Well, THAT was a night! 😎
Last night I got to play in the Thursday Night Strikes! tournament at the Idaho Pinball Museum in Boise, and I had an absolute blast!i
First, let me talk about the museum itself because WOW. This place is beautiful. It has well over 100 pinball machines, and they’re arranged throughout the building in this wonderfully weird little labyrinth.
You can wander around and discover another row of machines around every corner. And the collection is incredible—everything from machines dating back to the 1940s all the way up to current games. Even better, the machines were in fantastic shape. Everything looked clean, cared for, and ready to play.
And the atmosphere? PERFECT.
They had music playing the entire time, and it was all late-’70s/early-’80s music on actual vinyl records. We’re talking lots of Tears for Fears, Journey, and that whole wonderful era of music playing in the background while pinball machines are lighting up and making all their glorious noises. ❤️
AND THEN I discovered the bathrooms have cat artwork. 😂🐱
Yep. Pinball, vintage music on vinyl, and cats. Clearly somebody there knows what they’re doing.
The tournament was hosted by Dwayne Smith, who was an incredibly nice guy and did a great job running everything. The format was a Fair Strikes knockout with Swiss pairing and four total strikes.
The scoring was simple but brutal:
🥇 1st place: 0 strikes
🥈🥉 2nd or 3rd: 1 strike
4️⃣ 4th: 2 strikes
Get four strikes and you’re out.
So you really had to play well and, more importantly, play consistently. One bad game could put you in a very uncomfortable position.
And somehow…
I made it all the way through SIX ROUNDS and finished TIED FOR THIRD! 🤯🎉
My tournament path included:
🎯 Judge Dredd
⚽ World Cup Soccer
🐉 Lost World
🎮 Big Game
🃏 Jokerz
💥 Demolition Man
And I have to give a HUGE shout-out to Avery Irvin, because that man is a HOLY TERROR on a pinball machine—and I mean that with the absolute highest respect. 😂👏
He knows his stuff. I watched him play everything from Mata Hari and up, and I was seriously impressed by his skill and knowledge of the games. And sure enough, when I checked the final standings, there he was sitting at #1 with a 6–1 record. Absolutely deserved.
The final standings had:
🥇 Avery Irvin — 6:1
🥈 Matt Cooper — 6:3
🥉 John Fricke — 6:4
🥉 James Evans — 6:4
🥉 Christy Kohtz — 6:4 😎
So yeah… I’ll take that!
Unfortunately, I didn’t stick around for whatever happened after that because Mom had reached the point of “I desperately need food NOW.” 😂 She was starving, and I had to get her into an Uber and get her fed. So if I was supposed to participate in a tiebreaker or there was some sort of trophy ceremony afterward, I am very sorry, Dwayne! Mom’s dinner emergency took priority. 😂❤️
But honestly, what a fantastic night.
I may not get another opportunity to visit the Idaho Pinball Museum, but I’m really, really glad I got to experience it. Beautiful machines, wonderful atmosphere, great music, genuinely nice people, some seriously talented players, and a really fun tournament.
And getting to leave with a third-place finish on top of all that?
I’ll call that a Boise win.
Still counts. Always 🕹️❤️
Idaho Pinball Museum, you were AWESOME.
And Avery… next time I’m coming prepared. 😉😂
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