Not sure when it gives you the annual summary. December, maybe?
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A diary of a beginner tournament player
- Thread starter Taxiturn
- Start date
Yep, Indisc have always done it and so has UK Open the last few years
I definitely take a similar approach to note taking, they’re tailored to what is realistically achievable for me and only a handful of machines have notes about major wizard modes! I’ve organised them by event or location so I have one each for UK Open / PBR, SWL, Pinball Office, Tilt, Pinfest etc.Great write up SimonI really enjoy reading these.
Taking notes on so many games is a massive endeavour, props for that. That will keep being useful though as you'll see half these games at PBR comps at least. I'm up to 86 games that I have notes on now. I like to refine from a YouTube tutorial mess of notes, to getting some hands on practice, to condensing it down to the major points or a key path through the game that I prefer.
If you don't already look at them, the Tilt forum rulesheets for new games often have lively discussions in the replies on what strategies people are shooting for, for inspiration. Ultimately I prefer to try out a few strategies and pick the one that works best on the machines I have access to. Like there's zero chance chance of me nailing 100 loops on the Dr Who at The Pinball Office, so I had to figure out "second tier" strategies.
You're right the best card format is HARD, and we don't get much chance in the UK to practice it through the year. So it's tricky to figure out the right way to approach it, tactically (when to void, game selection etc.) and mentally (which game to pick when, securing a solid finish on a good ticket etc.)
I'm still kicking myself for finishing off my best classics card with my "safe pick" Alien Poker and absolutely crumbling under the pressure.
Agree that Tilt forum rule sheets are great, also Silverball Mania for classics
I've never finished top seed, nor likely to, so that'll explain why I've never known
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Analyzing the data after the comp has finished clearly is a bit like bolting the stable door, but what it' does do is allow you to determine if your gut feeling was right mid tournament.
In this instance I wouldn't have been far off the mark with my decisions had I been competing, having followed the comp on stream a lot.
I'll post a separate thread about my thoughts on strategies of game pick so as not to derail Simon's thread further
Look forward to it Wayne, love this stuff!
Do you want to put it here?
https://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/the-pinball-tourney-improvers-club.60276/
I tried to repeat the success of my 'unofficial moans about pricing' thread with an unofficial tournament discussion thread to try to keep all the tips, useful videos, and strategy discussions in one place as a useful ongoing reference (and to avoid derailing other threads). Hasn't worked so far, but this is another attempt to get that going...
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Do you just use notes on your mobile for this or a specific app?
Two tournaments this weekend at SWL.
Not Another Birthday Tournament - H2H max matchplay
33 players assembled in Salisbury for 28 rounds of H2H, with top 8 qualifying. I got off to a pretty sluggish start with two wins from the first six rounds. But then, I went on a great run and won nine of my next ten (and 13 of my next 16) to launch me up the standings. I clung on to finish the day with 17/28, 5th place, for my first ever finals!
The finals format was a single randomly chosen game H2H, higher player choosing player order. I was given White Water against @ItsOnlyDanO and unfortunately my 120m wasn’t enough to catch Dan’s many whirlpool jackpots. There were no further placing matches for the losers, so I finished my day =5th with the other first round losers. Still, unbelievably happy with the result and making the cut in a decent-sized tournament at the 18th attempt and eight months of competitive pinball.
My games of the day were a big 450k on my arch-nemesis machine Rocky (getting to round 3 of the second fight), 53m on Cactus Canyon, 715k on Spirit, 100m on Jurassic Park, and holding my nerve to catch 200m on TZ.
SWL 15th Birthday Celebration - group matchplay
27 players returned for today’s group matchplay, seven rounds with two games per round. I was pretty tired and struggled much more with consistency - I ended up with five 1sts, one 2nd, three 3rds, and five 4ths, so a day of extremes. After a bad run I did manage to come up clutch with two 1sts in the the final round to heave myself up to =13th, when two last places would have left me way down in 25th!
Not as many great games today, more just about doing enough to get the wins I did. Best games were probably 500m on STTNG in the final round, chasing down 25m under big pressure on Jurassic Park on ball 3 with absolutely nothing going in, and a win on Metallica where I drained missing the scoop to start Crank It Up (as is the golden rule of pinball!). My best worst game was getting around 100m on TZ and still coming 4th!
In terms of learnings from the weekend, coming out of the UK Open I feel something has clicked in terms of mental approach. I felt a lot more emotionally level, relaxed, and less self-critical when things didn’t go well. Especially on Saturday, I was happy to bounce back and go on a winning streak after a bad start which might have been enough to derail my day in previous tournaments. Even today when I wasn’t playing that well, I was proud of being able to finish strong at crunch time to maximise my result from the position I was in. It’s definitely becoming easier to shrug and move on when I take a loss, though of course still sometimes annoying in the moment!
Next tournament outing will be Super Series 4 at Tilt in a couple of weeks - hopefully see you there!
Not Another Birthday Tournament - H2H max matchplay
33 players assembled in Salisbury for 28 rounds of H2H, with top 8 qualifying. I got off to a pretty sluggish start with two wins from the first six rounds. But then, I went on a great run and won nine of my next ten (and 13 of my next 16) to launch me up the standings. I clung on to finish the day with 17/28, 5th place, for my first ever finals!
The finals format was a single randomly chosen game H2H, higher player choosing player order. I was given White Water against @ItsOnlyDanO and unfortunately my 120m wasn’t enough to catch Dan’s many whirlpool jackpots. There were no further placing matches for the losers, so I finished my day =5th with the other first round losers. Still, unbelievably happy with the result and making the cut in a decent-sized tournament at the 18th attempt and eight months of competitive pinball.
My games of the day were a big 450k on my arch-nemesis machine Rocky (getting to round 3 of the second fight), 53m on Cactus Canyon, 715k on Spirit, 100m on Jurassic Park, and holding my nerve to catch 200m on TZ.
SWL 15th Birthday Celebration - group matchplay
27 players returned for today’s group matchplay, seven rounds with two games per round. I was pretty tired and struggled much more with consistency - I ended up with five 1sts, one 2nd, three 3rds, and five 4ths, so a day of extremes. After a bad run I did manage to come up clutch with two 1sts in the the final round to heave myself up to =13th, when two last places would have left me way down in 25th!
Not as many great games today, more just about doing enough to get the wins I did. Best games were probably 500m on STTNG in the final round, chasing down 25m under big pressure on Jurassic Park on ball 3 with absolutely nothing going in, and a win on Metallica where I drained missing the scoop to start Crank It Up (as is the golden rule of pinball!). My best worst game was getting around 100m on TZ and still coming 4th!
In terms of learnings from the weekend, coming out of the UK Open I feel something has clicked in terms of mental approach. I felt a lot more emotionally level, relaxed, and less self-critical when things didn’t go well. Especially on Saturday, I was happy to bounce back and go on a winning streak after a bad start which might have been enough to derail my day in previous tournaments. Even today when I wasn’t playing that well, I was proud of being able to finish strong at crunch time to maximise my result from the position I was in. It’s definitely becoming easier to shrug and move on when I take a loss, though of course still sometimes annoying in the moment!
Next tournament outing will be Super Series 4 at Tilt in a couple of weeks - hopefully see you there!
Lickashot
Site Supporter
Well done Simon on your first finals, must feel really satisfying as there was a strong field there. Thanks again for your input with the rules/strategy on some games I wasn't familiar with. All I can say is ADRIAN I DID IT !!!
Well done Simon, coming 5th in a tournament at SWL is a great result as they have some very strong players turning up for Peter's brilliantly run tournaments.
Getting annoyed with yourself is all part and parcel of competitive pinball, as I know very well, I'm always thinking how I could have played better. The important thing is not dwelling on it, and moving on, hopefully whilst realising where you can make small improvements.
I've played less tournaments this year, but have been far more relaxed, yet focused on what I need to do, and my results have improved. You're going great guns, keep it up mate.
See you at Tilt in a couple of weeks
Lickashot
Site Supporter
Who are you, Yeun Aw?
Definitely two different people
Kindred spirits!
Well, I've personally never seen @Taxiturn and @Jackpot in the same place
(probably because I've not met Simon in person).So, theoretically, @Jackpot could have become super good at pinball by having a secret life also playing pinball in Bristol, only returning to PBR for league events.
However, @Taxiturn and @Jackpot have separate entries in the UK Open, which means he'd/they'd have to enter twice as two different people, both simultaneously entering tickets. And, to pull that off, he/they'd have had to sprint VERY quickly between machines.
Like The Flash...
Ahem
I’m sure Yuen has better things to do than sandbag as me!Well, I've personally never seen @Taxiturn and @Jackpot in the same place
So, theoretically, @Jackpot could have become super good at pinball by having a secret life also playing pinball in Bristol, only returning to PBR for league events.
However, @Taxiturn and @Jackpot have separate entries in the UK Open, which means he'd/they'd have to enter twice as two different people, both simultaneously entering tickets. And, to pull that off, he/they'd have had to sprint VERY quickly between machines.
Like The Flash...
Ahem
Though your UK Open theory isn’t infallible, because there in fact was both a Simon Love and a Simon Love 2 on the board for a while
Lecari
Site Supporter
Excited for this new Simon Love 3!
Genotime
Site Supporter
I personally think there's too much press out there on Simon Love already
I’ve decided that I’m going to keep this diary going until the end of the year - at that point I’ll be able to look back over almost a full year of play (with lots of stats for the nerds!), and I think this will have broadly served its purpose of documenting the experiences and lessons of a developing beginner on the circuit. Continuing it into a second year could be considered unnecessarily self-indulgent!
This weekend was Tilt Super Series #4 - fantastic place and always a nice day out. The tournament followed the usual Super Series format of 12 rounds of group matchplay with 7/5/3/1 scoring. A whopping 63 players participated including a few first time tournament players, which is always great to see.
I ended up coming 29th on 51 points, which was pretty much my expected result if you go by Matchplay rating lower bound (which I consider to be a more reliable performance metric than IFPA rating or ranking). I missed a few opportunities / got a bit unlucky with results on some machines, but it was probably roughly even with times when I was somewhat lucky to hold onto a position so no karmic complaints overall.
My biggest positive to take away was that I made it through 12 rounds without coming last at all - the first time I’ve achieved this! On the other hand, I also didn’t come first at all, which definitely tempered the upside. I ended up with eight 2nd places and four 3rd places.
On scoring, this was another day where I didn’t really get any great scores. My best three were probably 250m on Indy 500, 170m on Jaws and 100m on Batman 66 which all got me 2nds. But, I also didn’t have any major disasters. My ball three play has definitely improved a lot in general, I’m less likely to have a meltdown if I’m in a tight spot going in - I had games on Batman 66, Simpsons and Creature where I was dead last going into ball three but managed to grind out a better result.
In practice between rounds I got a few nicer scores - 156m on Monster Bash (with around 80m in the Monster Bash mini wizard), 2.6bn on two balls of Johnny Mnemonic, 1.1bn on Congo and a 600m ball 1 on flow master Flintstones before the trough opto failed and I had to switch it off!
Next planned outing is at Jon’s pin barn in three weeks’ time, then I’ve got the SWL Festive Gathering and PBR Turkey Leftovers to round out the year.
This weekend was Tilt Super Series #4 - fantastic place and always a nice day out. The tournament followed the usual Super Series format of 12 rounds of group matchplay with 7/5/3/1 scoring. A whopping 63 players participated including a few first time tournament players, which is always great to see.
I ended up coming 29th on 51 points, which was pretty much my expected result if you go by Matchplay rating lower bound (which I consider to be a more reliable performance metric than IFPA rating or ranking). I missed a few opportunities / got a bit unlucky with results on some machines, but it was probably roughly even with times when I was somewhat lucky to hold onto a position so no karmic complaints overall.
My biggest positive to take away was that I made it through 12 rounds without coming last at all - the first time I’ve achieved this! On the other hand, I also didn’t come first at all, which definitely tempered the upside. I ended up with eight 2nd places and four 3rd places.
On scoring, this was another day where I didn’t really get any great scores. My best three were probably 250m on Indy 500, 170m on Jaws and 100m on Batman 66 which all got me 2nds. But, I also didn’t have any major disasters. My ball three play has definitely improved a lot in general, I’m less likely to have a meltdown if I’m in a tight spot going in - I had games on Batman 66, Simpsons and Creature where I was dead last going into ball three but managed to grind out a better result.
In practice between rounds I got a few nicer scores - 156m on Monster Bash (with around 80m in the Monster Bash mini wizard), 2.6bn on two balls of Johnny Mnemonic, 1.1bn on Congo and a 600m ball 1 on flow master Flintstones before the trough opto failed and I had to switch it off!
Next planned outing is at Jon’s pin barn in three weeks’ time, then I’ve got the SWL Festive Gathering and PBR Turkey Leftovers to round out the year.
Glen @Lickashot is bullying me, so here’s the entry for my day at PBR Critical Hit! I couldn’t resist the thought of a new tournament format so signed up last week. Most of us ended up playing 8 x 2 game rounds of target group matchplay.
We were all given two cards to start the day, with the promise of another to follow at lunchtime. You could also earn further cards by getting your initials on a machine. The cards could be for things like:
- Restarting the whole game after ball 1.
- Swapping scores with another player.
- Redrawing the whole round.
At the start of the day I had:
- Ask somebody in your group for rules knowledge in the middle of your ball, and
- Cancel the effect of a card played by somebody in your group.
I didn’t end up using either of these, though the latter was a great safety blanket to have if required.
I started the day fairly well, with two 1sts, a 2nd and 3rd from the first two rounds. With one of my wins I got onto the (recently reset) board for Cactus Canyon, so earned an extra card which gave me the power to remove my current game from the tournament completely.
My lunchtime card allowed me to try to shake the machine to add tilt warnings for an opponent (but if you tilted it, you lost another card and your opponent got a comp ball). Given the risk/reward and generally tight tilts at PBR I didn’t end up using this one either.
After lunch I hit quite a bad slide, a combination of tough groups, unfavourable machines and bad play from me had me dropping like a stone. When I was drawn on Star Wars with @Jackpot and @kevlar I played my “kill the machine” card, which seemed to be a popular move in the room. Unfortunately the game we were redrawn onto was Jurassic Park, which is the worst possible outcome when you’re in a group with Yuen!
I managed to salvage the day with a 1st and three 2nds in the final two rounds, ending on 62 points for 31st out of 49. It was tight in the standings - just another 4 points would have put me into a share of 20th.
I enjoyed Critical Hit, it was a very relaxed atmosphere and I also enjoyed that even with a runaway leader no game was ever “over”. I would 100% recommend this as a beginner-friendly format.
Great hosting and pizza from Neil and the PBR volunteers as always, and the machines in the comp were playing really nicely.
Best games in comp:
- 516k Eight Ball Deluxe
- Ending up with 700m on No Fear (good for 2nd) after starting ball 3 on 100m.
Worst:
- 4 million on Bond, I didn’t even realise it was possible to score so badly. Further rubbed in by scoring 330m earlier in practice…
- 250k Beatles with the spinning record dialed in perfectly on the centre drain!
I had several pretty good games in practice. Got PBs on Iron Maiden (285m), Demo Man (1.32bn) and LW3 (230m) amongst others. Also got on the board on Road Show (770m w/ no extra balls).
In addition to Critical Hit, Neil also brought his Uncanny X-Men LE to have a launch party. Not sure if the results have been finalised, but it looks like my score of 92m is currently the 6th best. UXM has a great layout and I’m looking forward to playing it more once it starts popping up everywhere!
Looking forward to my next visit to PBR in December, but next up is the Pin Barn next weekend.
We were all given two cards to start the day, with the promise of another to follow at lunchtime. You could also earn further cards by getting your initials on a machine. The cards could be for things like:
- Restarting the whole game after ball 1.
- Swapping scores with another player.
- Redrawing the whole round.
At the start of the day I had:
- Ask somebody in your group for rules knowledge in the middle of your ball, and
- Cancel the effect of a card played by somebody in your group.
I didn’t end up using either of these, though the latter was a great safety blanket to have if required.
I started the day fairly well, with two 1sts, a 2nd and 3rd from the first two rounds. With one of my wins I got onto the (recently reset) board for Cactus Canyon, so earned an extra card which gave me the power to remove my current game from the tournament completely.
My lunchtime card allowed me to try to shake the machine to add tilt warnings for an opponent (but if you tilted it, you lost another card and your opponent got a comp ball). Given the risk/reward and generally tight tilts at PBR I didn’t end up using this one either.
After lunch I hit quite a bad slide, a combination of tough groups, unfavourable machines and bad play from me had me dropping like a stone. When I was drawn on Star Wars with @Jackpot and @kevlar I played my “kill the machine” card, which seemed to be a popular move in the room. Unfortunately the game we were redrawn onto was Jurassic Park, which is the worst possible outcome when you’re in a group with Yuen!
I managed to salvage the day with a 1st and three 2nds in the final two rounds, ending on 62 points for 31st out of 49. It was tight in the standings - just another 4 points would have put me into a share of 20th.
I enjoyed Critical Hit, it was a very relaxed atmosphere and I also enjoyed that even with a runaway leader no game was ever “over”. I would 100% recommend this as a beginner-friendly format.
Great hosting and pizza from Neil and the PBR volunteers as always, and the machines in the comp were playing really nicely.
Best games in comp:
- 516k Eight Ball Deluxe
- Ending up with 700m on No Fear (good for 2nd) after starting ball 3 on 100m.
Worst:
- 4 million on Bond, I didn’t even realise it was possible to score so badly. Further rubbed in by scoring 330m earlier in practice…
- 250k Beatles with the spinning record dialed in perfectly on the centre drain!
I had several pretty good games in practice. Got PBs on Iron Maiden (285m), Demo Man (1.32bn) and LW3 (230m) amongst others. Also got on the board on Road Show (770m w/ no extra balls).
In addition to Critical Hit, Neil also brought his Uncanny X-Men LE to have a launch party. Not sure if the results have been finalised, but it looks like my score of 92m is currently the 6th best. UXM has a great layout and I’m looking forward to playing it more once it starts popping up everywhere!
Looking forward to my next visit to PBR in December, but next up is the Pin Barn next weekend.
Lickashot
Site Supporter
Hold on let me give you the number for the Samaritans
Another great write up mate, see you at the barn
Genotime
Site Supporter
Nice to see some rivalry going on. Too much people being nice to each other sometimes.
I'm firmly on team Lickashot, though I'm no big fan of either.
Lickashot
Site Supporter
I guess the people's champion will always be closest to your heart, remind me of his name again?
DAVE THE TRAIN 2.0
You managed to spell Gareth wrong