Big John’s on 96th and L (9819 M St) in Omaha will start hosting monthly pinball tournaments, starting on January 23rd at 6 PM. The tournaments will be on the fourth Saturday of every month. $15 entry fee, all money goes to prize pool. Right now we’ll have the top three finishers win money, but if the turnouts are big I’ll switch that to top five. Double elimination format, best-of-three matches. All machines are 50 cents per game.

Let me know if you have any questions.

The next tournament is on Saturday the 27th at 6 PM. We're using five machines: Star Trek (Stern), Game of Thrones, Twilight Zone, Attack from Mars, and Addams Family. Rules and format are the same (double elimination, matches are best-of-3). Interest is starting to build so I'm expecting a pretty decent turnout!

Unfortunately since it's a bracket format you would have to be there at 6. Instead of putting up high scores, you play in best-of-three matches against another player.

I have thought about adding a side tournament though, which would simply be a high score contest on a specific machine. That way people could compete in that and not have to stay all night. Let's go ahead and do that!

Side tournament rules:

High score contest on Terminator 2 (We'll switch machines each month)

$5 entry fee gets you three attempts on the machine being used. When done, come report your highest score.

All money goes to prize pool. Highest single-game score wins 60%, 2nd place gets 25%, and 3rd gets 15%. Let me know if you think this is a good idea.

Wow, I didn't even know about that Facebook group so thanks for posting! Sounds like we'll have a pretty decent turnout!

I'm glad you could make it, Joe. Thanks to everyone who was there. Tyler Z. was the winner. Tiler (the out of town guy with all of the high scores) finished second, and Aaron was 3rd. I didn't play this time because I wanted to make sure everything ran smoothly with all the new people, but I'll be in it for sure next time.

Sundays might be possible once I find a new job. I'll email people and see if we can find a day/time that works best for as many people as possible.

My goal from the beginning was to consistently have 15-20 people for every tournament, and we're definitely working our way there!

Hey guys,

Just a reminder that this Saturday is the next pinball tournament at Big John's, 6 PM. $15 entry fee. Same format as last time, except the loser's bracket matches will be single game instead of best-of-3. We'll also do a $5 side tournament like last time; this month we will put up high scores on Revenge from Mars. As of now, we'll probably be using Twilight Zone, Attack from Mars, Game of Thrones, Terminator 2 and Star Trek for the main tournament.

Also I will be creating a Facebook group dedicated to these tournaments as well as any others we may set up in the future. Once I come up with a name (if you have any good ideas for a name let me know) I'll let everyone know so you all can join the group. Another plan is to add a second tournament, probably at Beercade so I need to talk to those guys.

Let me know if you have any questions or ideas!

Next tournament is this Saturday, the 23rd. Registration starts at 5:30, tournament starts at 6. I've decided to change the entry fee to $10 from now on. Also this is our first tournament that is IFPA-sanctioned. If Ghostbusters comes in on Friday like it should, my Dad and I will bring one to Big John's temporarily for use in the tournament, so keep your fingers crossed. One more thing: if you're on Facebook, search for Nebraska Competitive Pinball Association. Anything related to local tournaments will be posted there.