What? There's nothing I enjoy more than meeting up with some friends to play a location game for fun. When we do this, the only unwritten rule is to not damage the game. Bang backs, death saves, slide saves and even kick saves are all in play. You take what the game will give you without damaging the game. The one with the highest score at the end 'wins'.

When you see these things done by really good players, it's extremely impressive. You don't think 'That guy is cheating!', you think 'Damb, I want to learn how to do that!'. I'll do an occasional death save, but I'm not good at them, so I need a loose tilt to do one successfully. If you play on location regularly, you have to be able to do a slide save and occasional death save if you want to get your initials up anywhere.

Biff bars mostly accomplished this. Stern metal aprons are very easy to do bang backs on, but the plastic aprons makes it almost impossible. The trade off is that the plastic aprons encourage way more Lazarus balls, which are 100% legal in tournament play.

That's called a wicked shimmy. If you have the right type of game at home, you can learn that one with practice by yourself. The wicked shimmy is the coolest move in pinball IMO. It's legal, and you don't need to throw the game around. A flashy finesse move that defies gravity. Can't beat that.

Circular argument. Death saves are not allowed because the ball is past any save feature, but the ball is past all save features only because death saves are not allowed.

If anyone moved a game in my basement by sliding (which may cause it to have contact with an adjacent machine) I would throw him out immediately.

Speaking of tilt adjustments I have found that few of my games arrived with the bend of the hoop around the tilt pendulum adjusted for the plum-bob to be centered in it. I adjusted that wire hoop by bending or loosening the screw and moving it.

My question is this: is it "proper" to have that plum-bob centered, or is there a reason for it to be off center in the hoop? Obviously it would be to the house advantage if you knew it was off center to one side, but I'm not trying to go there with this question.

Try putting these under the feet you will get much more movement with less pressure needed.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_212718-255-4703095N_4294713224__?productId=1165059&Ns=p_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNs%3Dp_product_qty_sales_dollar%7C1&facetInfo=

I appreciate nudging and set tilts to allow for it and even a well executed death save can be done but a sloppy one gets a tilt. That encourages players to learn to use finesse or tilt. I of course respect everyone rules at their place. To me pins are designed to have the player interact with them nudging adds to the experience and enhances a players skill set.

Thats exactly what I have on mine, with commercial short carpet with a 1/4" pad under it. It works great, and does keep the games somewhat locked in their position with the indents in the carpet but still allows for nudging. If I move a game to another position it takes about 6 months for the carpet indent to come back up.

Additionally it gives you the option of sliding the games around without need of a dolly. You just have to get them out of the carpet indents first. It is a bit easier if you have a second person to help take a few pounds of weight off the other end, but that is minimal effort and you can slide them 30 feet away easily.

On heavier games like WOZ I use a double thick layer of the the plastic just to prevent the ballooning of the plastic at the bottom. They are dirt cheap at Harbor Freight.

Centered is correct. Off-center is just an artifact of manufacturing inconsistencies, IMO.

yaaaaay!!!
Thanks for that!

And on Ebay...
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/16-Piece-Waxman-Super-Sliders-for-Carpet-3-Diameter-89-mm-/271757131891?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f45fcc073

I experienced Jenn Peavlers side kick in C div. qualifying years ago. I don't even think she noticed.

I am warming to the idea of nudging, but only on my unrestored pins with cabinets that have not yet been restored. I was pissed when my BBB got leg wrinkles, but have a set of decals spare so not too worried.

On my MM & IJ when they were restored and before the metal protectors were about the restorer cut the plastic protectors so they were flush with the bottom of the cab on all corners and screwed them to the cabinet. Guess he was onto something!!

I think if the plastic is flush with the legs edges you might still get wrinkles over time. The point of the "to small" (Stern-style or felt) protectors is to keep the edges of the legs away from the cab. The legs are almost never folded exactly to 90degrees but a tiny bit more - enough for the edges to dig into the cab and decals.

When I was a kid, me and my buddies would hang out at the pool hall, and the game room with EM pins. We learned to nudge and slide, and were pretty much experts at it. The route boss actually took the tilt pendulums off so we could get aggressive.

It all ended when he discovered we'd put ash trays under the front legs to "level" the playfield. For one coin, you could play all day...so the tilt pendulums went back, and we lost our advantage.

That ash tray trick worked great! They were the old bakelite black ash trays that were about 2 in. tall.

In my game room today, all tilt mechanisms have been removed. No ash trays though...

.TILTPOLICE.jpg

I want that shirt!

Basically....but mine was further down by a good margin. Other people have seen me do it on other games. You're basically getting the timing such that the ball actually travels up and OUT of the lane. I can't explain the physics of it, because you figure that playfield slope would make it just sit flat where it is or only let it go down, but for whatever reason, you hit that harmonic frequency of action between the parts and the ball goes up. I'm talking the entire ball is pretty much in the outlane, not just the bottom 1/5th of it like in that video..

Huh? Why? If they want to allow death saves that wouldn't disqualify from IFPA as far as I am aware.. I mean, if Pingolf classifies, it would be absurd to D/Q an "anything goes" if we're just talking about death saves and bangbacks... like it or not, it IS a pinball skill. One that I certainly don't have.

Guess I'm breaking the mold early unless 33 is old now..lol. Love love love EM's. Easily my favorite tournament players in most cases.

THANK YOU..couldn't remember the "technical" name for it, LOL...yes, that's it exactly.

Armed with the correct term here come the vids!

nothing wrong with nudging a pin, i do it all the time. death saves and sliding pins across the floor is an instant boot from my gameroom.

AFAIK they aren't banned by IFPA, unless it was part of the new rule updates. I read all the rule updates and didn't see anything about it.

With the exception of the new limits on timed formats, team formats or totally goofball/fun formats, IFPA doesn't involve itself much in the specific rules of tournaments.

Some people may need therapy after watching that.

What is your issue with sliding? I get it if there is risk of sliding into the machine next to them, but armed with the right feet coasters, there is less risk of damage done from sliding than nudging because the slide is smooth with no vibration

If you are relying on sliders under the feet so you can move it better.. You might as well just take the tilt bob out and call it a day.

Slide what the tilt will allow you. Nudge, slap, whatevr the tilt will allow you. This is what they are made for.

Dont throw into the wall, kick the coin door, hulk smash the glass. Kicking legs to save is a grey area i would discourage. Kicking in rage tilts should be a no no

Bang backs are tough on the machine... I was raised thats a no no unless given prior approval

I love nudging and sliding. My tilts are loose and free. I totally agree that it's part of the game and an acquired skill.

My only question with death saves is about the logic of the game. If the ball has already rolled over the Outlane switch, and the game has already scored points for the Outlane drain, then could the game be confused with ball count? How about end of ball bonus score/points, has that been added onto your ball score even though the ball hasn't ended?

Do all games add points only after the ball has made its way to the ball trough? If so, then I might even consider them to be ok.

If the game counts score only when the ball drops into the trough, and you haven't tilted the game, and the glass is on, then it should be ok.

If your unhappy that your game is getting damaged then your tilt might need to be set tighter, or your skill need to be improved.

Just trying to gauge his issue with the slide is all. I mainly play on route and slide all the time with only one to two tilt warnings.

If all flippers with all games were equal, then you could rely on your accuracy in flipping skills to play the game. But they are not.

Nudging and sliding are part of the makeup with playing pins, so this will stay, up until the limits of the tilt mechanism - which are in the same thought as I stated above - being all equal. Those, also, are not.

My rules in my gameroom: Nudge and slide all you want, just don't break the game. No tilt mechanism to hamper your play. I've done it this way for many years and don't regret it.

I equate this to buying a high performance automobile. You can baby it, wash it on weekends and brag about how fast your garage-queen is, but not actually drive it or push it to where it's designed.

-or-

You can race it, slalom it, push it to its limits, and realize a completely different kind of enjoyment. Your choice.

If you aren't nudging your pinball machines then you have a bunch of trophies

Nudging is pinball period. The tilt bob is the judge and jury. If you don't like nudging or slides tighten your tilts. That will stop the aggressive moves. The player will get sick of tilting and adjust.

it's all part of playing pinball

I had to adjust my tilts in my league. I just set the tilts pretty high. That fixed everything.

I have run into this several times. I am no great player by any means but against someone who doesn't play regularly they see my highscores and can't figure out how I do it. Then they watch me play and the first words out of their mouth is "thats cheating" but honestly I would have thought the same until I actually learned about pinball.

In most games (in fact, I can't think of an exception off-hand), the ball ends and bonus is awarded when the ball goes into the trough, not the outlane switch.

That said, some games, particularly new sterns (ACDC comes to mind) will fire the ball saver once the outlane switch is triggered. However, if you death-save the first ball (to try and get a free 2-ball multi), once one ball drains the flippers go dead.

There are other interesting situations which can occur. For example, on T2 if you get a power drain it will sometimes roll up the left outlane and trigger the kickback, sending the ball back into play. I could also see it possibly happening on games like Champion Pub and Junkyard with their outlane ball saver features.

I have to assume most games have taken this all into account. I've never noticed a game that starts tallying up on an outlane switch. That would be a very brittle way of doing it (from a coding perspective). What if there is a kickback? What if that kickback isn't lit? What if a power outlane climbs all the way up and out the other side? What if you are able to execute a wicked shimmy? What if the switch malfunctions and triggers scoring even though the ball is somewhere else on the playfield? And so on...

I think modern games will use the outhole has a trigger to *start* the end of ball sounds / animations / etc, but only if it can also properly account for all of the balls. I had a flakey trough switch on a Fish Tales that was doing really weird stuff...like you'd lose the ball - the bonus count-up would begin, but then it would snap back out of it - thinking you still had a ball in play, and then eventually kick out a freebie into the shooter lane.

A better example would be... you race the equivalent of your car(Pin) in a virtual playstation world where there are no consequences. Your impression of your ability soars because you can do things only pros can do, and run harder and faster than other people reporting being able to do (play longer and score higher). But then when you have to leave your virtual world, and start playing where there are consequences and limits (other places, location, competition)... you are forced to relearn things and can actually perform worse than your peers because of what you've taught yourself.

I get that not everyone wants to play 'competitive' pinball.. but if you make the game too easy you really diminish the challenge of it too. Rewards are much less sweet when they come too easy.

We don't play with the glass off at home.. I don't agree with people setting up their home games so easy wrt to tilts/etc unless they are the type that never nudge in the first place (so they are indifferent).

Not picking on you personally - I just don't agree with it especially when it comes to people wanting to become better players or who like to play with others.

That's very generous of you. To me, a game with any tilt, loose or tight, is more fun than a game with no tilt. No tilt is like a get out of jail free card. Not real. There's a location game nearby with virtually no tilt and we've all thrown it around once or twice. (it's fine and still earning) No fun any more. On the other hand, a tilt warning is like crack rock. Once you get one, your blood pressure goes up and you have to get more!

Rather than leave them out completely, have you considered installing them very loose? While many tilt warnings are kinda scary, they're all good. It's a simple tool to increase the enjoyment of the game.

If you choose not to nudge this game, I guarantee you will lose. Fast. And your dime will be gone.

DSCN3438.JPG

Phishrace, you have a point. I agree, if you have a variety of players on your games, a tilt set to "easy to win" is prudent, and a smart idea. I began my pin world with the EM's shown above, where the flippers are more like drain funnels, so sliding, jiggling and nudging are all part of keeping the play going. A dime could get you enough matches and hi score wins to play all day and all night. And the lack of any real profit in the coin box by the route chief would get him thinking, maybe we should try a new game or two here, these must be boring. We always had the latest and greatest available.

And when we could, we'd jack the front legs up with bakelite 8-slot ash trays hoping not to get caught.

I remember one time, we were hanging out by the pins, and two guys come up, one the lookout, and the other guy would start to pound the backglass to the side of the mechanical counters, quickly causing the machine to increment from 0000 to 1001, 2002, 3003, etc. making the machine "match" and win games. They'd play for hours on one dime. Turns out they were Bally employees free-lancing (this was in a suburb of Chicago). So, soon as they left, we went pounding. Worked for weeks. Apparently the route man saw us doing this one day, so he then added a tilt switch right behind the glass. That was the end of that trick...

Nudge, nudge say no more!

nudging is fine or the extrem, someone nudging the machine constantly no matter what it does, like he/she's knows what he/she's doing, mostly in the pop bumpers area... it drives me nuts.

Jurassic Park actually gives you a point reward (5million?) for a death save. If it drops down either outlane, but then later scores points on the playfield, it awards. Bonus count not until the trough.

[Edit -- quoted wrong post!]

"Does your wife like.....Games"

I never nudge... not sure why. I got into pinball from Epic Pinball on dos and 3D space cadet pinball where nudging is impossible to judge. I didn't really play too much when I was younger, where I grew up there were not very many pins and very few arcades.

My dad nudges a ton when he comes over, I don't really care, that's what the tilt mechs are for. However it is something that seems foreign to me at this point. One day I might but so far I spend more time fixing pins than playing them and at least my last 2, once they were fixed, I craved more fixing challenges and got different machines instead.

P.S. 4 of my machines currently do not really work well.

The classic nudge is the "slide", used when the ball is barreling down the dead center of the machine, and is headed for the drain, right between the flippers, where there is no saving it. A timely slide will steer the ball to one of the flippers, keeping it in the game instead of in the trough. It's a finely tuned skill to do this without tilting, and still save the ball.

A combination of nudge and slide is used when the ball is in danger of going to the left or right drain as opposed to the inside drain that routes the ball back to the flipper. Nudge and slide at the right time will keep the ball in flipper play territory instead of being sent down the drain.

I believe these add to the skill of the player and do amount to longer play time if done properly. Whether or not it increases the final score, however, is subjective.

I have a pinball league that meets twice a month. I have been playing pinball for a long time. I nudged last night for the first. I can tell u this. It has help my score by 50%. I am a big fan now.

i played "target pool" for 3 straight hours yesterday afternoon/evening...

i can tell you that by the way my wrists and hands feel this morning, plenty of nudging and banging was going on...

How many folks hold their breath and sort of "freeze" when you've just triggered the tilt warning, knowing that pendulum is swinging around in the cabinet but not actually tilted yet?

for 3 hours on one game? holy shit that has to be a world record for target pool. I think my longest game on there was 5 min, and that was after all 5 balls. Ball times are not long on that game. Either that, or you didn't have a tilt bob even in it.

I have rubber feet coasters on all my games which rest on a concrete floor coated in epoxy...the games are not sliding anywhere, haha.

oh god no... if you could make 1 game of target pool last for 3 hours, you are not human...

many "less than 5 minute games", for 3 hours in a row... i didn't beat it too many times, either (although i do have the replay levels set high)...

5 balls, VERY loose tilt though...

HAHA. I hear ya. If I am playing a game that can slide, I am going to slide it assuming the tilt lets me.

I figured as such, I was just giving you shit. If U could play that game for 3 hours, you are a god.

yea i figured you were yanking my chain...

the only way i can think of to make one game last 3 hours would be to take a half hour break in between every ball...