TOURNAMENT REPORT
35 competitors from around the country lined up at TILT in Birmingham CIty Centre for another day of pinball action in the 1st of TILT’s series of 4 tournaments of 2024.
Always a pleasure, the quite rare site of UK No.1 Andy Foster
@PUP was to be seen at this tournament. Despite a surprising 4th place on Monster Bash in his first game he quickly rightened the ship and comfortably qualified in 1st place – treating his fans and rivals to his usual display of seemingly effortless excellence along the way. ‘Pinball just runs though his veins’ - Rival and Friend UK No.2 Craig Pullen
@roadshow16 (absent and running scared).
Other members from the North did not fare so well but firmly cemented their standing in the community as lovely, nice guys! Always great to see them.
Young Joshua Iles perhaps didn’t make it look so effortless, displaying his usual competitive passion along the way, but he’s really good at pinball and had no problem securing the 2nd seed spot in qualifying.
Kirk Sadler
@Tilt_Birmingham also got off to a bit of a shaky start but by the intended lunch break he was to be seen on his way to a billion on Godzilla and telling everyone how to get to King of Monsters while doing so. I didn’t want to be the one to have to tap him out and he graciously ‘drained on purpose’ on his 3rd and let people go for lunch. Some confident and assured play in the 2nd half booked his place in the playoffs with a strong 3rd seed.
Meanwhile – other members of the ‘Tilt home court advantage crew’ were not able to make the cut. Whether you believe Gene and Wayne's claims that they actually ‘enjoyed it more because they could relax’ to not make the finals, is up for debate. Infamous Simon Peacock and The People’s Champ - Gareth Arnold also had forgettable runs. Instead, it was the unexpected efforts of the lesser known Kevin Smith, who never let up his ‘woe is me, life and pinball is cruel’ attitude even whilst nailing super jackpot after super jackpot on Monster Bash, who would join Kirk in the playoffs – qualifying in 6th place.
Kevin Donovan
@kevlar once again showed his solid, often spectacular play – qualifying in 4th place and wowing onlookers with his trademark drop catches and excellent games on Avengers: Infinity Quest in particular.
Nick Hamill
@Nickoss II – fresh off some excellent results at PBR was ready to take his show on the road. His great form continued and was near the top of the standings all day. The main challenge of his day I’m sure was seeing how long he could stop himself from submitting to the fantastic selection of booze on offer behind the bar – I think he made it to lunchtime. He qualified in 5th place.
The upstart EAPA (East Anglian Pinball Army), the COVID of pinball in 2023 - appearing and multiplying in pinball events around the country, were a little under-represented this time round. The champion from Tilt’s Monster Madness tournament in November, Nathan Garwood
@NateG119 started off strong with his usual flowing shot making, faded a bit after lunch then in the final game in a tough game of
AFM (Phoebe Lewell put in a huge 5bil by ball 2) agonisingly was ‘one shot away’ from qualifying – just needing a 3rd place to secure a spot. A semi-finalist at the last tournament, another member of the EAPA army, Jon Carolan
@Jmac was also not able to quite conjure up the magic of last time. Reece Powell
@OTRawrior, semi-retired since his inaugural victory at the last Pinhaus competition could also not get anything going. Perhaps the absence of the usual EAPA cheer squad had some effect!
Speaking of the Lewell’s, Effie put in a strong performance and could be seen near the top of the tables for much of the day, finishing just short of qualifying in 12th place. Dan Lewell
@DanLewell was also present.
A suddenly rejuvenated Greg Mott
@robotgreg, a Dan Prachar
@OXice6 in the midst of a 4 game winning streak, Mr Conrad Chambers
@C&C and another lesser known local hero Max Welch would play one match on Batman 66 with the top 2 advancing to join the aforementioned 6 in the playoffs section. It was a tense game with scores ranging from 20-60 million. Greg and Conrad would advance. I am particularly disappointed in Max after I had proclaimed several times beforehand that he is the ‘consistently best player of BM66 in the country’, but well done to him for getting there

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The final 8 would play a knock out, best of 3, quarter finals, semi-finals and a final with the higher seed being able to choose the 1st and 3rd games (if necessary).
Jan 21, 2024 11:00AM • Tilt
app.matchplay.events
In the quarter-finals the seed came through in each case with only Conrad being able to push Andy to a decisive 3rd game with a victory on his apt choice of Simpson’s Pinball Party.
The semi-finals saw Josh vs Kirk and Andy vs Kev. Kirk was able to turn the tables on Josh with a 2-0 victory on a hard-fought Congo and Godzilla. Andy went through 2-0, a masterful display of poise catching up to Kev’s 200mil on Jurassic Park and then managing to get revenge on Simpson’s after Kev tried to employ a similar tactic to Conrad with his choice.
A one game match was played on Congo between Josh and Kev to determine 3rd/4th place with Josh coming out on top.
So, the finals would come down to Andy and Kirk. Andy’s choice was Metallica. Kirk quickly racked up an incredible 168mil and Andy was not able to catch up. Perhaps not wanting to move from his zone of terror Kirk selected the next door machine Batman 66. Andy put up 200mil by the end of his 3 balls with Kirk still stuck on about 20mil going into the last ball. Kirk stepped up and cheers could be heard as he grinded his way past 200 mil to secure the victory!
Well done to Kirk and thanks all again for coming. TILT’s Super Series will continue on 28th April. Hope as many of you can make it as possible!
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