Finally made it to my first Monthly masters tournament. It was a great time, not only was everyone really cool, the beer was cold and the Cooking was great.

Rick had an amazing line up of games at his house, all in top working order
let me see if I can remember them all:

Safe Cracker
Cirqus Voltaire
MM
Attack from mars
Scared Stiff
Spiderman Black
TZ
Bonzai Run
Addams Family
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Revenge from Mars
white water
earth shaker
Monster bash
eight ball deluxe

.... I think thats everything.

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Actually there was one girl in the tournament - and yes she kicked my ass, the other ladies were upstairs cooking up pulled pork sandwiches and other stuff for the dinner break.

We played 3 hours to rank then 2 hours for the finals - was alot of fun around 20 people total. Played with some top guys like - Koi Morris, Steven Bowden and a few other top players.

http://www.pinballrankings.com/player.php?player_id=166

playing against a few guys ranked in the top 20 in the world - with all machines set on
hard level with very little tilt - shows how bad you suck quickly..lol

learned a lot from these guys - they know every rule to every game its amazing.

Dont get me wrong - I would of loved it if there were hot chicks all around, but the guy would of had alot harder time kicking everyone out, and alot more glass to clean at the end of the night, especially if we had a few of BD's fine ladies in the establishment.

I was thinking also about the drink caddies - but I guess at 15 bucks a peice x 15 pins that could add up - but then again if I could afford 15 pins, I would do it...

On a side note - he had an awesome all LED'd spiderman black - great game I learned
and it was my first time really playing arabian nights - that is a really cool game the
ball save on the outlanes is - the best I have ever seen..

No pabst blue ribbon but I did manage to throw down a bunch of bush cans, me and one other guy decided to take care of the beer fridge...while the others concentrated on their games. The format was actually cool if anyone wants to try similar style at there house.

requires a bunch of pins but I'll try and break it down:
- first 3 hours you rank - so you get put in groups of four randomly, the top guy on the list picks the order you 4 will play and the bottom guy picts the pinball machine.

(they had a computer system that randomly generated the groups of 4.)

- after you play that pin - you come back and enter the winners 1st-4th for your group.
you wait for the other groups to finish there game. and everyone gets randomly paired back in another group of 4.

this continues for 3 hours - the computer calculates based on your winnings - where you will be ranked for the finals Group A - B - C - D - E- F

highest ranked go in group A - lowest in Group F, so now for the final 2 hours you play equally skilled level players only in your Rank, no more randomly playing others.

You go down the line at who picts what pins, and you try not to play the same pin twice.
IF you win you get a 1 for 1st place - loser gets a 4 - at the end person with the lowest score wins that Group

Group A - standings get entered for your overall rank towards world ranking - everyone else plays for bragging rights, ball busting and nice little trophies.