The Lowell Sun in Lowell, MA covered the International Pinball Wizard Challenge held this past weekend in Pelham, NH. The International Pinball Wizard Challenge is one of the nearly 350 annual IFPA endorsed tournaments where players can earn World Pinball Player Rankings points, and qualify for the IFPA World Pinball Championship. Featured in the article is [player]Frank Romero[/player] (ranked 63rd in the world), [player]Trent Augenstein[/player] (ranked 6th in the world) and [player]Steven Bowden[/player] (ranked 36th in the world). Click HERE to see the article and watch the video.

64 of the top ranked pinball players from 12 countries came to Bainbridge Island just outside Seattle to compete for the chance to become the new IFPA World Pinball Champion.

The Battle in Seattle was truly a battle of champions, as 3 of the top 4 finishers were the 3 previous IFPA World Pinball Champions. IFPA5 and IFPA6 World Pinball Champion [player]Bowen Kerins[/player] survived a 3-0 deficit to [player]Steve Zahler[/player] in his first round of the playoffs to come back and take the match 5 games to 3, and then knocked off 3-time PAPA World Pinball Champion [player]Lyman Sheats[/player] 4-1 to advance to the Final 4. [player]Andy Rosa[/player], who was the runner up at IFPA7 took out current world ranked #1 [player]Keith Elwin[/player] 5-4 in a match that went the distance on his way to the finals. Defending champion [player]Cayle George[/player] had the toughest road in the playoffs, surviving matches against [player]Josh Sharpe[/player], [player]Donavan Stepp[/player], [player]Jim Belsito[/player] and [player]Bowen Kerins[/player] that all went into sudden death.

In the end, it was IFPA7 champion [player[Daniele Celestino Acciari[/player] from Italy, who after defeating [player]Frank Romero[/player] (4-2), [player]Jason Werdrick[/player] (4-2) and Jorgen Holm (4-0), was faced with a rematch of his World Championship match at IFPA7 against [player]Andy Rosa[/player]. After jumping out to a 3-0 lead, Acciari eventually defeated Rosa 4 games to 2. His reward was a matchup with the IFPA8 World Pinball Champion [player]Cayle George[/player]. After splitting the first two games on The Shadow and Grand Prix, Acciari took control of the match by holding serve on Medusa followed by a victory on George’s pick Attack From Mars. The players then headed to Bally’s Old Chicago, where just a round earlier, Acciari put up an incredible 245,240 points rolling the game twice against [player]Andy Rosa[/player]. Unfortunately following a tough ball 1, [player]Cayle George[/player] tilted not only his ball, but also ended up tilting Acciari's ball 2. This interference, albeit unintentional, resulted in George's disqualification from the game, and ultimately the match.

With that, Daniele Celestino Acciari became this year's IFPA World Pinball Champion, bringing the title back to Italy where it will be for the rest of 2012, along with $1350 cash and a brand new pinball machine from Stern Pinball. Acciari's World Championship victory capped off an incredible week of tournament performance in Seattle. Starting with a victory at the NW Pinball Championships, along with a 4th place finish in the Classics Division, Acciari then took a 2nd place finish at the Full Tilt Pre-IFPA Tournament. In total Acciari racked up over 250 WPPR points for the week, which will likely propel him to becoming the #1 ranked player in the world depending on how the rest of 2012 plays out.

Full results can be found HERE.

The first official tourney of 2012 in NY was held at Rock Fantasy in Middletown NY thanks to the hosts [player]Steve Keeler[/player] and [player]Steve Levine[/player]. It was a big success with 31 players and 95 entries which all went to the pot! The tourney started at noon with the entry fee of $10 which let you play the set

of 5 games: Spider Man from Stern, Terminator 2, Cheetah, Nugent and Captain Fantastic. At 6:30 the qualification stopped and the top 16 made to the finals in a single elimination bracket 2 best out of 3 and all games in the store could have been used which included Rolling Stones from Stern, Seawitch, Medusa, Adams Family, Transformers LE, Gorgar, Kiss, Fireball, Meteor, and Countdown.

Note that the top 15 made plus the High score of one of the game who was seeded 16th! At around 7 pm after a little cake for [player]Frank Romero[/player] for his birthday the finals started . In couple of hours and after few great matches ([player]Steven Bowden[/player] vs [player]Steve Zahler[/player] was incredible!) 4 players made to semifinal: [player]Steven Bowden[/player] vs [player]Alberto Santana[/player] where the 1st won the tie break game by less than a million on Transformers LE and [player]Sanjay Shah[/player] took out [player]Ed Zeltmann[/player] also on tie break. In the end [player]Steven Bowden[/player] took the win on 2 classic Stern games: Cheetah and Nugent. Top 8 got money. It was truly a great time by all and we all hope that the AC/DC launch party will be held in here because this place ROCKS!!