Minneapolis, MN
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| Playing pinball at Broken Clock Brewing Cooperative |
Another Pinball Tournament
Today I wanted to go to Broken Clock Brewing Cooperative for a 3 strikes tournament. The format is if you don't come in first or 2nd in your round of 4 players, you get a strike. Three Strikes and you are out! This was a new tournament for me so I didn't know how long it would go. Donna decided she would come along and hang out but she was worried about how long it might go so she figured she would just play in the tournament to kill time. It's basically free if you plan on buying a beer. The tournament entry is $5 and you get a ticket for a beer with entry. Most beers are more than $5 so you can't afford not to play in it. Since it was going to be her first ever tournament, she thought she would play three rounds while drinking her beer, get 3 strikes and be done and then wait for me to finish. That isn't exactly how it all went down.
We arrived and we got Donna all registered and then we got her set up with her Matchplay account. Matchplay is software used to run the tournament. It's just easier to have it all set up on your phone so you know who you are playing and what machine you are on and what order to play in.
The tournament started with the director telling everyone the rules and then we were off. My first round was on Eight Ball Deluxe. I played my game and between balls I looked over and it looked like Donna was having fun. I ended up placing 2nd in the first round so I didn't take any strikes. I checked in with Donna and she said, "Yea, I had a fluke good game and I didn't get a strike." Cool! We both made it through round 1 without a strike.
On my 2nd round I was on High Speed, which isn't a machine I know that well yet. I ended up taking 4th place and got a strike. When I checked in on Donna after the round she had received a strike as well.
On my 3rd round I played Swords of Fury and won the round. I checked in with Donna and there was another fluke where she didn't take a strike. :) This is great! We were both sitting on 1 strike going into round 4. Round 3 is when people start getting 3 strikes so neither of us was going to finish in last place.
On my 4th round I played Spin Out, which is an older machine. It is one player only so we all had to play one at a time. I ended up coming in 2nd so I made it through another round without another strike. After checking in with Donna there was yet another fluke and she ended the round with still only 1 strike. We were both tied with 1 strike after round 4! This was great!
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| Donna caught me doing the tango with Spin Out right next to a pull tab vending machine. |
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| My meh score on Spin Out that somehow got me 2nd place. |
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| A screenshot of Matchplay showing us both at 1 strike after 4 rounds! |
On round 5 I was on the new John Wick game and I had a terrible game. I came in 4th and got another strike. Now I was at 2 strikes. One more loss and I would be done. After checking in with Donna what do you think happened? If you guessed another fluke you are right! She was still at 1 strike after round 5! At this point 20 out of the 40 players had been eliminated.
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| The field thins |
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| Yes, a lot of words so here is photo of a beer to keep you going! |
For round 6 I would be playing Halloween. I would have to win to keep playing; I played a pretty solid game but by ball 3 I was behind player 1. Player 3, who was the only other player, still had her 3rd ball. She hadn't had a good start so I had a chance to advance without a strike. I ran to the bathroom while she played and when I got back, she was entering her initials into the game so it turns out she had a great ball 3 which meant I was out. I checked in with Donna to see how she was doing and she was having a rough game. As I waited for her to finish I looked at Matchplay and our scores hadn't been entered so I walked up to the 3rd player and she said if you are entering scores you beat me. It was player 1, then you (meaning me), and then me (meaning her). I said something like, "I thought I was you entering your initials?" and she said, "no, that was player 1's initials I was entering". I came in 2nd! I was still in! I still only have 2 strikes! Sadly Donna got her 2nd strike and we were both at 2 strikes going into round 7.
For round 7 we both ended up on Austin Powers together. This meant that if we both didn't finish 1 and 2, one or both of us would be out!
We both played well but only one of us advanced. Sadly, Donna got her 3rd strike and was out. I ended up in 2nd place and advanced to round 8.
For round 8 I ended up on Jaws with 2 sharks (not including the Jaws shark). This was going to be a 3 player game so I needed to come in 1st or 2nd to advance. My first two balls were terrible so I wasn't feeling great about advancing. My 3rd ball was pretty good and I ended up with almost 100m. I was well behind player 1 but player 2 was a bit behind me with 1 ball to go. I sat back down next to Donna and watched player 3 from across the room. After a bit of playing I saw him act like his game was over and he wasn't happy. I went over and checked and I had come in 2nd! I was advancing to round 9!
Round 9 featured the remaining 8 players playing in two groups of four. All 8 of us had 2 strikes so 4 of us were going home. I ended up on Foo Fighters and had a horrible game. I ended up in 4th place and tied for 5th with 3 other players. This was a fantastic result for me and it was so much fun playing with Donna.
What we thought was going to be a quick tournament ended up going for a bit over 5 hours. We both had a great time and got to talk to some really great people. I even shared the blog with a couple of them so maybe they are reading this.
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| Here are my scores and results for the tournament. I ended up setting personal best scores on Eight Ball Deluxe and Spin Out (I didn't have a previous score). |
That's it for today. If you missed, Getting Settled in Minneapolis, check it out. It features fewer words and more photos.
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