Play EM's with 2" flippers, or Stars by Stern.

He gets to plunge 1 of your balls. His choice on which to plunge

dont try as hard, he is your freind, not a foe to be vanquished

you play 1 handed for 1 ball.

Switch hands.
part of the pf blocked by a sheet of paper.

All sorts f fun ways to modify and make it fun for you both. Easily adjustable also as he gets better.

Also fun to make rules that make you have to complete an objective before doing something.
i.e. you must hit 4 spinner shots before doing any mode start. If you start a mode before 4th spinner shot then you drain balls.

Cover the flippers like the blinders do on tommy. That's always a fun challenge.

you have to make it to warp 4 before you can start a multiball.

You must drain EBs.

He gets to select what modes you have to start.

I play with two friends regularly and I always crush their scores but it's not a tournament so nobody cares. They just keep trying to improve on their own best scores and I do the same.

I don't think you really need to hobble yourself.

Make it a 5 ball game and let your first two balls drain so he plays 5 balls and you play 3.

Let him give the game a good shake before you step up

Just get really drunk. That's what I do.

Allowing them extra balls but draining any EB you earn is a pretty good suggestion. That definitely gives him something to go for too.

If he's going to be into pinball, though, he should get used to a fair competition. Make it more about teaching him the game and all the cool stuff you know than about who wins and it'll work out.

...assuming they can even earn extra balls...

Start a 3 or 4 player game, you get one player, he gets the rest. That should even up the time you each spend actually playing. Also try some split flipper games (each of you control one flipper button simultaneously). Try all at once.. 1P=you, 2P-3P = mate, 4P=both of you. See who wins.. your P1, his P2+3 combined, or the split flipper game.

Start each ball by spinning in a circle for 15 seconds then plunge. Try not to fall and break the machine!

Play "wrong-handed", left hand/right flipper, right hand/left flipper.

I don't get the "Man, I'm soooooo much better than you that I need to do dumb things to compensate" approach. If someone did this to me when I first tried out a new thing, I'd be annoyed.

Is it fun to golf against someone that handicaps themselves by only ever using a putter or swings with only one hand just to "even up the game"? Sure, maybe you win at that point but is it really a competition or have you already declared you're superior?

Keep it simple and give them a bit of a handicap and clear goals within the game - get to multiball, earn the extra ball, etc.

Or, play "this game, whoever finishes three modes faster" or "first to multiball wins" and forget about points.

Three warp ramps in one game isn't THAT hard to pull off on a decently maintained machine. Ball control after the ramp shot is another matter, though.

Drop it to one or two ramps the first time?

it is different with pinball. The better player can take WAY longer to play. That is the big difference compared to many other sports.
By reducing the play time to be more even, the noob will have more fun.

As the noob adjusts then adjsut the handicapping.

I would spend more time helping him develop his skills and learning the rules of the game. Take the glass off and have him practice post passes, drop catches, live catches, and ESPECIALLY dead bounces. I see players all the time get in too big of a hurry and never have control because they don't dead bounce.

A couple weeks of solid practice will help and make the game more fun for him. Handicapping yourself isn't going to make him a better player.

Totally agree.

The biggest frustration for my non pin friends is the long wait for their turn, not the score.

I play often against a close friend. We have been playing for years. When we started, he slaughtered me every game. However, what he also did was show me how to play better. Instead of just destroying me he would become a narrator of his own play (a bit like Bowen tutorials). He would focus on things like drop catches and helped me get the timing of them, then live catches, dead bounces. He would play games where he would dead bounce every shot (even off angle stuff). It didn't hurt his play, but improved mine drastically. It wasn't a competition, it was buckets of fun. I'd take what I learned and try it when playing alone. It made me the pinball player I am today.

What is best in pinball?
To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!

Sounds like you guys have been playing that Star Trek pro enough for him to know the rules and ways to score better by now. But if not, it's nice to have someone over your shoulder helping tell you what to go for and etc. - friends do that for me when I'm playing one of their games for the first time and it helps me get further, faster.

LITERALLY level the play field-- it will screw YOU up and he won't know the difference cause he's new to pinball....

I will concede that I feel bad if I get on a roll and take a 20 minute ball on WOZ. Especially if one of my friends steps up and gets house balled right after

what's it called when one player works one flipper and another works the other as a co-operative game ? , that's always fun

I appreciate the coaching others do for me. I have to in my own head to not tense-up

Last time I tried this I got to EOTL on Metallica....only 2nd time ever.

ZEN

if you play for fun, and the love of the game
then losing is a win to?

just let him play 5-10 1 player games real quick, it shouldn't take long. then you can give him some competition. most beginners don't have the patience to wait on other players long balls.

1. Buy a Multimorphic P3
2. Start a game, select player profile "easy" for your friend.
3. Add player 2, select player profile "hard" for you.
4. Have fun playing together with the game settings automatically adjusted to each of your skill levels.

Here's an old video which demonstrates this feature:

Split flipper

Locally we like to refer to it as "Bro-Balling" though.

Tell them for every game they win, they get $10, but only have to pay $5 if they lose.

I love bro balling it! It's fun playing those easier long games like lotr. Makes it feel like it's both of you "going on an adventcha!"

This is great. I've been thinking about something like this for years. Would make playing with the wife/kids much more fun. I wish Stern and JJP would add something like this.

How about you keep kick'n his tail until he's motivated enough to practice and get better to the point he can beat you?

Outside of that, treat it like golf and give him a stroke a hole by spotting him so may points a ball.

Or you could just play left handed.

Sometime me and my buddies will blow e-cigarette smoke in front of the other players game. It's pretty effective.

It also makes me think how cool it would be if the game would do that as a special effect to make things harder. Would be a pretty cool gimmick

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LOL I'm pretty sure this has happened a few times at my place...glass on though.

That's what Pinball playing looked like up until probably the 2000s

Yup riping butts and flipping balls

Someone has done that:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/review-of-the-smokefogger-mod-for-my-bsd

Start a three player game, alternate balls, don't worry about your scores, just try to beat the machine.

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