PAPA rules state what you're describing is a stuck ball and a player must plunge it.

Malfunctions and Rulings
Section 7
If a ball becomes stuck during a multiball mode, the player must attempt to trap the other ball(s) in play and request assistance. A stuck ball during multiball often represents a significant beneficial malfunction, and intentionally taking advantage may result in a penalty. Please note specifically that a ball ending up in the plunger lane during multiball on a machine where there is no autoplunger (or where the autoplunger for some reason refuses to fire) counts as a stuck ball, and the ball must be plunged by the player. See "Beneficial Malfunctions" for further details.

http://papa.org/papa16/rules.php#VII

Also, who ended up having to go buy the beer?

that's just a holder. When playing LOTR, i'd always get a ball stuck behind the balrog when playing FOTR multiball. Just the balrog holds one for me.

Is purposefully trapping the ball under an upper flipper allowed in papa? That was a technique taught on Pinball 101. I figured if you could get the ball in the shooter lane, then more power to you.

Interesting to see the rules on this one. For me, I usually get screwed out of a good game when playing at home when a ball gets stuck somewhere or flys over the flipper or something crazy like that.

The other day I had one of the cointaker lights come loose in the kicker area and go right in the middle of the playfield. Seems like that happens too often. &*%^%!!!!

What about a game like bop? You actually have a shot that returns the ball to the shooter lane intentionally. I would call holding a ball there clever strategy.

For home play just make sure he goes to get you more beer.
I have done it before but usually try to relaunch at earliest convenience.
I do not feel it is cheating it is just pinball.

Make a future house rule that covers it =) problem solved.

Definitely home field advantage...

Although it didn't seem to help the Pat's or Falcon's last weekend

but in BoP, in multiball that path is closed. the gate over the head closes off the mini PF in MB.

Whats the ruling on something like TZ if a ball is sitting on a turned off magnet right in the groove between the wood and magnet. Or if a switch on a game is holding a ball back in a loop or something because the switch is firm and it was a slow ball

It is cheating anytime a ball is trapped without the skill of the player. If you are holding it on a flipper or behind a flipper that is fine. Air ball to the shooter lane or stuck behond balrog on LOTR or the Castle on MM is not allowed. You need to trap any remaining balls and then remove the stuck ball and place it back into play.

Yeah sure there are tournament rules. You abide by the ruleset of the tournament that are agreed upon by all players at the onset of the tournament.

IMO as far as house rules go...It's not cheating anytime that all players have the *same advantage* If the rule is that players have to plunge a ball is the same for everyone, that's not cheating. If the rule is that the players don't have to plunge the ball is the same for everyone, that's not cheating. Agree on the ruleset you want to play by. Done.

In Pinbot, we have the shooter lane that can be returned to via the Bagatelle on the upper level. I think you can get more benefit from returning the ball to play as soon as possible so I generally plunge it soon. I don't really care if my guests hold it or not.

I just tried it. And I stand corrected!

You should also consider that no larger tournament is going to use bride of pinbot without the direct oversight of an official, if at all. There are certainly games that are avoided because they pose rule issues like the ones suggested here.

Whysnow above is basically correct. If it requires the players attention to keep it in play, like under an upper flipper or cradled during multi ball, it's legal. If it's sitting somewhere like a shooter lane or on a switch but not moving and can be totally ignored, it's considered stuck. There's a few specific game scenarios that are gray area and have been / will be debated, but those situations are few and far between. The overall sentiment that stuck balls must be plunged or moved as soon as possible is accepted by all directors for tournament play.

What happens on a game like TX-Sector where with skill you could nudge a ball back into the shooter lane (it has an escape hatch specifically intended for that) during multiball?

There is no way to really enforce that, and everyone has the same potential to make it happen. If it happens, good for you. Besides, things like the balrog. It happens so fast, and your flailing around in multiball, you don't even realize the ball is gone, until they all drain, multiball is over, and finally the ball sneaks out from behind his ear.

Lol, always happens to me. I have a few spotlights that I switched back to bulbs because I was sick of LEDs coming loose.

Cheating? Not in our house.
That's straight pinball freak luck right there.

What about The King's Ransom in Black Knight 2000? It's just plain good strategy if you have two balls in play to not plunge the third one. What I try to do after Ransom is over is get Double Knights started with two balls in play and the third in the plunger lane, then you get to keep playing Double Knights even if one of the two in play drains, because you still have one in the plunger lane.

MHS mentioned that any ball you essentially do not have to pay attention to is considered stuck. A ball just sitting in the shooter lane being treated as a free extra ball after you drain your MB mode falls under that definition. You'd be forced to plunge all balls.

BUT...I guess the better question is what tournament uses BK2K? Much love for Ritchie's work, but I would put this game towards the top of my "let's not put this in a tournament" list.

My personal machine was used in 2 rounds of the buy-in tournament at the pinball showdown this last year. it was set to only the "r" lit in ransom. If a player hit ransom, they were able to utilize the multiball however they wanted.

(no one hit it)

I would have to call it cheating.

I am glad tournaments have rules for that situation. In my house pretty much anything goes, except something stuck scoring over and over. Same thing with air balls that hop over the lane guides. Thems the breaks.

Besides, we are just going to hit start and play another game anyway

So lets say the ball gets stuck in area (on a switch, on a plastic), you trap the other balls. Where is the stuck then placed for the player to continue?

On location = fair ball

At home= dirty pool

When a ball is stuck in a non-shakable position in league or one of my events, we tend to open the glass and place the ball in the shooter lane OR if the game auto-plunges even with the door open and glass off, on a cradle-ready flipper. If in the shooter lane, they must plunge it before resuming play. You have both flippers cradling? An official plunges it for you when you're ready to resume play.

Competitive rules aren't bullet proof or perfect, since there will always be a game with weird stuff going on or "what if" scenario that can throw a wrench into the logic. This is why judges and officials should be people who don't require black and white rules to make sound and fair decisions on the fly.

As for BK2K: I just wouldn't utilize it because of the nature of the dominant strategy, aside from Ransom. I realize fans of the game will argue me to death over this, but from my experience the game becomes a war of upper playfield attrition. When the dominant strategy is that repetitive and safe, IMO it doesn't make for good competition. As for Ransom in a competitive setting, I've seen people in league purposely work to Ransom from "R".

I mean, if you wanna put it in your competitions that's cool. I, personally, wouldn't. I was under the impression most don't.

...and just for "discussion insurance", because it is bound to come up: Great sound. Great art. Great designer (obviously). Just a major loophole in the upper playfield being so dominant.

What about trapping a ball behind the three drop bank on AFM? It can happen accidentally but certainly is a shot people try to make thusly awarding another country. Is the fact the move is programmed change the rules. I always go for dirty pool in AFM and wait until I lose all but one ball to go for the rebound.

There are two reasons why I disagree with you. First, while the winning BK2K strategy is to play the upper playfield as much as possible, you have to be able to put the ball there from the lower playfield consistently, which is harder than it sounds, and the ball never stays in the upper playfield very long. Second, the lower playfield scores more than the upper playfield; while the upper playfield loop scores 20K-100K, the lower playfield U-turn scores 50K-250K.

As far as Ransom goes, there's no direct shot that you can shoot to consistently put the ball into the WIN lanes which lights Ransom. You have to have a failed loop shot, or an incomplete shot up the Skyway ramp from the lower level, to put the ball into the WIN lanes (or a plunger shot, but those are only at the start of a ball, or after a ball lock when the drawbridge is going to be closed blocking the Ransom shot anyways). So if you're trying to spell out RANSOM you have to pass up shots to lock the ball until you happen to get the ball in the WIN lanes and get the ball out of the pop bumpers to the upper flipper, which is a lot of randomness to overcome, meanwhile you're passing up multiballs that you could be starting instead. Avoiding the lower level also cuts down severely on your chance to start Double Knights, the 2-ball multiball that can only be started in the lower level.

As for tourneys I'd guess the same rules apply. Hold the other balls until ball search begins. Eventually the targets will drop and loose the ball. That being said, i always relish the same trap on SM, consider it "pinball luck", and play on.

Against the rules as far as I understand. This sort of came up last Michigan Expo in my match.

I'm sorry but its a stupid rule in the case of AFM. The rules are written to allow an award for the shot.

This is one of the special scenarios I mentioned in one of my earlier posts. Opinions go both ways. Same with the phurba trap. It is a gray area under debate. Both sides have valid points, but there is no overwhelming consensus.

If the ball can be put back into play by the machine it is not "trapped".

I don't see how the phurba trap is even a question, it's just like trapping a ball under an upper flipper.

On your first point: I've yet to play a BK2K where trapping the ball on the right flipper from the upper playfield feed could be considered "hard". Yeah, if you brick the left ramp feed to the upper playfield the game becomes much harder, but that shot is not exactly difficult either (coming from someone whose weakest play skill is accurate cross flipper shooting). The lower playfield may provide more rewards, but the risk is so high that it is not worth traversing.

As for the other point: You can still play your castle multiballs and work towards Ransom. It doesn't stop you from getting your bonus multipliers or spelling out war. It's just that you need to hit the Ransom hurry up once you've gotten it lit, which does not require hitting anything on the lower playfield at all.

I think we can at least agree to disagree on this.

Sure, you can trap the ball on the right flipper when it leaves the upper playfield, and shoot the Skyway from there. But you'll never get anywhere close to a full value from the Hurry-Up, especially the 1M and the 1.5M ones. Hurry-Ups tend to average about one-third of my total score-- usually I cycle through all five point values about every 10M in score or so.

Plus, you'll very likely never get more than one extra ball. Sure, you could get another via RANSOM, or get lucky in multiball, but neither of those are easy options. Extra ball stays lit a little while when you haven't gotten one yet, but it times out quicker for the second, and quicker than that for the third. To collect a third extra ball, you pretty much need to complete four loops and let the ball come screaming through down to the lower flipper and shoot it immediately. I've managed to get four extra balls in a game before with the help of RANSOM to get the fourth.

I'm not saying that you don't have a valid strategy, I just think that you don't realize the value of what that strategy is giving up.

Just one little thing: I've yet to play in a competitive league or tournament that allows you to utilize extra balls.

Like I said, we're gonna have to agree to disagree.

Agree with Taylor. It's good play/strategy.

Same here!

Aside from shooter lane balls, we don't use the PAPA rule of forcing a player to trap multiballs to free the stuck ball. We allow the player the choice of whether to continue playing, or to attempt traps of the remaining balls so the stuck ball can be freed. IF the player chooses to continue playing, they may do so, but they are responsible for freeing the trapped ball themselves once MB is over, up to and including tilting. Once the machine is tilted, if the ball is still stuck, an attendant can free it. If they can shake the stuck ball loose without tilting, they carry on as normal.

This is beneficial in that it doesn't force players to abandon multiball play just because a ball is hung up, which is usually not their fault to begin with. There is risk/reward for continued play - you get easier multiball points, but at the risk of ending your ball at the end of MB. If the stuck ball is in an easy to free spot (say, the seam of lowered AFM target bank, or the egde of a TZ magnet), it can be easily freed, and the multiball strategy becomes NOT hitting it, to prolong the time it's kept out of play. If they can see it's stuck good, the player will immediately attempt to trap the remaining balls so they don't have to un-stick it themselves and tilt.

There is one ball-in-the-plunger-lane situation on Black Knight 2000 that I don't allow, though; if you lock a ball for Double Knights, and a spurious switch hit causes the game to kick out the locked ball before you plunge the second ball, then you have to plunge the ball as soon as you are able to. (My BK2K used to do this all the time when the drop targets were being flaky.) If an airball goes into the plunger lane, that's a different matter though, since an airball that goes there could have just as easily gone into the outlane.

Hell, I think trapping balls on a flipper is cheating -- just because I can't ever do it in any way that is advantageous!

If I ever get to program a machine, it's going to release any flipper held for more than a few seconds! (During multiball of course)

Yup, the airball thing is bullshit. I've had it happen way more often where slings will airball it over the flippers or over the inlane guide and drain. It would happen that way 100 times and once that it makes in the shooter lane. You don't get your ball back when the game screws you over jumping over the flippers, so you shouldn't be penalized the 1 in 100 chance you had to have it help you. You just got lucky. Just like you were unlucky when it made your asshole bigger.