9/18/03 - 9/25/03

> September 18, 2003 > News > Feature Extra Ball A thing must die before it can have a renaissance, so let's say pinball is resurgent in Pittsburgh  By Matt Valentine When you step off the elevator on the eighth floor of the hotel, you can hear the beeps, clicks and whirrs coming from down the hall, and you follow the cacophony into a banquet room chirping with electronic voices and mechanical chatter. There are dozens of pinball machines ringing the circumference of the room, and top players from around the world are bent over them in concentration, flipper fingers slapping the buttons. Even from a distance, without seeing the ball in play, you can tell who's having a good game and who isn't. Body language telegraphs the game-in-progress -- one player groans in agony and slams himself into his machine like a sumo wrestler, while another pumps his fist in the air for victory. This is a world-class tournament. This is Pinburgh. Competitors here have come from across the United States and Europe to compete for a $6,000 cash pot and bragging rights as Division A wizards in the Steel City. Jorian Engelbrektsson of Sweden came to town exclusively for the tournament and saw little more of Pittsburgh than the Parkway Center Best Western. Still, he seems satisfied. "There are a couple of guys here...I just watch them play," he says. "They don't miss."  Although competition is fierce, there's camaraderie among the players, who know each other from a circuit of tournaments including Pittsburgh, California, Leusden (Netherlands) and Las Vegas. Those who can afford to travel will attend several similar events every year. "Pinburgh is unique in that it is the only event dedicated to competitive pinball," explains Kevin Martin, one of the principal organizers. Other major pinball tournaments are attached to trade shows and attract more collectors than hardcore players, which changes the atmosphere. "There are only three really good competitions, and this is the one people look forward to," says Bowen Kerins, this year's first place winner.  For the top players, there's much more to pinball than merely keeping the ball in play. They study the peculiarities of each machine -- testing the controls, studying the playfield, even checking the firmware version to see if it has been updated. They know the machines inside out. When I asked one player, John Miller, about the special attributes of a game, he explained that "the ceramic powerball in Twilight Zone is 60 grams instead of 80 grams for the steel ball, and it's unaffected by the magnets." Gotcha. The fanatical minutia is symptomatic of an underlying love of the game that characterizes all of Pinburgh's attendees. Many were eager to share their stories of early infatuation. Therese Edwards, a gaming operator who first got involved with pinball machines as a business venture, explained how it quickly became an obsession: "We got Twilight Zone and took it back to the shop and turned the lights off. One game in the dark with the music cranked and I was hooked." The considerable challenges of hosting the tournament are borne by Kevin Martin and Steve Zumoff. Besides moving the machines, Martin and Zumoff are responsible for maintaining them in top condition throughout the event. They keep them level, investigate complaints -- a sticky flipper, for example -- and occasionally even whip out a soldering gun for a quick repair. Several players told stories about fire alarms going off last year due to overtaxed electrical systems, a problem endemic to pinball tournaments, usually coincident with a player having the best game of his life. The organizers shrug these hassles off with a smile. "I have moments of terror punctuating a catlike state of readiness," Martin explains.  "The 16-hour days are a little rough," Zumoff admits, "but if it was a drag we wouldn't do it."  Except for one newly released Terminator 3 machine on display from a manufacturer, all the machines at Pinburgh this year are owned by Kevin Martin. He has 157 games in total, which he bought two years ago from an arcade operator. "I'm in the process of buying a building so we can have a nice, clean place to keep the machines and host the tourney," Martin says.  Pinball may be slowly vanishing in the U.S. as manufacturers turn their attention to making slot machines. The only manufacturer currently producing pinball machines is Stern in Chicago, and old machines are being retired from arcades as they wear out, because parts are not easy to find. Here in Pittsburgh, though, pinball has a strong following, and the trend is growing. Martin plans to host an even bigger Pinburgh event next summer, which is sure to draw even more zealots from around the world. "There's spectacular play here," Kerins says. "In the finals, people start rolling out their big game. I saw someone last year rack up five billion points on a game, halfway to rolling over the score counter. They play tremendously and it's amazing to watch." Respond to this story! Top Of Page