Ft Myers Zoomers Grand Opening

Awesome. We might actually have a place to play pinball in the wild again.

Zoomers was a go-cart, miniature golf, arcade family fun center that was suppose to open several years but failed to be completed so close to being finished. The original owner pour in over 15million to begin this endeavour only to have come to a halt during 2007.

The building and 16 acres has been sitting for all those years until it was bought at auction last year. The current owner bought with the goal to finish the amusement park and they did just that. The grand opening is June 15th.

I have yet to find out if they will have any pinball machines on site, but I did ask the question on their facebook site. You can join me here to help them understand, if they don't already, that pinball machine is as important to an arcade and family fun as much as a video machine. There facebook site is: http://www.facebook.com/#!/ZoomersAmusementPark

Zoomers web site: http://www.zoomersamusementpark.com/

Have Fun,

Dan

Gearing up for Pinburgh!

I can’t wait to get back to Pittsburgh's PAPA and play some pinball. I can’t wait hang out with all the pinhead and friends there.

I heard that Jason, Donny, Brian are heading up, so that will be great to have a chance to talk and watch them play, especial Donny since he seems to get stuck on the other side of these FL pinball tournaments. I am looking forward to playing in the tournament also, the set-up at Pinburgh seems relaxed….. before getting into the trenches of the final rounds. I just hope I have the energy to maintain a good level of play through the rounds. Three days of solid pinball playing. Lol How do you practice for that? Watching and playing, thinking and strategizing, talking and writing, laughing and hopefully not crying about pinball. It is going to be awesome time.

The fantastic fact about the PAPA place is that they have a great collection of pinball machines that are in really nice shape and well maintained that can be played away from the tournaments (as time allows before, after or in-between competition playing). They have such a diverse line-up of pins from EM, SS to the latest Sterns and so many that you can’t play them all.

Last time I was there, I had to come up with a plan for my game choosing. I was trying to find games to put my token that caught my attention because they were:
1) Pinball machines I never played before
2) Pins that were rare to find
3) Dirty or broken pins, that I found in the past and might have had a dis-like for, to try to get a new opinion
4) Pins that I enjoyed to play like AFM (I just can’t walk pass those?!)
5) Lastly, Pins that was in the tournament line-up that I felt I needed to learn and practice on.

So I will possibly stick to that plan, it worked well in the past.

Here is a link to posts about a pior trip to PAPA. Heading to PAPA to play pinball & Return from PAPA Pinball Tournaments

You can find the PAPA site here. Pinburgh 2012 Match-Play Championship
And their blog site here. PAPA Blog Which is a very good blog site with all their pinball video tutorials.


Have Fun,

Dan

Return from PAPA Pinball Tournament

I wanted to write my PAPA pinball blog post earlier in the week right after I got back home, fresh* from Pittsburgh (*dead dog tried), but life interrupts. Now I am glad that it got postponed, because I can really reflect how important of an event it was & how it affected my daily life, for the good, of course.

The PAPA organizers did an incredible job setting up the faculties. I was over the top excited to be there in that pinball environment. They had pinball machines that I had only seen in pictures or at Internet Pinball Database site and I would actually have the chance to play them. Super! Not only a large collection of good looking pinball machines but well playing to boot.

The players were fanatic, colorful & fantastic. They would and could help with encouraging words and helpful tips while completing against you at the same time. Their skill levels were diverse as the players themselves. A couple of younger players were making their present felt, (I wish I had their skill at that age.)

I arrived at the PAPA doors shortly after noon time on Thursday, the first day of the tournament. I decided early on that I wanted to jump right into the trenches of competition and learn by doing. I signed in & got handed my PAPA book bag with my PAPA T-shirt, entry slip for the tournament, post cards and advertisement for other pinball event through out the year.

After grabbing my first C division entry and I proceed to the line up of nine pinball machines. For each entry you get to pick five pins that you want to battle on. The choice was easy, chose the ones that are familiar to you. I realize with the first plunge of the ball, that didn’t mean jack because the PAPA style of game play is blood ripping brutal.

The PAPA pinball machine set-up was tweaked to be mean and lighting fast with short ball times. The outlanes post were almost non-exist with a gapping hole for the ball to drain through. The tilts were super tight, warnings for moving the machines were easy to accomplish. I never tilted out but I am sure I was a whisper away on one or two turns. There were very short ball saves if any and no extra ball to be given. The thin black rubber posts were exchanged for the thicker yellow posts making tough shots a lot tougher.

The second day, Friday, I wanted to settle in for some serious play. I wanted to get something flowing. I managed a couple of good entry scores that moved me up to eleventh place, above the final qualifying cutoff point of sixteenth and then I fell quickly back down to the mid-twenties ranking and rose no higher for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday was a blur. My game play was uneven and sporadic, zombie play. I tired to focus and put together a steady entry run, coming close with my Terminator 2 game play which scored fifth highest of the tournament. I did well on my second machine but could not get another good score to go with it. Points, points, zero, zero, zero = bad entry round. Boooo. I was toasted, had nothing left to give.

Sunday was the final rounds. I was very pleased to watch and support the final C division players. They worked very hard to be there. Nothing was given away in those final rounds, they had to continue to fight and claw their way to the top of their game for small point advances that would be add together for their victory or loss. The final four was a very even match-up. First and second places were decided by a single point.

Congratulations to the C Division winners:
1st place-Chuck Jackson ......Points 8
2nd place-Kevin Ryan .....................7
3rd place-Todd Seaver ....................4
4th place-Richard Achterberg ........2

WTG, guys!

In case you are wondering. I finished in a tie three-ways for forty-fifth. I am very happy with the pinball results for my first PAPA tournament, I wasn’t in the top sixteen for the finals, or top twenty but there were one hundred and sixty-one people lower than me. I played hard, they played hard. I am okay with that.

I had fun, lots of fun. I get a smile every time I think about my experience at PAPA which helps with the daily grind. I look forward to returning next year to reunite with the fine people and players that I met this year.

More pictures of PAPA 14 here: Click me.

More about PAPA before my trip started: Heading to Pittsburgh to play Pinball
http://pinballavenue.blogspot.com/2011/08/heading-to-pittsburgh-to-play-pinball.html

Dan

Heading to Pittsburgh to play Pinball

A friend of mine has been to the PAPA pinball tournaments in the past & always bent my ear with an interesting story or two about it. So this year I set it as a self reward or goal to make it to Pittsburgh this year.

PAPA is the Professional & Amateur Pinball Association. They are hosting the PAPA 14 World Pinball Championships August 11th thru 14th.

It will be nice because it will be like a small homecoming as well, I born & raised in a small suburb right outside the city, very close to Scott township where the PAPA tournaments are held.

I am very much looking forward to my first real tournament setting. Sure, I played other small tournaments that were held, but this for real. Pinball Players from all over the world converge to this one building to do battle. There are top prizes & trophies given for succeeding high into the standings. First prize for A Division Players is $10,000 bones. Not too shabbily. Plus trophies & titles.

I will not be playing in the A Division though! I aim to start on the ground floor in C Division. I would have joined the D Division if PAPA had one, because it does not exist.

In the past, my skills were random at best but I have been doing the Rocky Balboa workout, raw eggs for breakfast, running around with logs on my shoulders while an old weathered man yells at me.

No, that’s not true. I did set some of my pinball machines as would be found in a World Class tournament so I could practice. Tilt mechs fine tuned, outlanes posts opened all the way, no ball save & no free extra balls awarded. Pins set up like this has your best score achieved drop by millions of points. I went from scores like 80 million to scant 6 million. Tough love.

I am going to get schooled in the finer arts of pinball tournament play. Hoorah, I can’t wait.

The PAPA Link is here: http://www.papa.org/index.php
They have all the information, directions & more on their site.

They have a cool blog site also called the Tilt Warning:
http://tiltwarning.com/blog/


If you read this & are attending come up & say hello. My name is Dan/ RGP Mole.

As always Have Fun.