Women’s, Classics and U14 finals were Saturday
B final was this morning
Main final ran throughout today until dinner time
This current final is for the PBR comp (which started just after the main final finished)
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The UK Open - 27th to 29th September in Croydon
- Thread starter Lecari
- Start date
B final was this morning
Main final ran throughout today until dinner time
This current final is for the PBR comp (which started just after the main final finished)
Depending on the games picked for the final 4, it could go even later
Thank you. So who is still in?
It depends on whether you’re doing matchplay or qualifying, surely? The scores in the actual finals are often quite low - it’s just the players are consistently good across 5-card qualifying and they can blow up specific sets of machines (e.g. @MadMonzer and I watched Jason Zahler’s 3+ billion qualifying on A:IQ, and he got 387 million in the finals)!
Bear in mind, there were two scores below 30 million on Rush Prem in the actual UK Open final and my son, in his first comp, got 31 million on that exact same machine on Saturday in qualifying. It’s just he can’t do that consistently or across his whole 5-pin card.
If you’re facing off against three other players who are flunking a machine, presumably you can win with just about anything!
(Junk yard is fantastic Claire's selling TOM before Junk yard, call us crazy)
The only person in our household who likes Junkyard is The Pi-Bo Wizard and that’s because he’s four and it’s ‘Crane Pinball’!!!
Everytime I used to see it on a card in evening PBR league, it was like someone had walked over and done a dump on my feet. It wasn’t even I was attempting Dog All Day. I’ve been taught to carry on shooting the crane (cradling the ball through the blinding LED strobe flashers) until I get the multiball + jackpot. If I manage that, rinse and repeat. It’s just… dull… and thankless.I’ve never seen the appeal of TOM, personally. It looks nice, and collectors love it, but does seem to be ‘shoot the magic trunk’.
Yes you can fluke a matchplay win with any score, but if your core strategy is to rely on other people being bad then you won’t win often at all. And with very high level play anybody can blow up a machine at any point and so the “one shot / feature” strategies you might use to guarantee a mediocre score aren’t the way. You’ll have seen that in the Escher Fish Tales semi final a bit earlier, nobody went for Monster Fish and nobody played video mode, they were exclusively playing for multiball and super jackpots and two scores were around or over a billion (and Escher’s was over 3 billion). The scoring in these finals is plenty high!It depends on whether you’re doing matchplay or qualifying, surely? The scores in the actual finals are often quite low - it’s just the players are consistently good across 5-card qualifying and they can blow up specific sets of machines (e.g. @MadMonzer and I watched Jason Zahler’s 3+ billion qualifying on A:IQ, and he got 387 million in the finals).
Bear in mind, there were two scores below 30 million on Rush Prem in the actual UK Open final and my son, in his first comp, got 31 million on that exact same machine on Saturday in qualifying. It’s just he can’t do that consistently or across his whole 5-pin card.
If you’re facing off against three other players who are flunking a machine, presumably you can win with just about anything!
The only person in our household who likes Junkyard is The Pi-Bo Wizard and that’s because he’s four and it’s ‘Crane Pinball’!!!
I’ve never seen the appeal of TOM, personally. It looks nice, and collectors love it, but does seem to be ‘shoot the magic trunk’.
I’ll leave it to somebody else to go into why “just shoot the magic trunk” is a bad strategy for playing TOM
Thanks bud. I am a sad bastar_d so I watched to the end. Timber was the winner.
3am and the room is empty!
What a weekend and what a team
What a weekend and what a team
That wasn’t the point I was making (I think?).
You obviously need to know a wide combination of strategies to win in high-level play. What you’re saying (I think?) is the UK Open finals scores are much lower than qualifying, not because of player nerves/fatigue, but because no one can go for a ‘safe’ (what Bowen Kerins frequently says in the PAPA tutorial videos) strategy? Every player has to take the highest scoring route possible unless they’re literally Player 4 on Ball 3 on the toughest Fish Tales in existence - at which point, they know no one else can blow up the pin and they might be able to scratch out a win with video mode?
At the moment, I’m a smallish woman who has been playing for as long as a five year old, plays like an eight year old (*not* a diss), and @Jackpot might confirm this after a rest (congrats, @Jackpot!
), but part of the way to improve the competition performance of eight year olds is to teach ‘one simple trick’ to get decent scores on a wider range of machines than the ones they’re familiar with. Our son is a better home player than @MadMonzer and I, and I can definitely see how he suffered in the UK Open due to not being as familiar with a wide range of machines (and from choosing what to put on his card by how short the queues were, but I did that in my first year too!)
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WELL DONE THE ENTIRE UK OPEN ORGANISING/STAFF/VOLUNTEERING TEAM, inc. @Tilt_Birmingham and @MajesticPinball working on the machines all weekend, and @David_Vi and @Lecari seeming to do everything else! As well as Deleted User 404, of course, for rushing around all weekend and bringing US-style tournament pinball to our back door!
You folks rock. Brilliant tournament, get some sleep And congrats to @Jackpot for coming so far and being the UK’s best hope
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I couldn’t stay up until the end but also wanted to say thank you to the organisers and volunteers who put on such a great tournament. It was a really slick operation and your hard work was massively appreciated.
Special thanks go to Neil who managed to patiently get my Never Drains account sorted out when my original account somehow got corrupted, leading to the temporary emergence of Simon Love 2 (who was unfortunately no better at putting a card together than Simon Love 1)
Special thanks go to Neil who managed to patiently get my Never Drains account sorted out when my original account somehow got corrupted, leading to the temporary emergence of Simon Love 2 (who was unfortunately no better at putting a card together than Simon Love 1)
I’ll second that! Big thanks, was an awesome weekend.WELL DONE THE ENTIRE UK OPEN ORGANISING/STAFF/VOLUNTEERING TEAM, inc. @Tilt_Birmingham and @MajesticPinball working on the machines all weekend, and @David_Vi and @Lecari seeming to do everything else! As well as Deleted User 404, of course, for rushing around all weekend and bringing US-style tournament pinball to our back door!
zxspectrum16k
Site Supporter
I really enjoyed watching the streams. There were awesome players, pins, and moments. Massive thanks and well done to all involved.
The commentary added to the experience, and everyone who did it was ace.
The commentary added to the experience, and everyone who did it was ace.
What an awesome weekend, thank you to Neil (I’ll pass this along in person too!) and all of the team that made the event such a fantastic event.
Events like this are not easy to put together and are impossible without the volunteers, machine donors, tech team, scorekeepers, streamers etc that make it happen
This was my 2nd year at the UK open and whilst I couldn’t string a card together on the Saturday and Sunday I had a great time catching up with so many of you that I have met in this hobby over the past 2 years.
Looking forward to 2025 already!!
Events like this are not easy to put together and are impossible without the volunteers, machine donors, tech team, scorekeepers, streamers etc that make it happen
This was my 2nd year at the UK open and whilst I couldn’t string a card together on the Saturday and Sunday I had a great time catching up with so many of you that I have met in this hobby over the past 2 years.
Looking forward to 2025 already!!
Sort of.
I think that there are multiple distinct components to being a top tournament player:
Handling the pressure of a tournament
Knowledge of games
Knowledge/experience of how the ball will react in a given situation
Playing skills
Strength to move a machine
Stamina
Reaction times
Roughly speaking: the top of the list skills increase with more experience. Whereas the skills near the bottom decrease with age.
So in years gone by, before mass streaming of events and pinball ownership at home, you only gained that experience by actually being there in tournaments and seeing the top players in person and discussing strategies amongst other competitors.
Now you can Google any number of skills or tutorial videos for the latest game within days of it coming out. There are websites like PinTips giving short simple strategies for tournament play. This is giving the youngsters, and less experienced players a jump start on these skills which weren't there for the previous generation.
Having a machine at home to practise on and seeing tutorials gives players the ability to practice their skills and try new things. Viggo tap passing on a Stern Kiss last night, or ZMac having a strategy that meant deliberately losing the Reality Gem in Thanos Attacks so he could play it again and score more points just wouldn't happen if players didn't have access to these games outside of competition and arcades.
However stamina and reaction times only deteriorate after a certain age, and with comps running so long, it definitely helps to be naturally fit. There weren't too many top players able to use their beer guts to activate the action buttons visible.
Stern games are too light
We need more jjp in comps to give us less stealthy a chance
The physical part of pinball used to be moving them. I USED to be able to set up judge dredds on my own
Then playing for long time became a struggle
Last night l was on the caffeine trying to stay awake just watching. Thank god someone choose Meteor
We need more jjp in comps to give us less stealthy a chance
The physical part of pinball used to be moving them. I USED to be able to set up judge dredds on my own
Then playing for long time became a struggle
Last night l was on the caffeine trying to stay awake just watching. Thank god someone choose Meteor
Those pinsteps, what total BS. First up they are a piece of 3d printed crap, secondly DQing players because they fell off them, well...
Maybe no mods to games should be a thing for serious tourneys.
Maybe no mods to games should be a thing for serious tourneys.
Just home from a great weekend at the open. Awesome to see so much high level play. Knackered after the late finish last night. Awesome job by Neil, all the PBR crew and everyone who helped run it.
The young players especially Zach and Jason are a level above the rest!
Watching people like Craig, Peter Andersen and Daniele and even the likes of Esher and Ray all losing their minds watching them play and be like how! Omg! Impossible!
Is awesome to see!
The respect shown this weekend between players to players and players to staff was amazing
Watching people like Craig, Peter Andersen and Daniele and even the likes of Esher and Ray all losing their minds watching them play and be like how! Omg! Impossible!
Is awesome to see!
The respect shown this weekend between players to players and players to staff was amazing
Watching Zach do five rolling tap passes in a row on Funhouse was ridiculousThe young players especially Zach and Jason are a level above the rest!
Watching people like Craig, Peter Andersen and Daniele and even the likes of Esher and Ray all losing their minds watching them play and be like how! Omg! Impossible!
Is awesome to see!
The respect shown this weekend between players to players and players to staff was amazing
Huge thanks to the entire UK Open team, such a great event again with so many people required to make it run smoothly, far too many to name but I hope I found most of you to say thanks last night. The work you all put in is really appreciated and is such an enormous part of what makes the UK Open a world-class event.
Congratulations to Yuen for flying the UK flag longest in main and PBR so that we had at least one player in both quarter finals, with Craig and Rich getting to the quarters in the classics. Was great to be watching in the room with so many people cheering on the amazing pinball skills on display.
Very thankful for the B Final giving the rest of us a chance at finals and it seems I’ve finally found out how to improve my play: going away and not touching pinball machines for a month!!! I’m sure few will be surprised that my best games are to be found by me not actually playing pinball
Also, it makes a change for me to be the only one coming home with a trophy, which clearly makes me ‘Top Iles’ for now
Congratulations to Yuen for flying the UK flag longest in main and PBR so that we had at least one player in both quarter finals, with Craig and Rich getting to the quarters in the classics. Was great to be watching in the room with so many people cheering on the amazing pinball skills on display.
Very thankful for the B Final giving the rest of us a chance at finals and it seems I’ve finally found out how to improve my play: going away and not touching pinball machines for a month!!! I’m sure few will be surprised that my best games are to be found by me not actually playing pinball
Also, it makes a change for me to be the only one coming home with a trophy, which clearly makes me ‘Top Iles’ for now
Loved watching the open on stream this weekend / it’s the first time I have been to do this and learned so much about the rules of the different games from the players and commentators - the issue now for me will be to remember so well done to everyone involved and I am so pleased to see the young players coming through - the youth are the future etc .
However I didn’t quite understand the b final - how does that work in the open ? Is it a seperate bank or entry etc ?
We used to have a b final in the uk league and it gave some of the rest of us a chance to play in a final etc . Hopefully someone can explain . Thank you
so well done to everyone involved and I am so pleased to see the young players coming through - the youth are the future etc . However I didn’t quite understand the b final - how does that work in the open ? Is it a seperate bank or entry etc ?
We used to have a b final in the uk league and it gave some of the rest of us a chance to play in a final etc . Hopefully someone can explain . Thank you
B final is a sub-final for the main competition. Top 40 qualifiers go to the A final. The next 16 qualifiers who are ranked below IFPA world top 500 and didn’t qualify for the A final get into the B finalLoved watching the open on stream this weekend / it’s the first time I have been to do this and learned so much about the rules of the different games from the players and commentators - the issue now for me will be to remember
However I didn’t quite understand the b final - how does that work in the open ? Is it a seperate bank or entry etc ?
We used to have a b final in the uk league and it gave some of the rest of us a chance to play in a final etc . Hopefully someone can explain . Thank you
Can someone explain what happened exactly please?
Lickashot
Site Supporter
I think one of the players slid the machine. Viggo comes up, does a slap save resulting in the pinsteps coming off and is disqualified. I'm sure someone will correct it if that isn't exactly what happened.
Thank you - that makes good sense . Love it
Was very confusing as I was commentating as we switched across to that game. It's in the rules, but wouldn't be surprised if there's an update/clarification on use of elevated feet (quite possibly suggested they aren't used on the front legs).
I'd especially like to thank Escher for the hospital pass of an explanation about what happened, involving one of the event sponsor's products...
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these are the offending articles. Honestly I'd insist they were removed before playing if I was in the comp. Should never have been fitted.
What a sensational event. Thank you so much to Neil, the whole PBR team, the tech team, the score keepers, the front desk team, everyone, thank you so so much. I'm so incredibly proud that we have one of the best events on the entire planet in our country. I still can't quite believe we had 8 of the top 10 players in the world, plus a shed load more from the top 50, dueling with each other in Croydon! Some of the moments and memories created were truly sensational.
Thank you so much everyone.
Highlight of the weekend, B divisional finals, ball 1, Martin Iles steps up and bangs out a 70m+ ball 1 on a John Wick that was chewing up and spitting out those same top 10 players in the world in qualifying, with lots of them not being able to get 10m on 3 balls!! What a moment, what a winner!!! Well done mate, huge achievement
Thank you so much everyone.
Highlight of the weekend, B divisional finals, ball 1, Martin Iles steps up and bangs out a 70m+ ball 1 on a John Wick that was chewing up and spitting out those same top 10 players in the world in qualifying, with lots of them not being able to get 10m on 3 balls!! What a moment, what a winner!!! Well done mate, huge achievement
Thanks for explaining... out of interest why was he disqualified for that game, what was the "offence"?