Fairfax Pinball Tournament: Epic Fail!

You know, it's a good thing that I go to leagues and tournaments to play rather than to win, because if I went to win I would spend a lot of time sorely disappointed. On the first night of the Fairfax Pinball Open I suck so hard I created my own gravity well. My two qualifying scores put me at #8 out of 10, though to be fair if the qualifiers today stink up the place I could end up in a better seeding position. As it stands now, I'll probably be in the lower half, which means I could move up in single elimination if I play well; however, based on last night's performance, that's unlikely to happen.

There was also a classics tournament, and I was eliminated in the first round, losing the first two games so we didn't have to play the third. The first game was Mousin' Around, which I picked because it's usually a good game for me. There was a bit of an irregularity, in that I scored an extra ball but the game was set not to award them, so I started playing it (and got the skill shot!) before I realized it was the other guy's ball. But I did the right thing and trapped the ball s

o my opponent could continue playing his ball. I doubt it made a difference in the outcome. Losing the first game means I got to pick the second, so I picked my own damn game, Quicksilver, and proceeded to lose. To be fair, both games were pretty close, but it was not one of my finest hours.

But I did do some volunteer scorekeeping, and did OK under the fairly light load. Today (Saturday) is usually when the biggest turnout is.

And just to give me that extra bit of bile in my mouth, Quicksilver developed flipper problems in its first day on the job in 25 years. The left flipper has some loose screws that probably need to be tightened by replacing them with bigger screws and could use a new coil stop. The right flipper is just weak and might have a problem with the EOS switch. The repair guy said he'd try to take a look at it, and since it's scheduled to be used in the one-handed mini-tournament, hopefully he'll look at it early today. And the gameplay is not very tight... it's got a low angle and the slingshots require more effort to fire than they should. I'll need to deal with that when she comes home. But here is a picture of it on site next to the engorged areolae of Strikes and Spares. A lot of people told me on how nice the game looks, especially with the LEDs, and I was happy to accept all compliments on QS's behalf.

But overall, it was pretty fun talking to people. I met Trent, the #7 ranked player in the world (I looked myself up and it turns out I'm in the high 1,400's), and Koi Morris, who it turns out I'd played a game of Maverick with at Allentown a few years ago (and it actually ended up in the blog... go to the end of the post to see). There was a guy there from my hometown of L.A. who edited reality TV shows for a living and came out specifically for the tournament.

I did get my first, second, and third runs at Big Buck Hunter Pro. My first two games kind of sucked, but the third was OK. I enjoyed it, but I didn't feel like investing $1 per game because I was already smelling up the joint.

And that was pretty much my day. Today I'm heading down in the late afternoon for the playoffs, but I'm guessing I'll get single eliminated pretty fast and I'll make it an early night.