August 17, 2026
Throne Brewing Company — Glendale, Arizona
Transformers Launch Tournament | August 2026
There are tournament days where everything clicks.
And then there are tournament days where the machines apparently get together beforehand and decide, “Let’s see what we can do to this woman.”
This was somewhere in between. 😂
The Transformers launch tournament at Throne Brewing Company brought together 56 Arizona pinball players for a six-round match-play battle.
The goal was simple: get to 24 points by the end of Round 6.
I finished with 22 points, landing in a four-way tie for 24th place.
So yes, technically, I missed the cutoff.
But being two points away from advancing out of a 56-player field is a heck of a lot different from getting buried at the bottom of the standings.
And there were some wildly different rounds along the way.
Round 1 — Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast
Iron Maiden was the first game of the day, and it was a strange one.
The machine felt very floaty, with lots of center ramps, drop-target action, a Trooper lock and the Mummy lit.
Ball 1 got me to 3.4 million. No skill shot, but I was working the center ramps and drop targets and managed to get a Trooper lock.
Ball 2 improved slightly to 4.6 million. I started Rime of the Ancient Mariner, worked more drop targets, and then promptly lost it.
Then Ball 3 happened. Trooper Multiball.
And suddenly the score went from survival mode to 72.2 million.
Final score: 72,261,690
That was good enough for 2nd place in the group and 5 tournament points.
Not a bad way to start the day.
Round 2 — Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Then came TMNT.
This one was… less cooperative.
Ball 1 started at 383,600, including a Donatello selection and a ball lock.
Ball 2 improved to 595,000, with a skill shot and multipliers.
Ball 3 finally gave me something to work with. I got a multiball and managed to finish at about 1.2 million.
It was one of those games where the ball seemed to spend an awful lot of time trying to escape the machine rather than actually letting me build a score.
Still, I kept working.
Final result: 3rd place — 3 points.
Not pretty.
But points are points.
Round 3 — Star Wars Comic Art by Stern
And then we got to the sad Star Wars game.
I’ve reached a billion points on this machine before. I know perfectly well what I’m capable of on it.
This particular machine, however, had other ideas.
Ball 1: 9.6 million, with a Han Solo start, five TIE Fighters, a skill shot and a drop target.
Ball 2: 42.5 million, with another five-TIE-Fighter sequence, a skill shot, more TIE Fighters, top lanes and spinners.
Then Ball 3 finally gave me some room to work.
99,166,480.
I had a skill shot and lots of center ramps, but I never really got the monster scoring going.
Final result: 2nd place — 5 points.
And here’s the thing: I wasn’t the only one who struggled.
The players finishing third and fourth weren’t exactly lighting the machine on fire either.
Sometimes the machine just eats everybody.
This was one of those times.
Round 4 — Star Wars — Data East
Then we went from one Star Wars machine to another.
This time, it was the Data East Star Wars.
My first ball was only 1.2 million, and then my right flipper died on me.
Thankfully, I received a compensation ball.
Ball 2 improved substantially to 26.8 million, mostly through center ramps. I also hit a 7 million-point skill shot.
Ball 3 finished at 36.8 million, followed by another compensation ball worth 8 million.
Again, it wasn’t spectacular.
But I kept accumulating points.
And honestly, that’s kind of what this tournament became for me:
Keep the wheels on the bus.
I wasn’t putting up giant scores every game.
I wasn’t dominating.
But I was still finding points.
Final result: 3rd place — 3 points.
Round 5 — Popeye Saves the Earth
And then…
Popeye.
I had never played this machine before.
Not once.
I was literally trying to figure out how to plunge the damn thing.
You hit a button, then apparently have to hit the button again to choose which hole the ball goes into.
Except I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be selecting.
So I’m standing there thinking:
Okay… which hole? Why? What am I trying to accomplish here?
And then the ball goes through and immediately tries to leave the building. 😂
Ball 1: 2.1 million.
Plunge. Scoop. Out.
I got a 1.5 million bonus, but there wasn’t exactly a lot of actual ball time happening.
Ball 2: 4.5 million.
Ball 3: 8 million.
And honestly, by this point it didn’t matter much for the standings. I had already dug myself a pretty substantial hole. But this was literally my first time ever playing Popeye. I was still trying to figure out what the game wanted me to do while the balls were apparently attempting to flee the premises. Final result: 4th place — 1 point.
I’ll take it. I learned something.
Mostly that Popeye is apparently a game I need to learn. 😂
Round 6 — Stranger Things
And THANK GOD.
A game I actually like.
After Popeye, I was very happy to see Stranger Things.
Ball 1: 12.9 million, including a skill shot, Bust Out, two hits to the Demogorgon and the Action Button.
Ball 2: 39.8 million, with another skill shot, a Telekinesis lock, all the drop targets, a mode started and a good bonus.
Ball 3: 70,693,940. I got Breakout Multiball and finally had a game where things were clicking.
Final group results:
🥇 Russ Wonnacott — 96.36M
🥈 Christy Kohtz — 70.69M
🥉 Dan Freeburg — 55.00M
4️⃣ Cachis Nava — 25.11M
Second place — 5 points.
It was a good way to finish the day.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite the finish I needed.
I needed 1st place — 7 points — to stay in the tournament.
Nope.
Two points short.
Final Standings
After six rounds, the standings were brutally tight.
I finished:
24th place — 22 points
The cutoff was 24 points.
Right around that line:
Gerald Clayton — 23 points
Louis Rulon — 22
Moto — 22
Russ Wonnacott — 22
Christy Kohtz — 22
Then several players were sitting at 21, followed by players at 20 and 19.
So yes.
Two points.
That’s all that separated me from advancing.
Out of 56 players.
The Takeaway
Was it the tournament I wanted?
Nope.
Was it a disaster?
Absolutely not.
• I played some machines beautifully.
• I survived some machines that really did not want to cooperate.
• I dealt with a dead flipper.
• I got compensation balls.
• I played a machine I’d never touched before and spent three balls just trying to figure out how to plunge it.
• I put up 72 million on Iron Maiden.
• I put up 99 million on Star Wars Comic Art on a machine that felt like it was personally offended by my existence.
• I finished second on Iron Maiden and second on Stranger Things.
• And most importantly, I didn’t let the ugly games turn into well, I guess we’re done here.
• I kept playing.
• I kept accumulating points.
I kept the wheels on the bus.
Sometimes you get Trooper Multiball and 72 million points.
Sometimes you put up nearly 100 million and still feel like the machine stole your lunch money.
Sometimes you spend three balls trying to figure out how Popeye works.
And sometimes you walk away two points short of the cutoff.
But you keep playing. And somewhere along the way, you get some incidental exercise, too.
That’s pinball.
Still counts. Always!🎯🕹️
Incidental Exercise Receipts
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Incidental Exercise Receipts Hub