Skip to content
The Classic Pinball Podcast
The Classic Pinball Podcast
140 episodes tracked since 2019 about →
Copied!

#22 Dave interviews Eric Stone INDISC Open Champion The Classic Pinball Podcast

PodcastAnalysis updated 2d ago53 min listenBy George
From the creator

Dave interviews the newly crowned world champion, Eric Stone, on his win at INDISC in Banning California. They discuss how Eric got to the top level of pinball competition and how his tournament...

Listen on The Classic Pinball Podcast

Highlights

  • Eric Stone won the INDISC Open World Championship in Banning, California
  • The INDISC Open replaced the PAPA World Championships after the PAPA facility became unavailable after 2017
  • There were over 200 players in each Classics day (Friday and Saturday), making it 'probably the biggest Classics tournament ever, ever held'
  • 317 total players attended the three-day qualifying event with no cutoff on participant numbers
  • Eric defeated Keith Elwin in the Round of 16 on Jurassic Park and Black Knight, scoring over $100 million on Jurassic Park
  • Josh Sharpe performed critical live repair on a Diner machine during the finals by accessing the saucer from underneath the playfield
  • Eric scored $8.5 million on Diner after the repair, which was 'head and shoulders above' all other competitors on that game
  • The main tournament featured mostly 80s and 90s games plus only three modern Sterns (Jurassic Park, Black Knight, Sopranos) and one Spooky game (Alice Cooper)

Notable quotes

“Because when I worked at CBS and, you know, they laid me off, I kind of didn't have anything to do, right? And I thought it would be a good time to maybe see how good I really was at pinball and, you know, start competing.”
Eric Stone
“I picked Comet again, and it came down to the last ball...I did miss the shot, and I took a chance. As the ball was coming back to my right flipper, I took a chance, and I let it bounce to my left flipper. I gave the game a little nudge, and it did bounce over. Then I took a pot shot, and I nailed it, and that's how I wound up winning Classics 2.”
Eric Stone
“I said, don't worry, Eric, you know, we're going to try to get this. And he said, we're going to attack it from underneath the play field and we're going to unscrew where the saucer is. And that's actually how they got the piece of plastic out.”
Eric Stone
“Yeah, this basically replaced the Papa World Championships. Okay. This is technically a Papa World Championship, but now they're calling it the Open because it's not at the Papa facility.”
Eric Stone
“You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yep. So, I mean, time is the biggest pressure because you don't have much of it. It's only seven and a half hours of qualifying and if some games are taking 30 to 45 minutes to play one game in line, you don't really have much time in order to complete tickets, you know?”
Eric Stone
“And I think I was telling George that as well. And lo and behold, I make it to the Final Four, and Kaylee George is in my group again. And I think, boy, hopefully I can beat him this time.”
Eric Stone

Entities

  • Classics· event
  • INDISC Open· event
  • PAPA World Championships· event
  • Adam Lefkoff· person
  • Andrei Masenkov· person
  • Bob Matthews· person
  • Carl D'Angelo· person
  • Colin McElpine· person
  • Colin Urban· person
  • Dave· person
  • Eric Stone· person
  • Escher· person
  • George· person
  • Jared August· person
  • Joe LaMere· person
  • Josh Sharpe· person
  • Kaylee George· person
  • Keith Elwin· person
  • Raymond Davidson· person
  • Black Knight· product
  • Comet· product
  • Diner· product
  • Jurassic Park· product
  • Wizard· product

More from The Classic Pinball Podcast

→ All content from The Classic Pinball Podcast
Contact us about this coverage