Second Annual NE WI Pinball Tournament May 2nd 2015

[Eric_S]

Big thanks to Tom and Michelle for opening up their home and putting up with 40+ pinballers all day. It was a great tournament that ran pretty smoothly. Congrats to Dave D. on the big win.

[Hilton]

Had a blast. Congrats to all the top dogs!

Thanks to Tom and Family.

[TheDru]

Simply put.....IT WAS FLIPPIN AWESOME!!!!!!
Great games...great people...great food...and beer. Cmon what is better than that.

Tom & MIchelle and family, can't thank you enough for being such gracious hosts. Walked away with no money, no hardware, no prizes. All I left with was a smile (And some stuff off of Tom's walls, but he had so much if he even notices I'd be surprised).

Already looking forward to next year and I hope you bought Febreze by the pallet.

DRU

[TomGWI]

Simply put.....IT WAS FLIPPIN AWESOME!!!!!!
Great games...great people...great food...and beer. Cmon what is better than that.

Tom & MIchelle and family, can't thank you enough for being such gracious hosts. Walked away with no money, no hardware, no prizes. All I left with was a smile (And some stuff off of Tom's walls, but he had so much if he even notices I'd be surprised).

Already looking forward to next year and I hope you bought Febreze by the pallet.

DRU

Stuff off my walls. I'm too tired to look anyways.

Thanks for the salsa as well Dru. It was a huge hit.

[u2sean]

Thanks to you and Michelle for hosting this great tourney, Tom! I had a GREAT time (although my scores would say otherwise)! Awesome people, games, competition and food. You did an amazing job. Looking forward to future events!

- Sean

[Hilton]

This is my favorite event style that you run Tom!

I really like the random group placement >> we had a fun group and were rooting each other on and strategizing between balls. I know not all groups had this same atmosphere but we had a lot of fun playing together.

I like the gaurenteed play on 14 games. I often suck on many of your games (you set then really tough, which is good), so I like that even with a 4hr round trip i know that I will be playing a good amount of pinball no matter what.

I really liked the side event this year and thought it worked out almost perfectly for timing. If you need to cut time I think you could forget the playoff on side event and let the qualifying position determine reporting. If you still want to up the TGP then you could always use top 2 scores on all 3 games to make it 6 total games. Either way, I liked that I had something to do when our group got done with main qualifying. I don't think you really need to change anything. It is a long day IF you qualify, but if not then it is about perfect.

Constructive suggestions : allow loser (or second highest seed?) from game 1 to select game 2 for each bracket. With only 2 games and a 7 5 3 1 style the higher seed gets a good benefit of choosing the first game and this would help diversify the game selection a bit is my guess. Higher seeds are typically good players so they don't need the benfit of game selection for 2 games

no ball save is brutal on Stern games that give lots of house balls. I completely understand the desire to keep things moving, but this was something I noticed was putting more emphasis on luck and less on skill. A few house balls meant the difference in a big way for some people. Good players are going to have fewer house balls anyway so ball save does not do much to impact them. Lesser players already dont have long ball times so a short ball save could help

go to "no waiting on ANY game" There were a few times where people choose to wait on STLE which added 20-30 min to the event. You have a great selection of games available, so there really should not be a need for a top player to insist on only playing a single game.

I had a great time and look forward to this event next year already!

Thanks again to your whole family!

[TomGWI]

This is my favorite event style that you run Tom!

I really like the random group placement >> we had a fun group and were rooting each other on and strategizing between balls. I know not all groups had this same atmosphere but we had a lot of fun playing together.

I like the gaurenteed play on 14 games. I often suck on many of your games (you set then really tough, which is good), so I like that even with a 4hr round trip i know that I will be playing a good amount of pinball no matter what.

I really liked the side event this year and thought it worked out almost perfectly for timing. If you need to cut time I think you could forget the playoff on side event and let the qualifying position determine reporting. If you still want to up the TGP then you could always use top 2 scores on all 3 games to make it 6 total games. Either way, I liked that I had something to do when our group got done with main qualifying. I don't think you really need to change anything. It is a long day IF you qualify, but if not then it is about perfect.

Constructive suggestions : allow loser (or second highest seed?) from game 1 to select game 2 for each bracket. With only 2 games and a 7 5 3 1 style the higher seed gets a good benefit of choosing the first game and this would help diversify the game selection a bit is my guess. Higher seeds are typically good players so they don't need the benfit of game selection for 2 games

no ball save is brutal on Stern games that give lots of house balls. I completely understand the desire to keep things moving, but this was something I noticed was putting more emphasis on luck and less on skill. A few house balls meant the difference in a big way for some people. Good players are going to have fewer house balls anyway so ball save does not do much to impact them. Lesser players already dont have long ball times so a short ball save could help

go to "no waiting on ANY game" There were a few times where people choose to wait on STLE which added 20-30 min to the event. You have a great selection of games available, so there really should not be a need for a top player to insist on only playing a single game.

I had a great time and look forward to this event next year already!

Thanks again to your whole family!

Thanks Hilton. Appreciate your suggestions

I agree with most of your suggestions.
Mini - no playoff

As far as main playoff will probably do random assignment of games next year that way no one can say they got cheated. Let randomness determine everyone's fate. That will also eliminate the wait times. High seed can then pick order of play for everyone.

I am afraid the no ball save will stay for this tournament. It would just add another hour or two to an already long day.

Thanks again for all your help with the tournament it took a lot of the stress off

[TomGWI]

Pic of Brodde the B div Champion

[drainman]

Thanks Tom & Michelle and family! My first time visiting your place and I had a blast. I got to meet so many great people I felt like a winner before the competition started. Hope I can do better next time in the main tourney though. This is Al, btw. (the guy from Rochester) I hope to see more of you guys at future events!

[Tim E]

Thanks so much to Tom, Michelle, his entire family, the people that helped out, and all the players. I had a great group of guys to play with. What a great day all around.