Episode 363: The World comes to Germany
The biggest pinball event maybe ever will have all eyes on Germany. The European Pinball Championship, the IFPA Olympics, and The IFPA World Championship will all take place in an 11 day span at...
Highlights
- 256 players are participating in the EPC, divided into two qualification days (128 players each), with groups of 16 on each day
- Nearly all top-100 IFPA-ranked players will be present at the event, with every group of 16 in EPC qualification containing at least three top-80 players
- EPC registration filled in less than 20 seconds, Olympics in less than a minute
- The event was conceived as a dream project by Tobias Wegman (country director) before he stepped back around Christmas, now continued by Jim and Dina
- Bulls and Balls venue in Fulda is expanding with a new dedicated main pinball hall accommodating ~36 machines for the EPC tournament
- JDL Pinball will stream all major tournaments except the IFPA 18.5 shadow tournament at Bulls and Balls
- EPC main finals on Sunday is a certified+ event with close to 400% TGP ($3.92 in points)
- Jim and Dina have not played competitive pinball since January (German Championship Series finals), focusing entirely on event organization and new puppy care
Notable quotes
“You want to know how much people love pinball? Look at Germany in the month of May and early June because there's a lot going on. In fact, it's like the perfect storm.”
“They're just a mere 256 people, Jeff, so we're dropping the ocean, really.”
“If questions that come from pretty much straight off the pages of the book arise from customers and partners, he just sent an email back with four letters R T F B which means read the book.”
“For the sake of those people, they are going to be the majority. We're going to be strict on enforcing the rules of nice behavior and obviously cheating of any sort isn't going to be tolerated and will result in a red card straight away.”
“We haven't played any pinball since January. Okay. Pretty much.”
“Midnight Madness is named Madness for a reason.”
“Within two minutes, I think. No, it was less. It was less than a minute for EPC, less than 20 seconds for the Olympics.”
Entities
- European Pinball Championship (EPC)· event
- IFPA 18 World Championship· event
- IFPA Olympics· event
- JDL Pinball· organization
- Pinball Profile· organization
- Bill Mason· person
- Dina Lindsay· person
- Eric Stone· person
- Escher Lefkoff· person
- Jeff Teolis· person
- Jim Lindsay· person
- Johannes Ostemeyer· person
- Kate Morris Rothwell-Jackson· person
- Kim· person
- Matthias (Matthäus)· person
- Paul Engler· person
- Peter Anderson· person
- Raymond Davidson· person
- Roy Wills· person
- Steve Zala· person
- Taco Wooters· person
- Tobias Wegerman· person
- Tobias Wegman· person
- Bulls & Balls Fulda· venue
- Freddy's Pinball Paradise· venue
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