i was 1 of the observers of almost like the whole pinball stream yesterday, and boy i enjoyed the stream a lot, lots of great pinball play
and yes game 9 between Escher and Keith, had a very surprising ending, Escher had a great last ball, keith had a little climb to make (200K to 1M)
but it wasnt like climbing the Mount Everest on this,

even chatter Rayday (Raymond Davidson) his Co worker at Stern had to make a comment about Keith Conceding, he didnt get that aswell -

(he said if Escher made like 14Million on Dialed In , it would have been more understanding to do so, and i agree to that comment)

a lot of people were very surprised by his action to just plunge off and leave the stage.

especially when u take into account that his Tournament Life was at stake, if u concede with the knowing u can catch him back with another game, that would have been way different to me, but he plunged his last ball to his tournament death, that is unheard of, and yes many people which backed keith up said stuff like, flight to catch plans etc etc, but keith did not explained why he did that with the commentators, why he didnt wanted to fight for his Tournament Life.

never give up, never surrender applies to pinball aswell i feel. and yes pinball is mentally very exhausting, i know that like no other..

the finals between Daniele Acciari and Johannes ostermeier on the previous IFPA finals on Dracula displays exactly why there is always hope to catch up.. even if it might have been a dead end road, Keith could have tried to win it everybody wanted to see that happen. as we like to see keith play and not throwing the towels in the ropes