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The Classic Pinball Podcast
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#68 Silverball Rumble - The Classic Pinball Podcast

PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago58 min listenBy George
From the creator

Dave and George play in the Silverball Rumble at Pintastic 2021. Follow their journey. You won’t believe what happens. Bonus Feature: An unexpected phone call from Eric Stone.

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Highlights

  • The Silverball Rumble tournament had 24 qualifying spots with players selecting five games from a pool of approximately 12, mostly classic/EM titles
  • Dave qualified 16th out of 24 after an incomplete qualifying card (only played four of five games due to time constraints)
  • The bottom 16 players competed in head-to-head best-of-five matches; the top 8 finishers from that bracket would play the top 8 qualifiers
  • Zach Fray is a co-host of the Slam Tilt podcast, 27 years old, based in Rochester, involved with the Rochester Pinball Co-op, and either owns or frequently plays Total Nuclear Annihilation
  • Sea Witch at Pintastic is set tougher than standard and leans right; scoring over 280,000-300,000 points is required to place well; multiple players confirmed difficulty
  • Dave ranked 5th out of all players on Blackjack during qualifying with 83 points but still lost to Zach in head-to-head play on the same game
  • A rare Stern Q (only six made, maybe three survived) was originally planned for the tournament bank but was ultimately excluded due to disagreement between Jim Swain and Mark
  • Total Nuclear Annihilation is an exceptionally fast game with multi-ball play and requires light plunging to avoid ball slingshots
  • Jim Swain ran the Silverball Rumble tournament with Mark as his partner; tournament organization and timing were generally well-executed
  • Dave's qualifying performance on four of the five games he eventually played in head-to-head (Electronimo ranked well, Card Whiz well, Sea Witch zero, Blackjack 5th) provided baseline expectations

Notable quotes

“That Cardwiz game, it's like two wet noodles for flippers. I mean, you really had to bump the ball with those flippers.”
George
“Ignorance is bliss. Exactly right. So I took it just play the best I could play.”
Dave
“That's competition. Oh, I know. It's a head game. I know. It's all a head game. It's all psychology, and it's like playing cards.”
Dave
“I didn't realize that a full plunge on that game is don't do that. Which game were we talking about? TNA.”
Dave
“I basically gave it – used Eric Stone as my influence because I know when I saw him playing weak-ass flippers at Fun Spot, he'd go – he'd, like, ump the game and kind of, like, push the game with the flipper.”
Dave
“I'm like Dave has Dave they picked all the classic games and then the punch was okay did he have the pick for DNA yes he did yeah okay now you can continue on your story”
George
“So here we go. And I had no idea. I figured, okay, he's probably familiar with the game. Come to find out later on is that he either owns a game or his best friend owns a game. He plays it all the time.”
George
“Don't ever think that you can't be in a tournament and this is no downplay to Dave. It's really, it's really a Testament to how good he is, but he only scored on four out of five”
George

Entities

  • Silverball Rumble· event
  • Blackjack· game
  • Card Whiz· game
  • Electrodemo· game
  • Sea Witch· game
  • Stern Q· game
  • Stern Rawhide· game
  • Total Nuclear Annihilation· game
  • Classic Pinball Podcast· organization
  • Rochester Pinball Co-op· organization
  • Slam Tilt Podcast· organization
  • Bruce Nightingale· person
  • Chewy Cologne· person
  • Dr. Dave· person
  • Eric Stone· person
  • George· person
  • Jim Swain· person
  • Mark· person
  • Maureen· person
  • Ron Hallin· person
  • Zach Fray· person
  • Pintastic· venue

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