godzilla (2nd strike), and 3rd on Guardians of the Galaxy (3rd strike and out).

It was a really fun tournament and I met some very nice people.  I hope to play in a few more on my travels.  I am still waiting to get my IFPA points and end up on their site.  

After getting back, Donna and I walked to Kowalski's Market.  Kowalski's is a high end expensive market that Donna remembers from her short time living in the area.  We went for nostalgia and to buy some nice things. 

Donna checking out the cheese section

Fancy cakes and desserts

and Functional Beverage!  

That was it for today.  It was a fun day.  If you missed Pinball, Pinball, and Pinball check it out.  It features 3x more pinball action than today's post which is surprising.