Pinbrawl ’09 Results
Pinbrawl ’09 was bigger and better than we’d hoped, with 121 contestants, and several highly ranked players coming from all over, including Canada! The players of note who attended are too numerous to mention, but we have to give shoutouts to former NBA center Todd MacCulloch for coming from Seattle, and Eden Stamm, who drove all the way from Vancouver, B.C.! Pinball oldtimer Jerry Caruthers also showed up to watch the proceedings.
And what a brawl it was! Eden had the best high score of the tourney, putting up over 3 Billion on Theatre of Magic. Bounceback of CFF then knocked out Eden on Scared Stiff. Jeff Weston, founder of the Portland Pinball League, stayed up way past his bedtime before succumbing to fatigue, finishing 10th overall. Dropshot of Portland’s own CFF beat Cayle George 2 games to 1 on Lord of the Rings in the Semifinals, then defeated Rev Test of CFF on White Water to win the Winners’ Bracket Final. After being bumped to the Losers’ bracket, Cayle mowed through some of Portland’s best players, beating Mike Mahaffey on Dr. Who, Replay of CFF on Scared Stiff, and finally Rev Test of CFF in the Losers’ Bracket Final, also on Dr. Who, setting up a dramatic rematch with Dropshot for the Pinbrawl Championship. Being a double elimination tournament, Dropshot only needed to win once; Cayle needed to beat Dropshot twice. In a tense duel on Attack From Mars, Cayle won 2 games to none. Then, in the final battle on Road Show, Cayle bulldozed his way to another 2-0 victory.
The long day was capped by the presentation of the Pinhead Trophy and the Grand Prize to Cayle by yours truly:
But the champion’s day wasn’t over. Cayle and Eden loaded up Cayle’s loot pinball machine and trophy into Eden’s van, and they left for Seattle at about 3:30AM.
We’ve received quite a few complements on how well the tournament was run. Credit for that should go to Aaron Nelson, Fred Franken, and Eric Hill, who provided major help to Ground Kontrol in organizing the event and then running the tourney. We’d also like to thank Mike Rosen for DJing, Louie Hamlett and Buffalo Gap for providing food, and everyone who participated, especially those who came from out of town to play or watch. Finally, I’d like to personally thank our techs, Ryan Vyborney and Mark Watson, who put in overtime for weeks getting our tables ready. Awesome job, guys!
The final results, listing all players, can be found at the IFPA’s World Pinball Player Rankings website. Pictures of the event can be found on the Flickr page of Sachiko Arakawa, our staff photographer.
If you didn’t grab one of our rad new t-shirts during Pinbrawl, we still have a few left, both at Ground Kontrol and also in our online store. And if you missed out on entering the tournament, don’t worry – we’re definitely doing this again next year (and starting earlier)!
Update: Here is a nice writeup on the Portland Sportsman website.
