Pinball Stances

Player 1.........Step Up!

Pinball Stances, we all have them, but why do we do them? Is it natural? 

What drives aficionados to stand the way they do at a machine?

A typical bank of games in a collection...

Is it due to Center of Gravity? Height? Visibility? Is there even a reason at all???

I wondered about this and started to ask around...And I found some answers!

Marcel Gonzalez (Arcade Pinball Expo show runner):

"A stance aids in the eye level most comfortable to a player. some is low , very close to playfield level (Lyman). Some are almost perpendicular to playfield.

Tall people are pretty screwed in a crowded room. Same as me. I'd have to switch to a stance not so comfortable to me. I guess tall pinheads need space."

I guess surrounding conditions can contribute to someone's pinball stance at the moment...

Whysnow (Pinside Member):
"I actually find that I play best when I am in a more casual stance. Getting closer to the glass tends to help me concentrate and focus, but rarely do I play better.
My wife makes fun of my stance and says I look like I am going to fall over sometimes.


A good friend has the patented 'enders pinball stance' where he stands very wide legged directly in front of the game for a firm base and good nudging core. I heard he does 500 sit-ups a day just to get better at nudging."

Hmm...."Ender's Pinball Stance"???

Rollitover(Pinside Member):
"Me? I stand left foot forward and straight on, right foot back and at a slight angle outward. Upper body tilted slightly toward the machine. Hands firmly down on the machine. I nudge from time to time but not as much as I should and use body english at tense moments. I swear it helps as much as nudging.

My son? He stands feet side by side or right foot back a pinch. His upper body nearly straight up. His hands rest slightly and he rarely nudges. He says he likes to let the machine "play out".

He is a damn good player so lots of people are now copying his stance."



Great responses! So I guess in the end it's all of the above, space factors, height, comfort, habit...it boils down to the player and what they personally want when they step up.

In the end, no matter how you stand at a game, it's where the ball is that counts.

And last but not least:

Rick Stetta, does it best!

Until Next time!!!

The World of Pinball Collecting: How to Buy Your First Machine

While on Facebook earlier, I was contacted by an old friend who said his family was interested in buying a machine and had no idea where to start or how much it cost. I then proceeded to describe the landscape of how to go about this and afterward, felt it might make a good post, so here it is:

"When buying a game, how much it costs all depends on the game you want to get and the condition that it is in, that's the long and the short of it. Price wise, for a working game (regardless of condition), you'll pay from 300 dollars up to and including 20,000 dollars depending on the title in question. The going price for a new game, as in, a game made at the factory in the last 12 months and sitting in a crate at a distributorship, sells for between 5000 and 8500 dollars depending on model and trim.

You buy pins from either Collectors, Operators, or from Distributors. No real coin operated pinball machine is sold at a regular department store. Collectors are people who own machines and keep them at home or in a private collection. Operators are those who own machines and use them for revenue generation (as in routing, as in public play), and distributors are those who are authorized sellers of new pinball machines that come from the factory (New in Box). The distributorship system is how it's done, has been since the 1930's."

Next time I'll talk about different machine ages and where to go for pinball repair.

An Example of a New In Box (NIB) Stern Pinball Machine