Photo by Matt Cohen.
With a quick flick of the wrist, a shiny silver pinball launches into the game, which triggers a bevy of whirring lights and bells in unison. It’s about 3 p.m. at Lyman’s Tavern—a new bar on 14th Street NW in Petworth —and I’ve just shot my first ball as an official entrant in a charity pinball tournament. The machine, a Judge Dredd-themed one made in 1993, is unforgiving. Immediately, my ball slips in between the flippers too quickly for me to save. Re-fire? Not a chance.
On Saturday, Lyman’s hosted an official International Flipper Pinball Association-sponsored charity pinball tournament, the first of its kind to be hosted in D.C. But the tournament, which saw dozens of people enter and compete for a chance to be one of the top-ranked pinball players in the world, wasn’t a big deal just because it was the first of its kind to be held in D.C.; it signals what could be a new era for local pinheads.
Since the National Pinball Museum—which featured hundreds of vintage, modern, and collectible machines—decamped from its Georgetown location to new digs in Baltimore in 2011, it’s left a gaping, pinball-sized hole in the heart of local enthusiasts. “The [bar] with the most [machines] that I know of is The Satellite Room, which has two,” says James Daly, a local pinball enthusiast, IFPA-ranked player, and organizer of charity tournament that took place over the weekend. “The Black Cat also has two, and there are a couple of places that have one: Kelly’s Irish Times, Rocket Bar, and a few of other places.”
Daly says that Lyman’s, which has four permanent machines and two other temporary ones, has the most amount of machines in the D.C. area since the Pinball Museum left. But it’s not just another bar with a few pinball machines installed for show.
David Barber, the operator of Lyman’s, is in the Free State Pinball Association—an 18-year-old organization that organizes pinball tournaments in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. “He sent an email out to the group last year saying, ‘Hey, new location. Lyman’s, wants to have four pinball machines,” Daly recalls. “The owner, [Kevin Perone], is also a pinball enthusiast.”
(Matt Cohen)
Saturday’s tournament was a full-ranking, 18-hole pingolf-style tournament, which has base points of 25, as well as a complex formula for the number of players and the strength of the players in the tournament. Basically, it ensures that, if a high world-ranking player shows up, the base points increase to make it more difficult for them, because that means there’s more at stake for those entered.
It took a while to get used to, but pingolf-style pinball tournaments are exactly what they sound like. There are 18 “holes” you and your “threesome” plays, much like golf. Each hole, however, has its own objective that you’re trying to achieve during each round. For example, the first hole—on the aforementioned Judge Dredd machine—requires you to unlock the regular multi-ball. Hole two requires you to score 50 million points. Hole three, 125 million points. There’s different objectives for each of the six machines and, should you not achieve any of them during your game (I only achieved one), you get marked down for the maximum amount of strokes (four in some cases, six in others). Just like golf, the lowest score wins.
The tournament on Saturday raised funds for Project Pinball, an organization that puts pinball machines in children’s hospitals. “There’s a lot of waiting, there’s a lot of downtime in a hospital,” Daly says. “Kids are going through various treatments and whatnot, and it’s a way to make a horrible situation just slightly less horrible, where [kids] can fill up a bit of their downtime with something fun and interesting.”
Project Pinball first started with a Spider-Man machine at the Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida. The machine, which was no longer functioning, caught the attention of local pinball community, who decided to raise funds to restore the machine for patients. In early 2011, Project Pinball was officially launched to help restore and bring pinball machines to different children’s hospitals across the country.
“Pinball machines give the young patients motivation to get back on their feet,” the group writes on their website, “and it also provides the family members of the patients and the support staff a little recreational lift from time to time.”
Daly organized Saturday’s tournament with the help of Joe Said, who works with Project Pinball, to make it an official IFPA charity tournament. According to IFPA, which created the World Pinball Player Rankings “to establish the first official rankings system of pinball players throughout the world,” there can only be one official tournament at a location per year, unless it’s a charity tournament. Daly says another tournament, a full points non-charity kind, is scheduled to take place at Lyman’s next month.
With the proliferation of “barcades” in various cities (D.C.’s “barcade” is the Atlas Arcade, located on H Street NE), pinball culture has been given a second life, which is good news for Daly and many pinball heads.
“We won’t go to a bar unless it has pinball,” he says. “Places that have pinball machines, tend to get people like myself out to visit them.” But not all places with machines will attract the ardent and intense pinball community. Said says there’s many places that have machines that aren’t well maintained, making it difficult for pinheads to visit. “We call them ‘location games,'” Said says. “A game on location that was just put there by somebody and never maintained. We can play location games, but it’s not ideal. If it’s a place like [Lyman’s], we’ll spread the word out that they’re well-maintained.”
Both Daly and Said say the machines at Lyman’s are some of the most well-maintained machines they’ve seen in the area, which is attracting pinheads from far and wide. At Saturday’s tournament, pinball enthusiasts ventured from Maryland and Virginia suburbs just to play on some well-maintained machines. “They’re top notch,” says Brian Jackson, a Columbia Heights pinball enthusiast. “I’ve never seen an Attack from Mars [machine] in such great condition.”
Two machines were lent to Lyman’s specifically for the tournament—the Dredd one and a Star Trek machine manufactured in 2013—but Daly says the owner is mulling over leaving them there permanently. “Pinball is kind of like Star Trek,” Daly says. “It was cool for a while and then it went out of style. Now it’s coming back.”
