Fort Collins Beginner’s League – Padawan Pinball 101.2 – Starts Tuesday November 6th!

Padawan Pinball 101.2 is a pinball league in Fort Collins devoted to new players looking to gain skills and gameplay strategy. Each week will feature a seasoned player who will go over technique and rules for different machines. All are welcome to play and it’s FREE to join, only quarters are required to play the machines even the featured game(s) each week is set to freeplay! (You’ll need quarters to play the other machines.) You can’t be too green for this league!

This League will run for 6 weeks at various locations around Fort Collins and the 7th week will put those new skills to the test in a friendly tournament – aka League Finals. 

League Schedule - Tuesdays at 6pm

Week #1 – November 6 – Location: Pinball Jones Campus West
Introduction, history of pinball and basic skills with Dave Andersen
Week #2 – November 13 – Location:  Pinball Jones Old Town
Brian Sanz will go over strategy for Attack From Mars and Theatre of Magic
Week #3 – November 20 – Location: Pinball Jones Campus West
Jake and Natasha Kalda will lead this week’s agenda
Week #4 – November 27 – Location: The Lyric
Featuring: TBA
Week #5 – December 4 – Location: Pinball Jones Campus West
Featuring: TBA
Week #6 – December 11 – Location: Pinball Jones Old Town
Featuring: TBA
Week #7 – December 18 – Location: Pinball Jones Campus West
League Finals! A friendly tournament to put those newly learned skills to the test!

Gunbarrel League starting Monday November 5th

If you’re free Monday nights, live in or around Boulder and can commit to 7 weeks of pinball playing with some pretty neat people then this post is for you!

When: Mondays at 7pm 
November 5 – December 17, 2018
Cost: $15 to join

The regular season will last 6 weeks and Finals will take place on the December 17th.

If you’ve never played in a pinball league – never fear! Ryan Wanger who runs both the Gunbarrel and Press Play Leagues is always eager to welcome new people into the mix. Feel free to shoot him an email if you have any questions.

Stay in the loop with all Boulder pinball discussion on their Facebook group: Boulder Pinball Enthusiasts.

Lyons Winter League Starts This Thursday, November 1st!

The 27th Season of Mile High Pinball League is starting up this week! 

When: Thursdays at 7:30pm from November 1st – February 7th
Where: Lyons Classic Pinball
Cost: $40 +quarters for games

See full league schedule here.

All the pinball regulars know that Lyons is the place to play in Colorado but due to the fantastic influx of new players we’ve been seeing at monthly tournaments, I thought I’d go into a bit more detail than I do for my usual upcoming league announcements. Actually, a lot more detail. Here’s what you should know about LCP and why you should join.

About Lyons Classic Pinball

Lyons Classic Pinball (LCP) is ground zero for Colorado’s modern pinball renaissance. Kevin and Carole Carroll opened LCP in 2003, filling it with exceptionally maintained machines from the 1960s to the present. And not just any games – rare ones, LEs, the kind with great rule sets,  the kind with good tunes and the kind that are just fun to flip. Iron Maiden LE, Centigrade 37, Blackwater 100, Swords of Fury, Joust..even a Hercules.

This is one cool couple and LCP definitely reflects their vibe – pinball & rock n roll memorabilia clad the walls and solid tunes are always playing (but quiet enough that you can still enjoy the machine callouts and actually have a conversation with your friends). They don’t sell food or alcohol. Just snacks, soda and water – but Oscar Blues is right next door with food, beer and more pinball machines to play. So that means LCP is all ages and a respite for those who don’t dig the bar scene.

Read more about the Carrolls and how LCP got started in GameRoom Magazine (April 2006). Pinball News also did a thorough write-up you should check out.

Meet the Mile High Pinball League Players

The Mile High Pinball League (MHPL) is the official name of this league. It’s run by Chicago Expo 2018’s champion Adam Lefkoff (way to go ABL!) – father to PAPA 20 World Champion and IFPA Power 100’s champ Escher Lefkoff. Needless to say, if you’re looking to learn from the best – this league’s got it.

BUT NEW PLAYERS! – Don’t let that scare you off!

It’s also filled with some of the most laid back, fun-loving people you could ever want to spend your Thursday nights with. There are total newbies, players that just like to destroy castles on Medieval Madness for that satisfying rattle,  those who could give a damn about some esoteric rarely seen situational strategy and those who actually want to fill their head with all that nonsense.

Check out some of the players from the 2018 Summer League below.

Summer League 2018 - A Division Winners

1st – Ryan Wanger (left, $360)
Ryan runs the Boulder & Gunbarrel Pinball Leagues as well as the one stop shop for all your pinball LEDs – Comet Pinball (checkout their adorable commercial)

2nd – Escher Lefkoff (right, $180) 
Dude, what happened? 😉

3rd – Zach McCarthy (right, $90)
aka Z-Mac, is 1 of 4 phenomenal players that makeup the McCarthy family, owners/operators of Blizzard Mountain Pinball

4th – Adam Lefkoff (left, $45)
League Director and our current IFPA representative

Summer League 2018 - B Division Winners

1st – Smith Patrick (left, $240)
Authentic & charming mountain man, seen here in a rare moment without his brown leather vest. Best to avoid him on Bally’s 1978 Playboy

2nd – Greg Nelson (right, $120)
Relative newcomer and Ryan Wangers’s right hand man at Comet Pinball (nicely done!)

3rd – David Schaal (right, $60)
Lead Multimedia Instructor at CU’s ATLAS Institute (pretty cool!), pinball enthusiast and total genuine guy.

4th – Carole Carroll (left, $30)
The woman ultimately responsible for LCP. Had she not bought Kevin a Bally KISS all those years ago, that guy would still be a plumber. Don’t be fooled, the pinball obsession is a his & hers thing. She’s just sagely quiet so you’ll never suspect her. My kind of lady.

Winter League Schedule 2018-2019

Nov 1: Week 1
Nov 8: Week 2
>> Nov 15: LCP Monthly
>> Nov 22: Thanksgiving
Nov 29: Week 3
Dec 6: Week 4
Dec 13: Week 5
>> Dec 20: LCP Monthly
Dec 27: Week 6
Jan 3: Week 7
Jan 10: Week 8
>> Jan 17: LCP Monthly
Jan 24: Week 9
Jan 31: Week 10
Feb 7 : League Finals

Reminder: The 24 Hour Tourney at Blizzard Mountain is THIS Coming Weekend!

There are still spots left if you’d like to play! 

——> REGISTER HERE <——

When: November 3rd, starting at 10am
Tournament ends at 9am November 4th
(Daylight Savings so we ‘gain’ an hour)
Where: Blizzard Mountain Pinball
Cost: $65 to enter main event plus $30 (pays for tournament expenses and all games you’ll play during the 24-hour period)

There is also a 3-strike tournament being held Friday November 2nd for those that would like to get some practice in on the games.

Game Exchange will also be providing additional 6 additional games to add to Blizzard’s collection which you checkout here. 

Game Exchange will be contributing the following titles to make a total of 39 games available for the tournament:

Deadpool pro, Star Wars pro, Batman 66, Dialed In!, Houdini and WWE

Thank you JJ Babich and everyone at Game Exchange!

Colorado Pinball is Coming to Buffalo, NY!

Event Canceled 🙁

Unfortunately our travel plans have changed due to family circumstances so we won’t be making our annual trip to Buffalo. Sorry, friends.

Snow and Paul will be making their annual trip out to Buffalo, NY for Thanksgiving and sadly just can’t coordinate travel plans with pinball tournaments. So just like Jeff Teolis did when he came to Denver, we’re throwing ourselves a tournament! Nothing crazy, just group match-play with 2 hours qualifying and a 3 game finals round for the top 4 seeds.

This fashionable bison is wearing columbines in its mane. The columbine is Colorado's state flower, not marijuana.
Match-Play Tournament

When: Sunday November 25, 2018
Start Time: 6pm
Where: Misuta Chow’s 
Cost to Enter: $10 plus quarters to play games
Format: 4-player group match-play. 100% payout to top 3 finishers less the $1/player IFPA fee. Winner gets a trophy! 

Note: There is a 20 player cap.

Player Sign-up

This location has 5 machines which means there will be a 20 player cap. You can sign up between 5-6pm the day of the event but if you’d like to secure your spot, you can email Snow here.

Format Details - Qualifying

For the first round players will be randomly placed into 4-player groups and assigned a game. The winner gets 7 points, second place gets 5, third place gets 3 and fourth place receives 1 point. If 3-player groups occur, scoring will be 7-4-1.

The next round will work the same as the first. Match-Play software will be used to draw balanced group and game assignments.  Balanced pairing will be used rather than Swiss because this tournament is meant to be social! Hopefully Colorado will be in a group with all the ‘Buffalonians’ who come out to play as Paul likes to say.

We will play as many rounds as we can until we hit the 2 hour mark. The 4 players with the highest point totals by the end of qualifying will move on to Finals. 

Tie-Breakers

Should a tie-breaker be needed, the player with the most first place finishes will advance. If a tie remains, then second place finishes will be used. Then third place and fourth if required. In the super unlikely event that there is still a tie – we flip a coin.

We don’t want to keep you lovely people out all night on a Sunday.

Finals

The four players who advance to Finals will play 3 games with 7-5-3-1 scoring. The top seed will get to drive the bus! That means he/she will be able to choose all 3 games.

Once the game is selected, the second highest seed will get to choose their position, then seed 3 and seed 4. The top seed will take the remaining position. The top seed may instead choose to take their preferred position on a game, in which case the second seed will have their choice of game.

A player’s seed stays with them throughout finals, so game selection and player order follows the same rules stated above. No game can be played twice in the Final round.

Pay-outs

Pay-outs will be 100% of the total entry fees less $1 per player as that is paid to the IFPA for sanctioning this event so you can get your WPPRs!

1st place 50% of purse +trophy!
2nd place 30%
3rd place 20%

Thank you to Buffalo Pinball

Seriously, these guys are great! Please checkout their podcast and Twitch stream if you haven’t already. They’ve done so much to grow pinball both in Buffalo and at-large. Colorado loves you guys. <3