Dear Pinside,

I have 11 (and soon will have 12) pinball machines. I want to set up a Pin Golf tourney, but I need some basic scores to set the Pro, Average, and Novice Par 1, Par, 2, and Par 3 scores. Does anyone have any information on what were the high scores or scores in qualifying rounds for tourneys for the following machines?

Paddock 1969 Williams
Centigrade 37 1977 Gottleib
Joker Poker 1978 Gottleib
Cyclone 1988 Williams
Bad Cats 1989 Williams
Black Knight 2000 1989 Williams
Elvira and the Party Monsters 1989 Bally (Midway)
Diner 1990 Williams
Addams Family 1992 Bally (Midway)
Black Rose 1992 Bally (Midway)
Theatre of Magic 1995 Bally (Midway)
AC DC “Luci” 2013 Stern

Thanks!

Lee

Lee Frank
Bloomfield, NY

Thanks for all the feedback so far!

To clarify. We do Handicapped Pin Golf here in Upstate.

So usually it is score based, not objective based.

There are different scores for Beginner, Average, and Pro to get Par 1 (reach score on one ball), Par 2 (2nd ball), Par 3 (3rd ball), the dreaded circle 4 (didn't reach the score). People do each machine and get a score of 1-4. They add up their scores, the person with the lowest score wins. In case of a tie there is a play off.

But some of my machines are older, so even finding scores from tourneys (generally better players used to set the Pro scores -- the others are scaled down) is hard.

Here's some of what I am thinking of doing.

Paddock 1969 Williams
Objective Based:
Pro: Light A B C D, hit 300 point center bonus "Lit" on ABCD target, and complete 1 race (10 dots or advances on racetrack). Par 1 on 1 ball, Par 2 on 2 balls, Par 3 on 3 balls, circle 4 did not complete.
Average: Light A B C D, hit 300 point center bonus "Lit" on ABCD target. No race requirement. Rest same.
Novice: Light A B C D, no bonus shot, no race requirement, rest same.

Centigrade 37 1977 Gottleib
Objective Based:
Pro: Light A B C D, hit 1,000 point upper right "Special When Lit" drop hole, "Advance" thermometer via left hand drop targets OR outlanes. Par 1 on 1 ball, Par 2 on 2 balls, Par 3 on 3 balls, circle 4 did not complete.
Average: Light A B C D, hit 1,000 point upper right "Special When Lit" drop hole. No thermometer requirement. Rest same.
Novice: Light A B C D, no bonus shot, no thermometer requirement, rest same.

For the rest: probably use score based

AC DC Premium “Luci” 2013 Stern
Score Based
Pro based on average of Top 30 scores logged on Pinside. For AC DC 553,151,228 for Pro, 50% for average, 25% for Novice.
Pro: Score 550,000,000 Par 1 - 1 ball, Par 2 - 2nd ball, Par 3 - 3rd ball, circle 4 did not complete.
Average: 275,000,000 rest same.
Novice: 137,500,000 rest same.

Addams Family 1992 Bally (Midway)
Score Based
Pro based on average of Top 30 scores logged on Pinside. For Addams 1,166,560,398 for Pro, 50% for average, 25% for Novice.
Pro: Score 1,150,000,000 Par 1 - 1 ball, Par 2 - 2nd ball, Par 3 - 3rd ball, circle 4 did not complete.
Average: 580,000,000 rest same.
Novice: 290,000,000 rest same.

Theatre of Magic 1995 Bally (Midway)
Score Based
Pro based on average of Top 30 scores logged on Pinside. For Addams 3,765,390,340 for Pro, 50% for average, 25% for Novice.
Pro: Score 3,750,000,000 Par 1 - 1 ball, Par 2 - 2nd ball, Par 3 - 3rd ball, circle 4 did not complete.
Average: 1,880,000,000 rest same.
Novice: 940,000,000 rest same.

Not sure if I should go objective or go to score.
Joker Poker 1978 Gottleib

Rest will probably be score
Cyclone 1988 Williams
Bad Cats 1989 Williams
Black Knight 2000 1989 Williams
Elvira and the Party Monsters 1989 Bally (Midway)
Diner 1990 Williams
Black Rose 1992 Bally (Midway)

So what do people think?

Do objectives look reasonable?

Do scores look reasonable?

This is just a starting point. After each tourney I'll adjust scores based on different players and re-group players based on their scores so I can more effectively do the handicapping.

But I'd like the starting points to be tough... but do-able.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Lee

One other persepecitve. I contacted the IFPA via Facebook.

Josh suggested I used the replay scores as a basis. I'll probably do some combination of the above and use the Replays as a check.

Lee

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Hi Lee,

The best advice I can offer is to look at the Replay scores of the games, and then use a percentage of that for the Par scores. We've typically done 90% for pro, 80% for Average, 70% for Novice and it's worked out well.

Good luck!
Josh Sharpe
IFPA President

THANKS FOR ALL THE INPUT!!!\

FWIW: here's a link to my new Pin Golf Score sheet and instructions. 1/2 page print 2 sided. Page 3 is more info on scores for each game. Page 4 and 5 is how many different tourneys you can do with 9 machines out of 12. (answer... 220!)

http://www.leefrank.net/PDFs/Pin%20Golf.pdf

I decided to use the initial replay value as the 1 ball goal for pros. 50% for average and 25% of that for novice.

Set some objectives for the older games.

Will adjust as my own group of players plays.

Lee

Yeah... I was hoping for some better data for starting out... but I'll just have to start with this and then modify as we go along for our group of players.

L