These Fight Clubs are a lot of fun, but what are they all about?
So twice a week, just outside the city of Pittsburgh, we get together for a 3 or 4 strike tournament. I'd say on average 20-30 of us show up. The event tends to last 4-6 hours, depending on how many strikes and how many show up. It's awesome getting together with my friends to play pinball - but Fight Clubs are about more than just those 4-6 hours. They are about getting ready for Pinburgh. Yes, personally getting ready for Pinburgh is part of it, but I am talking about helping the organizers prepare for Pinburgh.
Pinburgh is enormous! The list of players is over 800 deep and the waiting list has over 400 people on it. With a tournament this large you need hundreds of machines in working order to accommodate this schedule. But that's not all. Each one of those "Rounds" represents a group of four players playing 4 games. And each set of 4 machines will have 3 groups of 4 players rotating through every round. Sound confusing? It is and it isn't. Maybe I am just bad at explaining it :D
The point is - it is important that none of the banks clog up the schedule. If 2 or 3 games in a bank are 'long-players' and 3 groups take two and a half hours to go through instead of 2 hours 15 minutes, the entire Pinburgh schedule falls apart. Amazingly, this didn't happen last year - and Fight Clubs can claim some credit for this scheduling success. Every game we play is timed, becomes a data point, and gets compared to other data points - to create banks of games that won't clog up the schedule.
Fight Clubs also catch games that are not in tournament mode, games with broken lights, games with flaky switches and games with the many other issues that plague tournaments. Things are still going to go wrong, but Fight Clubs are about minimizing those things, so that 840 people can enjoy the greatest tournament ever. Special thanks are in order to everyone, from the participants to the Tournament Director hosting all these Fight Clubs - but most of all - thank you to every tech who adjusts these machines after we play them. The techs are the true heroes of Pinburgh - thank you.
Now for your chance to win some STEEM
This time I have upped the prize. The first person who can identify every game/manufacturer, I will pay you the entirety of this post's SBD payout. If no one is able to match every photo with a game and manufacturer - I will award 1.5 STEEM to the first person that identifies the most (in other words - there are 6 - if no one gets them all - if you are the first to get 5 - you win, or if no one gets 5 - the first to get 4 wins). Winner payout occurs when this post pays out.
Quick Rules - I will not consider 'edited' responses. I will not consider 'second' responses. You only get one shot, like Eminem said. Here we go:
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All photos contained within this post were taken by me :D