Playing Illegal Pinball in Oslo

Tonight I went to Illegal Pinball Club in Oslo to play in their monthly tournament. The club is only open to the public a couple times a month, so we timed it perfectly. 

It's very easy to miss. You have to find a door with a button that says Illegal Pinball on it and then when they buzz you in you have to get through two sets of doors before they lock again. Luckily, I had emailed them to confirm the time, so they knew a new person was showing up. I ended up making it through 1 set but then got stuck at the 2nd set of doors.  Luckily the man upstairs (no not God, just a man) rebuzzed me and I figured out to go through the next set of doors. 

The club is on the 3rd floor, which isn't as clear as you would think. Sometimes the floor we call the first floor is called E in Europe and Floor 1 is the next floor up or Floor 2 as we call it in the states. I ended up going to the top floor looking at all the doors and there were no clues as to where it was until I heard a door open 2 floors down and pinball sounds. I quickly made my way back down and caught the door before it closed. 

I was greeted by the man upstairs, who I now know is named Kjetil, with a warm welcome.  I paid my entrance fee and started warming up. 

All of the machines played great. 

At 7pm the tournament started. 

They were kind enough to make the announcements in English for the one guy that only spoke English. 

All the machines were set to free play even though they had the 10,00 Kr cards in them. 

In my first round I got to play with Kjetil, who tuned out to be the Norwegian champion this year and headed to District 82 for the world championships in June. He was very good and destroyed us all on Flash Gordon. 

I played well but didn't make the playoffs. Everyone there was solid and knew the machines well. I had a few really great rounds but it wasn't enough to overcome my poor rounds. 

I got to enter my initials on Indianapolis 500. 

I need to clean my lens...

It was a great tournament and everyone I played with was very friendly and wanted to talk Pinball and travel. It was another awesome experience brought to me by Pinball!  

Pinball Tournament in Göteborg!

Tonight we went to RedStone Pinball here in Göteborg. It's the premier public (more on this qualifier later) pinball place here. They are open Wednesday through Saturday and they have a weekly IFPA tournament on Wednesdays. The tournament is included in your entry fee with no money going to a prize pool. The winner gets a giant bottle of non-alcoholic cider and free entry the following week. 

Donna and I took the trolly for about 25 minutes and found RedStone in an old Sugar Factory that is now converted to mixed use including art studios and an awesome pinball location. 

The arcade is a pay a flate rate and play all night model. We tried to pay with our Visa but it was having issues so David, one of the owners, volunteered to pay and have us transfer money to him via PayPal. That worked great and we really appreciated the favor. 

There are 3 rooms with pinball and arcade games. The first room is a coat rack room with Alien Remake and Metallica Remastered. The middle room, seen above, is a really cool looking room with classic Solid State Machines. 

I got to play Cosmic Gunfight for the first time. One of the owners came by while I was playing and said it was their newest addition to the arcade. 

I also got to play Dragon, which I had played before, but not often. Many of the classics were set to 5 ball. It made sense once the tournament started because it made the classics play about as long as the moderns. 

The main room is also cool. The machines were all in great condition and playing well.  They were fixing and working on machines the whole time we were there. 

Donna and I got to play ABBA, a machine you mostly see in Europe. In fact, one of the players I played with did voice over for the machine. 

We got there at about 5:30 and the tournament started at 7pm so I got some practice in and also talked to a journalism student about pinball. He was writing an article and trying to find the story he wanted to tell. 

I also took the opportunity to have another delicious Swedish beer. 

Why so serious?  Well the tournament was starting soon so we all got serious!

At 7pm a horn honked and everyone gathered around the monitor showing the tournament info. The tournament director was kind enough to go over everything in English for the 1 person that was there that didn't speak any other languages. 

27 players showed up to play in the tournament. There was only 3 hours to play so things went fast. The rounds went up and we were off and playing. 

For round 1 I played with 3 other players in 3 different machines. 

Hot Doggin' was set to 5 balls and my ball 2 was amazing. Your bonus carries over ball to ball in Hotdoggin' so my good ball 2 led to the rest of the balls being good and I took first place without having to play my last ball. 

Kiss went well too. I had a good game and came in 2nd and then Medieval Madness went fantastic. Again, balls 1 and 2 were enough to take 1st place. I didn't need my last ball. 

Round 1 was almost a perfect round for me so round 2 was going to be tougher because I would be matched with other players that played well. 

TMNT isn't my jam. Somehow I eeked out a 3rd with almost no points but, I I believe the game malfunctioned. I chose Donatello and his perk is a multiball ready to go, all you need to do is hit the right ramp. I did that instantly and multiball didn't start. And then things didn't go well after that. 

I had a good Roadshow game and came in 2nd. This left Bally Kiss, which is one of my faves. I crapped the bed. :( Luckily my first round had me in position for making finals. I had to sweat 2 2 groups but the players that could have moved me out of a finals spot didn't. 

The goal is always to make finals and then do my best. 

The first round of finals, or semifinals if you will, I was paired with Karyn, one of the top players in the world. 

I was also on TMNT again. I had an even worse game than I had in qualifying. And finished last, but...

my Stranger Things game was great and I finished 1st and I had a good Mandalorian game finishing 2nd. This gave me enough points for 2nd in my group and I was moving on to the finals. 

The finals round didn't go well for me. I had bad games on Star Trek, Kiss, and Pokemon. I ended up in 4th which is great, but I feel I had the skills for 2nd but it didn't work out. 

(Insert podium photo from RedStones Facebook page when it's available)

Proof!  Podium finish photo!  

It was a super fun time and I met some great people that hopefully, I will run into in the future. 

While I was messing around in the tournament, Donna was playing all of the machines. She put up a GC (Grand Champion) score on Grand Prix!

The Complex Relationship between Sweden and Pinball 

I'm not able to find any good links about Swedish Pinball Laws so I will recite what I remember from my talks;

Pinball was classified the same as slot machines here in Sweden until about 2 years ago. Up until recently, most of the pinball has been in private collections and private invite only clubs. 

RedStone doesn't take coin drop so it is harder to call it gambling. You pay to get in and then games,. including arcade games are free. I do see places with 1 or 2 machines around, but I didn't check to see if they are coin drop. 

One of the people I played with said that the law said or maybe still says that you need to provide a receipt for every credit of pinball played, like the slot machine requirement. Again I can't find any info online in English so that's the best I can do. 

My Biggest Tournament Yet, and in Germany

This weekend we are in Bielefeld Germany attending the German Pinball Expo. It's exactly like Chicago Pinball Expo only a lot smaller, a lot less Englishy, and in Germany. We happened to be in the area so we went.  

The Expo opened at 1pm on a Friday so we got there at about 12:40. It was a process getting checked in but eventually we were in and playing pinball!  The first thing I did was head upstairs to play my 5 games of Pinball to qualify for the main event. 

I got to wait in another line to check in but soon I will be playing pinball!

All these machines are for the tournament and I only get to play 5. I really love tournaments but I am always a little disappointed when you can't play or practice on machines. I'm there to play my best. The 5 machines I chose were

Ali

Star Wars (2017)

Blackout 

Playboy 

Star Trek (Bally)

All of these machines play quick so I was done qualifying in less than an hour. I wasn't overly happy with my performance but after refreshing the tournament page for 9 hrs, I ended up 53 out of 359 entrants. 128 players qualified for the main tournament so I would be playing at 10 on Saturday!

After qualifying Donna and I each had a 5 Euro beer. I think Germans would take to the streets if they were asked pay $18 for a Budweiser at an event like back home. 

After qualifying Donna and I played Pinball!  We played machines we had never played before as well as machines we know and love. 

Tournent Trophies!

This was a speaker lighting company making accessories so you can plus up your purchase. 

Pokemon, which I still haven't played. 

Pinball and Heavy Metal seem to go hand in hand here. I played with this guy the next day and told him l liked his jacket er vest. 

More machines than I expected, in the free play area, had issues. This Aztec had outlane save protection. 

Later in the day I played two 5 Euro Classics Cards. You buy a card and you play 5 games. When you finish, you are given points based on where your scores fall amongst all other scores on that same machine. During the day you can watch your card sink lower and lower and then below the cutoff line. I used my cards to play games I had never played before. 

I fit right in with all of the old white men. After putting up my first card I took a break from playing pinball to play more pinball. 

You can plus up your machine with a cool $2000 animating topper, an ornament that goes on top of your Pinball machine and looks bad ass!  Because pinball machines aren't expensive enough. 

Time for another beer and this cool beer tag. 

This Aztec (the same one shown earlier with the outlane ball saver) had a window cut in its side so you could see its guts. 

The show closed at 11pm on Friday but we were out of there much earlier. I need a healthy dinner and a good night's sleep in case I make the main event which I already spoiled for you. 

The walk back to the hotel was good and soon Donna was taking photos from the room, of me buying dinner, Doner Kebabs, or shawarma as we call it. 

Did I say Healthy Dinner?  Well clearly that was a lie. 

The next morning we got up and ate expensive hotel breakfast. It was the first breakfast we have paid for on this trip and the worst breakfast. We had to be back at the Expo for tournament check in at 9:30 so we took the easy out and I can't play pinball all day on an empty stomach. 

On the walk over we saw;

A German Cat

A German Gnome that loves trains mural

and these cute small houses with lovely gardens. 

Also this German trailer that had a I Love Pinball bumper sticker. 

When we got there we waited I line to get in.  They announced, in German, that all tournament players should skip the line. Donna tried to get in with me but was denied. 

Setting up the streaming rig

Again more pinball machines I can't play even though we are just waiting around. 

My wristbands and my lunch!  

Soon the tournament started, just kidding, we had to wait around for quite a while. I sat and listened to people talk to each other in German. 

When the tournament started, I was on Ali. I was glad to play on a machine I had already played and one that I know exactly what to do. I have 1 ball that didn't even touch my flippers, a house ball or maybe a haus ball here in Germany, but still scored enough for a 2nd place in that round. We were playing 9 rounds today and the first round took an hour because one of the machines broke. Luckily the rest of the tournament went well. 

The 128 people sometimes felt like 150. It was packed and kind of hot so between rounds I sat in a room that had the windows open and the fewest number of machines. 

About halfway through the tournament a fellow player came by and asked if I was the guy from Minneapolis and, he asked me in English. I said yes and it turned out to be a player from Portland and Seattle living in Berlin. We talked between rounds for the rest of the tournament. It was really great and it's just a small example of the great people you can meet playing pinball.

The following rounds went as follows;

Arena 3rd Place (I had never played this one before)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2nd Place 

King Kong 4th place (boooooooo!)

Flash Gordon 4th place. This one was very disappointing. 

Iron Man 1st Place, yay!

Blackout 1st Place, we are picking up steam!

John Wick 3rd place, bleh!

At this point, with 1 more round to go, I looked at the standings. I was just out of contention for the finals, so the pressure was off. 

My final round was on World Cup Soccer or Doggy Soccer as it is lovingly called. I played great and got 1st place!  

I ended up with 39 points, good for 40th. If I had finished 1 place higher in any of my rounds, I would have been in the playoffs for finals. If I had finished 1 place higher in 2 of my rounds or 2 places higher in 1 of them, I would be in the finals. I am really happy with how I did having not played much pinball for the past month and being in a completely new environment, but there is that thought of, just one spot better!

Oh well. It was a really fun experience and I met some great people, and even connected with one of them through social networks. 

To celebrate playing pinball pretty good, we got German Indian take out and watched Snooker on Eurosport in German. 

Our pinballing in Bielefeld isn't done yet, we still get to go tomorrow and play pinball just for fun. Monday it's off to one of the north most cities in Germany, right on the border with Denmark, Flensburg!