Point Monster Tournament at the Pinball Asylum Part 3

The Main tournament at Point Monster event at the Pinball Asylum was a huge deal (if you want to know more check out PART 2)! It was worth a full 25 IFPA points (as it's considered a yearly event) and was capped at 40 participants, who mostly preregistered days and weeks before. The format of this main event was slightly different from the Classics Tournament. It featured unlimited qualifying attempts for the participants from 11 AM to Midnight on Saturday, with the top 16 qualifiers vying for the win on Sunday, which ran from 10:30 AM to completion. 

Competition was rough, with a very strong field of competitors, playing on machines that are not very common today. Saturday's qualifier featured a 5 game bank consisting of: Jack in the Box (what a fun layout with a challenging 10 bank drop target to shoot for!), Avatar LE, World Cup Soccer, Gorgar, and Grand Prix. 

Jack in the Box, gotta love that Gordon Morison artwork!!!!

Check out those drop targets!!!

Then the top 16 qualifyers duked it out on Sunday on a refreshed bank of 5 machines (with only World Cup Soccer surviving the changeout). The four replacement games were Hot Doggin, Avengers Pro, Phoenix, and Surf Champ. 
After hours of fierce competition by the top 16 (including an unbelievable performance by one Al Neumann on Surf Champ - where he rolled that EM on Ball 1 and proceeded to roll it a second time before the end of his game!!!), the final four emerged and then a winner was crowned.

Congrats to 2014 Point Monster Pinball Champion Brian Dominy:

The Champ

The other four finalists included Atticus Palmer (2nd), Jeff Palmer (3rd) and Spencer Carey 4th.

Congrats to them as well!!!!

The pinball wizards with their super cool poses from L to R: Spencer, Brian, Atticus, and Jeff

It was a very fun weekend and I encourage any pinball aficionado out there to check out the pinball asylum if you're ever in Ft Myers FL. It's well worth the drive. Thanks again to Dan Spolar, David Denholtz, and the rest of the Asylum crew for putting on an awesome weekend. Can't wait for their next one!

Here's more photos from the event!!!

Fast Draw, excellent Gottlieb EM!

Managed to Roll it and get to the final shots while I was checking it out.

The main tournament bank on Sunday (check out those cool PAPA style monitor setups).

Pro Pool, you don't see too many Add a Ball's around nowdays :D

Avatar LE with all that chrome

Voltan's Artwork by Dave Christensen... WOW! (I guess one doesn't need to be warm in space... ;) )

Surf's Up!

Pinball aficionado Howard posing for the camera.

Hot Doggin, in all it's glory.

Nice Widebody playfield, with some challenging drops up top.

See that switch, it's actually part of a larger disappearing kicker mech, not too many games had this (link credit: Jeff-Z.com). 

Voltan, in all its glory.

That's all for now, stay tuned for my next post about other facets of the pinball universe!

The Point Monster Tournament at the Pinball Asylum Part 1

This past weekend I went to the Pinball Asylum's Point Monster Championship. What an event! It was held at the Pinball Asylum, a private nonprofit located in Ft Myers FL. The place is run by pinball aficionados Dan Spolar and David Denholtz, two passionate collectors who (with others) have amassed an impressive selection of games at the location. The tournament was filled with very strong competition from all over FL (the best of the best in the state was there including current state champion Atticus Palmer) and as a result, to get to the finals, one had to really bring their "A" game (btw speaking of Atticus, what an outstanding competitor and great guy, don't miss his story at the link above, it's a good read).

Photos!!!

The Asylum and its many games!

Games!

More Games!

Games New and Old!

Joust, a very rare two player competitive pin!

Check out that Artwork!!!

The Asylum draws on a collection of nearly 80 games, with examples from the electromechanical era of the early 70's all the way to present day Sterns. The place also boasts some very rare games, like "Algar", the 1980 spiritual successor to "Gorgar" (with fewer than 350 units produced) and Interflip's "Dragon" a Spanish made pinball machine from the late 70's that I was told, made it to the Pinball Asylum by way of Canada.

Oooh, Algar!

Interflip's Dragon

Interflip's Logo on Dragon (Interflip was the export name for "Recreativos Franco" Do you suppose that's a reference to THE "Generalisimo"? Just curious...)

Of all the games at the Asylum, the one I kept coming back to during the whole weekend when I wasn't competing or chatting, was Congo. Great layout, fun volcano toy, really neat lower playfield gorilla mechanism, interesting rules, it just seemed to have it all.

Don't feed the trophies!

Stay tuned for my next post where we see what the main competitors were up to...