Belles & Chimes Arizona — May Monthly Tournament Recap

Sometimes tournament days feel smooth and controlled.

This was not one of those days. 😄

This was one of those classic pinball tournament marathons where:

the standings stay compressed all day,

everybody is refreshing Match Play every five minutes,

old games turn into psychological warfare,

modern games explode unexpectedly,

and somehow the entire room collectively survives on adrenaline, snacks, and stubbornness.

And honestly? It was a blast.

Qualifying Begins

The day started with a full field and six rounds of qualifying ahead of us.

Round 1 immediately threw me into a tough group on Rush, and I was already feeling the nerves early. I managed to settle in enough to put together a solid game, but the entire round had that “everybody here can score at any second” feeling.

Round 2:

Sorcerer

Sometimes it’s:

breathe, trap up, make one controlled shot,

and survive.

Labyrinth and the Bog of Eternal Stench

Round 3:

Then came Labyrinth.

Which naturally raised the important competitive question:

> Would I end up in the Bog of Eternal Stench or not?

The game started with a worm skill shot and quickly descended into the kind of pinball chaos where the ball kept getting trapped underneath a ramp and repeatedly fired back at me over and over again.

You know.

Normal pinball things.

Despite that, I managed to recover and claw my way into a very tight multiplayer battle where the top scores ended up compressed within only a few hundred thousand points.

It was one of those games where every small decision mattered.

STTNG: Enterprise Malfunctions and Chaos

At one point I managed to trap up a ball lock and carefully start multiball after taking approximately five deep breaths first because I was absolutely trying not to brick the shot into oblivion. 😄

Round 4:

Then came Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Or more specifically:

The USS Enterprise Technical Difficulties Experience. 😄

The Enterprise literally fell into the ramp during our game, creating one of those classic tournament situations where everybody stops, stares at the machine, and tries to figure out what exactly just happened.

• There were stuck balls.

• There were compensation rulings.

• There was score math.

• There was emotional damage.

And somehow, in the middle of all of that chaos, I managed to put together one of the biggest games of my tournament.

After trailing early, I settled in, started building progression, and eventually exploded for a 362M game to take first place in the group.

That round honestly felt like the turning point of the day.

Round 5:

Rick and Morty: Finals Bubble Pressure

By the time Rick and Morty rolled around, the standings were getting extremely tight.

At that point everybody was watching the cutoff line and doing tournament math in their heads.

My game on Rick and Morty wasn’t perfect, but it became another important “stay alive and capitalize late” game.

I managed to recover from a slower middle section and close hard enough to take first in the group.

That win ended up mattering massively later.

Round 6:

Sorcerer: The Stress Machine (Again)

One of the biggest emotional rollercoasters of qualifying happened on Sorcerer during Round 6.

And by “rollercoaster,” I mean:

Krisha was out there stealing everybody’s ball locks like a medieval pinball goblin while the rest of us were collectively trying not to panic. 😄

Sorcerer is one of those old-school games where multiball can completely swing the match, so every time somebody gets close to a lock, the entire group suddenly becomes VERY interested in what shots everybody else is hitting.

At one point it basically turned into:

“Please let my lock survive.”

followed immediately by:

“Oh no. She stole it.”

Meanwhile the rest of us were scrambling around trying to build enough points through lanes, drops, multipliers, and whatever scraps the game would hand us while also watching the lock situation constantly.

The scores stayed surprisingly tight considering how stressful the game felt.

Qualifying Ends

After six rounds of qualifying and what felt like approximately 14 years of staring at dots still playing on Match Play,

I finished qualifying tied for 7th with 31 points.

Which meant:

I made finals.

Semifinals

Semifinals were played on:
Godzilla Premium
Sorcerer — Yes, again.

Godzilla started rough.

I never fully got the giant explosive scoring sequence started, but I stayed patient, built progression, got into Godzilla multiball, and managed to secure second place in the group.

Then we returned to Sorcerer.

And Sorcerer became complete insanity.

I locked a ball early… and then had to spend the next several player turns desperately hoping nobody stole my multiball.

Somehow the lock survived.

I cashed in the multiball, scored well, then immediately re-locked another ball and had to repeat the entire emotional process all over again.

Meanwhile my brain was running in about sixteen directions at once because I was also trying to:

• build multipliers,
• work the drops,
• maintain backup scoring options,
• and create a contingency plan in case the multiball disappeared.

The lock survived again.

The multiball started again.

And the score exploded.

I finished with over 700K and took first place in the semifinal group.

That Sorcerer game was probably the most stressful game of the entire tournament for me.

Finals

Finals were played on:

Metallica
Solar Fire

Metallica never really opened up for me the way it did for some of the other players. I managed some Sparky progress, a few ramps, and some structure, but never got the giant stack started.

Still, I managed to avoid last place and stayed alive heading into Solar Fire.

Then Solar Fire started with me getting completely bullied by the upper playfield.

At one point the game basically became:

> Trap. Shoot. Up top. Outlane. Trap. Shoot. Up top. Outlane.

After a rough opening ball, I managed a huge recovery on Ball 2 and suddenly found myself right back in the fight for second place.

By the end of the game, the difference between second and third came down to only a few thousand points.

And somehow… I held on.

Final Result

I finished:

🥈 2nd Place

After:
• barely squeezing into finals,
• surviving multiple brutal older games,
• fighting through machine chaos, and spending most of the day recalculating and adapting.

Honestly, it was one of those tournament days that perfectly captures why I love pinball.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t smooth. It wasn’t easy.

But every little adjustment mattered.

Thank you to everyone who helped organize, scorekeep, compete, cheer each other on, and make Belles & Chimes Arizona such a fun community.

Now if you’ll excuse me,

I need to go recover with the vegetables, I acquired from one of our fellow players,