2017 Pittsburgh Pinball Open Results
Boooooooom News:
Well, the 2017 Pittsburgh Pinball Open is over and in the books. After playing pinball for 3 days straight, I can personally say - it was exactly what I needed, and now I need my sleep. I would like to congratulate Aleksander Kaczmarczyk on his victory. Last year's runner-up is this year's winner! I would also like to congratulate all our finalists - not only was the competition fierce, but the machines were quite deadly as well. (For those in the know, the Medieval Madness castle kick-out RNG was especially brutal).
So, for those of you that didn't attend the event, or have never attended a competitive pinball event (or never heard of a competitve pinball event), I will give a bit of background. Imagine a group of people that have been playing pinball a long time, and developed the defensive skills to combat ball-ending and game-ending drains. Imagine those players have also worked on exploiting weaknesses in games so that they can maximize their scores while minimizing their risk. Now, take that group of players and put a hundred of them on a set of normal machines that you might come across in the wild (like the one at that bar you go to, or the one in the mall arcade). The players would take a long time on those games. Too long.
A "good event" has fast moving lines mixed with a feeling that the games are fair. Fair games punish everyone equally, or at least give them all the same RNG. So, in steps a tournament director (TD). That TD removes things from the game that the player would have used to their advantage. Things like rubber near the outlane that a player could use to bring a dying ball back to life. That TD removes the 'risk-free' shots, by making them narrower and more dangerous when a player misses them. Takes the software settings and makes it harder, by removing risk free play at the start of a ball. In other words, turns each game into a brutal beast.
Now, the games are ready to handle the hundred or so competitors that come out to a circuit event. And, let me tell you, the Pittsburgh Pinball Open games were ready! So, when I say "congratulations to all competitors that qualified for any finals" - I mean it. I also want to say thank you to everyone that made this event possible, all the TDs, techs, game owners, and scorekeepers. You made this event wonderful!
The Full Results (without applying the tiebreakers):
1st Aleksander Kaczmarczyk
2nd Steve Bowden
3rd Cryss Stephens
4th Jon Replogle
Tie at 5th – 8th Nick Zendejas, Fred Richardson, John Delzoppo, Evan Bingham
Tie at 9th – 16th Alberto Santana, Trent Augenstein, Peace Nick Mann, Levi Nayman, Pete Hendricks, Bob Matthews, Gregory Galanter, Jason Werdrick
Tie at 17th – 24th Lewis Bevans, Sunshine Bon, Greg Defeo, Greg Poverelli, Paul Caras, Sanjay Shah, Brian Hill, Ed Zeltmann
Here are the streamed portions of the final rounds, for your viewing pleasure:
Part 1
Part 2
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Gregory