The National Gaming Board of Sweden informed us this Tuesday that the
pinball tournaments Balacs Pinball Party and IFPA8 World Pinball
Championships are illegal according to Swedish law, and thus we need a
license to be able to run the tournaments. They also filed a report at
the local police about the tournaments, and that they would be
considered illegal if played without a license. We spent the Wednesday
to collect all the documents from different sources needed for the
application, and yesterday morning Stockholm Pinball (which is the
legal entity in Sweden that have the closest connection to the
tournaments) applied for this license. Normally the handling timeframe
is one month, but the gaming board gave our application the highest
priority and rapid treatment.

However, about two hours ago they informed us that they will not be
able to make the decision in time for this weekend (since they closed
about two hours ago). This means that we cannot run the Balacs Pinball
Party tournament this weekend without breaking the law. They also
requested additional information from us, and we are now working on
providing them with this information. They will continue to work on
our application Monday morning, and well before that we will have
given them the information requested. We still have hope that we can
save the IFPA8 tournament without having to postpone or cancel the
tournament.

The National Gaming Board of Sweden have also informed us that winning
prizes consisting of money or having a value of money at pinball
tournaments are not allowed by Swedish law. The IFPA World Pinball
Championships will thus not pay out any prizes. If the gaming board
will grant us a license, we will have to play for the honor and glory
alone. Information about the outcome of the application, and the
economical consequences for the participants, will be announced as
soon as we know how things will turn out.

Mario Anzini takes home the title of Italian Pinball Champion for the year 2011. 40 players from all over Italy and Germany came to the competition, with the youngest player Alessandro Gasparetto, 9 years old. A wonderful edition of the Championship, held inside a shopping mall with a spectacular selection of pinballs. The competition was played on 20 machines ranging from the 1966 Gottlieb “Hide Park”, to the Zaccaria “Locomotion” and “Devil Riders”, to the 90’s Williams, to the Stern “The Simpson Pinball Party”. 12 more pinball machines were open to the public in free play. Starting at 10.30 am, playing until 4.30 pm, the 40 players were continuously grouped in 4 player’s team to battle on the different machines. The top 16 players moved on to the finals, where a head-to-head bracket was created. All matches have been played at best of three games. Daniele Acciari ended the qualification round in first position, followed by Mauro Spiga, Mario Anzini and Nicola Pierobon. These 4 players won their matches making to the semifinals. Number 1 seed Acciari defeated Pierobon in three games, winning on “The Addams Family”, losing on “The Simpson Pinball Party” and winning the tie-breaker game on “Dr Who”. The other semifinal saw Anzini prevailing over Spiga, in three games too. Spiga took the first game on “Demolition Man”, but Anzini came back first winning on his loved “Dr. Who” and then the tie-breaker on “Tales of the Arabian Nights”. Then the match for the title was won, not without surprise, by the “Zar” Mario Anzini, who played at his best to defeat Acciari in only two games on “The Addams Family” and “Dr. Who”, where he gave a lesson on how to play this machine. Congratulations to the “Zar”, who takes home the nice first prize offered by the organizers: the pinball machine “Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends”.

It was a beautiful day of pinball, with many pinball enthusiastic meeting together, a tough competition with great players and a wonderful job by the organizer to make the day as smooth as possible. Hope to see you at the 2012 edition.

The Silverball Museum Arcade and IFPA Present the First Annual Spring Metro Pinball Classic. The tournament features a Pro and Amateur Division with cash prizes of $7500!

Qualifying is from 11am – 1am, Saturday June 11th, with finals on June 12th.

Location is at the Silverball Museum Arcade, 1000 Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park, NJ 07712.

For more information, email Tournament@silverballmuseum.com or call 732-774-4994 or 908-754-0934

Lyman Sheats won the Sixth Annual Midwest Pinball Championships at the Midwest Gaming Classic! The field was a tough one, with over 80 players participating, and featured the largest finals field in the history of the event with 35 of the 80 players competing. Lyman emerged the winner to claim his part of the $2500 pot after intense games on machines from across all eras, including 3 Coins, Paragon, 4 Square and Judge Dredd. Two days before at the event, Clock Chaos was contested for over $1000 of prizes with a field of 50 players, with Chris Frame emerging as the winner. These two tournaments made up some of the most intense competition at the 2011 Midwest Gaming Classic, which welcomed over 3700 attendees to the show, and awarded over $5000 in tournament prizes!

Nick took the number 1 spot during the final week, after hovering in the top 5 positions all season. Entering finals week, it was between Nick and previous NYC League champ, Steve Bowden. Nick, who had just come off a tremendous Fall season, prevailed. Alberto Santana, Pinburgh 2011 division A finalist, took 2nd place and Steve was 3rd. This season, ending on March 16, was contested on 1978 Bally Star Trek, 1988 Williams Cyclone and 2010 Stern Avatar. A great mix of games that truly tested everyones abilities. For more information on the NYC Pinball League go to www.nycpinballleague.com.

2011 was the year for France to host the European Pinball Championship. Three kinds of tournaments were planned for this week : Team tournament, Individual Tournament and Kids Tournaments. Gary Stern was the special guest and arrived in France on Friday night, while the team tournament was in progress.

The team tournament saw the victory of the Hungary Team, who beat last year’s winners, Dutch Pinball Team into second place, with the Italia Tecnoplay Team in third.

The Individual tournament was held on Saturday and Sunday. The format for the qualifications was the same as the 2009 EPC held in the UK. Each player could choose six of the available machines on which to play a single qualifying game, plus a joker. The scores were ranked and ranking points awarded. The total of a player’s ranking points determined their overall position amongst the 154 players.

Timothee Hulin Bouard, Krisztian Szlalai and Daniele Celestino Acciari were the best players after the qualifications. The 36 qualified players took part in a second qualifying round which worked much like the initial qualifying round, except each player had to choose 4 from the 10 available machines to record a qualifying score, plus there was no joker.

After the two qualifying rounds, the format changed to knockout rounds all the way through to the final. The 16 qualifiers were split into 4 groups of 4 and each group played a single 4-player game on a randomly selected machine, with the top 2 going through to the semi-finals.

Finally, Daniele Celestino Acciari, Franck Bona, Jorgen Holm and Timothee Hulin Bouard headed to the final, which was played on the latest Stern pinball, The Rolling Stones. Timothee Hulin Bouard was the leader during the 4 first balls, but Franck Bona finally wins the tournament, after a thrilling fifth ball and two tilts warnings. Daniele Celestino Acciari got the third place, and Jorgen Holm the fourth.

The EPC 2011 team wants to thank all the players for their fair play, and we hope to see you at the next EPC, that will be help in Spain in 2012.

More details here : http://www.pinballnews.com/shows/epc2011/index.html

Again him, always him. Daniele Acciari wins the Spring Pinball Tournament, the tournament organized in the Enada pavilions, the annual amusement expo in Rimini. Twenty players tried to qualify in the top 8 on the five pinball machines Fish Tales, Iron Man, Dr Who, High Speed II: the Getaway and the new Stern Rolling Stones (Presented for the first time in Italy). After a day and half of playing, Acciari qualified in the top position, followed by Mario Anzini, Nicola Pierobon and Davide Delprato. Then the 8 finalists have been placed in a head-to-head single elimination bracket with matches at best of 3 games. Acciari defeated in the final Federico Croci in two games, while Valentino Trere took the third place. The special guests to award the winners were Gary Stern and Mauro Zaccaria, respectively owners of Stern Pinball and Tecnoplay.

For the occasion, IFPA Italia awarded two trophies to Daniele Acciari and Nicola Pierobon, the two top Italian players at the end of 2010. Ranking that permits them to participate at the IFPA8 World Pinball Championship to represent Italy in Sweden at the end of May.

Tecnoplay also handed over the official uniform to Acciari, Pierobon, Delprato and DeStefani, the four players who represented the Italian national team named ‘Tecnoplay Team’ at the European Pinball Championship in France in the following days.

A special thanks from IFPA Italia for: Tecnoplay and its responsible Mauro Zaccaria, Stern Pinball and its president Gary Stern, and the Italian company Comesterogroup, sponsor of the tournament.

Full results are available HERE.

Great success for Flipperando in Veneto, a series of tournaments that will be played in different locations in the Veneto region in the italian north-east. The first event took place at “Bar Aurora” in San Zeno di Cassola, just outside Bassano del Grappa on March 6th 2011. 16 players battled on the 7 pinball machines ‘The Flinstones’, ‘Twilight Zone’, ‘Road Show’, ‘The Addams Family’, ‘Monster Bash’, ‘Indiana Jones: The pinball adventure’ and ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’. The qualifying rounds have been played for 4 hours, where the groups of 4 people played 10 rounds defining the standings and the top 4 players who played for the win. Daniele Acciari dominated the qualifing section, joined in the final by Nicola Pierobon, Stefano Aldrighetti and Mauro Spiga. 2 games has been played to decide the tournament: Stefano Aldrighetti won the first on ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ followed by Nicola Pierobon. Daniele Acciari dominated the second game on ‘The Addams Family’, not enough to take the overall win due to the bad performans on the first game. So Stefano Aldrighetti took the win, followed by Daniele Acciari, Mauro Spiga and Nicola Pierobon. Many congratulations to Stefano for the great performance and also to the two little champions Riccardo and Carlo Trevisan, 6 and 10 years old, surely the two youngest italian players, who impressed for their dedication, commitment and skills.

Going back to the days when they first met at the Broadway Arcade, through the days of starting the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association, continuing through the days of bringing back the International Flipper Pinball Association, Roger Sharpe and Steve Epstein have been involved in the longest continuing head-to-head battle in the history of competitive pinball. If they are together, and there is a game available, there is no doubt they will take time to continue their legendary match up.

The 2011 Amusement Expo gave them 3 full days of action on Stern’s latest, The Rolling Stones. While meetings took up a majority of the week, they did find time to battle 13 times. Walking away with bragging rights was Steve Epstein, defeating Roger 7 games to 6.