EUROPEAN PINBALL
CHAMPIONSHIP 2006

After last year's successful relaunch of the European Pinball Championship by the Dutch Pinball Association, this year it was the turn of the German Pinball Association who held the event at the Feierwerk in Munich.

Finding the location was made easier by the signs from the train station and it was only a few minutes' walk away.


Entrance to the show

As you can see from the exterior pictures, the venue looked rather dubious with all the graffiti but it was actually quite a pleasant neighbourhood even with the persistent rain on Friday and Saturday.

Enter the building and you find the registration area in the lobby.


The lobby registration area, complete with mirror ball

Entry to the tournament cost €25 for the weekend, which included play on the recreational games. Those not wishing to enter the tournament could pay €15 and play just the recreational games.

Competition players all received their personalised ID cards. Each card included a picture of the player and a barcode for use with the Flipper Mania competition games. Pre-registration was available on the internet where players could upload their own pictures and have their cards ready for collection when they arrived. Those registering on the day had their picture taken with a webcam before their cards were printed.

The show was divided into two areas; one for the tournaments and one for recreational play with about the same number of games in each. The tournament games were through the door at the bottom-right of the picture above. The door at the top left led to a café area with a second parts seller stand and then on to the recreational games room.


Tournament room games

The cafe area was a welcome refuge from the noise of the two games rooms.

It served coffee, soda, beer, pastries, cakes and hot food at meal times. Unfortunately, it was the only area where smoking was allowed inside the building (and it was raining outside) so the atmosphere could get a bit dense at times. Prices were fair with a coffee about €2, a 500ml wheat beer at €2.90 and hot meals around €6.

Overall, the layout worked and the café was a good meeting place between the different games areas.

There was one final area upstairs where more parts were available from two sellers. Prices from all the parts vendors were quite reasonable and didn't seem to be marked up just for the show. Most common spares were available such as switches, lamps, plastic guides, side rails, bolts, fuses and slingshot plastics but there were also many interesting specialist products.

Geiger were selling playfield and backglass conversion kits for '80s Bally games to change them into themes for the German market, such as Wild Schultz and Miss World.


Mini pinball games and aluminium flippers on a pinball coffee table

There were also plenty of t-shirts available and the PinLED displays were there too along with LED replacement lamps in various colours.

But the show was mainly about playing pinball, so here are the games available in the two rooms.

Tournament Room (60 games):
Breakshot
Cirqus Voltaire
Congo
Corvette
Cyclone
Doctor Who
Earthshaker x 2
Eight Ball Deluxe Limited Edition
Eight Ball Deluxe x 2
Firepower
Fish Tales
Funhouse
Game Show
Gorgar
High Speed 2 - The Getaway
Indianapolis 500
Junkyard
Monopoly
Monster Bash
NBA Fastbreak x 2
No Fear x 2
No Good Gofers x 3
  Party Zone
Playboy (Bally)
Revenge From Mars x 6
Ripley's Believe It Or Not!
Roadshow
Rollercoaster Tycoon
Rollergames
Scared Stiff
Space Shuttle
Star Trek (Data East)
Star Wars (Data East)
Star Wars Episode 1 x 5
Striker Xtreme x 2
Terminator 3
The Addams Family
The Sopranos
Theatre of Magic
Tri Zone
Twilight Zone
Whirlwind
World Cup
WWF Royal Rumble

 


Recreational room games

Recreational Room (54 games):
Amigo
Apollo 13
Banzai Run
Big Guns
Bow And Arrow
Centaur
Cybernaut
Eight Ball
F-14 Tomcat
Fathom
Fireball
Fireball 2
Fireball Classic
Flash Gordon
Flipper Football
Freedom
Grand Prix (Williams)
Harlem Globetrotters
High Speed x 3
Hyperball
Indiana Jones x 2
Kings Of Steel
Kiss
Lost World
Mata Hari
Orbitor 1

 

Paragon
Rolling Stones
Safe Cracker
Silverball
Skateball
Sorcerer
Space Invaders
Spectrum
Split Second
Star Trek (Bally)
Strikes And Spares
The Addams Family
The Champion Pub
The Flintstones
Time Machine
Vector
Viking
Viper Night Driving
Virtual Pinball
Voltan
Who Dunnit?
Wiggler
Wizard
World Poker Tour
Xenon

The five Star Wars Episode 1 games and four of the six Revenge From Mars games formed the Flipper Mania competition. Each tournament player had an inclusive attempt at the high score on either game using their player ID card.


Flipper Mania games

The games were fitted with network cards and connected to a central server which recorded the player name and score details and fed the highest scores to the displays of the games and other standalone monitors.

A similar system was used at Pinball Expo in 1999 to keep track of their 12 Star Wars Episode 1 games. The version at the European Championship differed because it had to keep track of the scores on two different games but was otherwise very similar.

Players could purchase extra attempts at the Flipper Mania competition for €1 with the proceeds going into the prize fund which quickly climbed towards to €1000 level.

Here are the results:

Revenge From Mars

1. Linus Jorenbo 907501180
2. Trent Augenstein 552943860
3. Joergen Holm 439607630
4. Mats Runsten 394188890


Star Wars Episode One

1. Neil Shatz 183029900
2. Eric Buysen 157886400
3. Lieven Engelbeen 157005960
4. Michael Trepp 146781390

 


The trophies for the various competitions

The Country Competition saw teams of four players competing for the title of European Country Champions. Ten countries entered - Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, France, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and the U.S.A.

The first round of the competition was to reduce those 10 teams to 8. The host country - Germany - and the holders - Sweden - were given a bye through the first round so the others split into 2 groups of 4 teams and played a single 4-player 4-ball game with the lowest scoring countries going out. Belgium and the UK went out here with each team member playing just one ball each. They could then take part in the individual tournament.

The remaining 8 teams split into 2 groups and spent the rest of Saturday battling it out late into the night. Group A contained Sweden, Germany, U.S.A. and The Netherlands, while Group B was Switzerland, Austria, France and Hungary.

The quarter finals saw the winner of Group A (Germany) play the second place in Group B (Hungary), and the winner of Group B (Switzerland) play the second place in Group A (U.S.A.).

From those game, Hungary and the U.S.A. went through to the exciting final played late into the night before newcomers Hungary took the title of European Country Champions, beating the U.S.A. into second place. Hosts Germany came third followed by Switzerland after a play-off.


The Hungarian team take the European Country Championship title
Picture courtesy Martin Wiest

The Hungarian victory was only made possible by the Spanish team dropping out a few days before the event which allowed the Hungarian team to compete. Congratulations to them for a well-earned win.

Result:

1. Hungary
2. U.S.A.
3. Germany
4. Switzerland
5. Sweden
6. France
7. Austria
8. Netherlands
9= United Kingdom & Belgium

While the Country Championship was taking place, the battle for the individual European Championship title was under way.

There were 173 competitors in the first qualifying round and they were split into 4 divisions (T1 to T4) and then further divided into around 11 groups of 4 players. In a long and rather tedious process, each group's names were called out and they came to the stage to collect their score cards.


Players wait to hear their groupings

The 10 score cards each showed a different game for the group to play along with the player order. Although the players were playing as a group, it was their individual scores compared to all the other scores in their division that mattered. So you could win your group game but if other lots of other players in the division scored higher, you wouldn't get many points.

There was no defined order of games, so when each group had completed their game they had to find a vacant game to play next. That lead to a lot of hovering around games about to finish as different groups vied to play next.


Players competing and waiting to play

That situation wasn't helped by the cramped conditions in the most parts of room which made it difficult to find enough space to play on some games, and movement between games impossible at times.

When a game was completed, players wrote down the scores on their score card and attracted an official who verified them and passed the card to the competition desk so they could be entered into the computers.

There was a large projection screen on one wall which showed the progress of the qualifying. The positions were only indicative until all the games were completed because some groups took longer to complete their games than others.

When all games had been played the top 13 from each division went through to Sunday's final round where they were joined by the 16 players from the top 4 country teams making 68 players in total.

Here are the results from Saturday's qualifying round courtesy of SeTi Technologies who produced the scoring system for the show and input around 2,500 scores.

Division T1

1.    Marcus Straube - Group 8 327   10 Games   G
2.    Serge Darbellay - Group 11 315   10 Games   Swi
3.    Jörg Ehrentraut - Group 9 300   10 Games   G
4.    Chrigi Müller - Group 6 296   10 Games   Swi
5.    Alberto Nuzzo - Group 10 295   10 Games   I
6.    Lefévre Fabrice - Group 5 280   10 Games   F
7.    Peter Schmidt - Group 7 274   10 Games   G
8.    Roland Chrobok - Group 6 262   10 Games   G
9.    Josef Kapek - Group 2 257   10 Games   G
10.    Stefan Segars - Group 2 256   10 Games   G
11.    Thomas Teis - Group 1 255   10 Games   G
12.    Axel Matenar - Group 8 253   10 Games   G
13.    Armin Ständer - Group 6 252   10 Games   G
14.    Pascal Van Wonterghem - Group 1 250   10 Games   B
15.    Felix Krefft - Group 9 246   10 Games   G
16.    Stefan Haberl - Group 8 231   10 Games   G
17.    Stefan Ott - Group 3 231   10 Games   G
18.    Greg Mott - Group 9 224   10 Games   UK
19.    Pierre Riesen - Group 4 223   10 Games   Swi
20.    Thomas Brekitsch - Group 3 223   10 Games   G
21.    Stefan Gee - Group 11 220   10 Games   G
22.    Dieter Heine - Group 1 215   10 Games   G
23.    Bally Dewit - Group 5 215   10 Games   NL
24.    Peter van den Berghe - Group 5 207   10 Games   B
25.    Florence Darbellay - Group 11 200   10 Games   Swi
26.    Rudolf Gilgen - Group 4 198   10 Games   Swi
27.    Niklas Krefft - Group 7 182   10 Games   G
28.    Dietmar Aigner - Group 1 181   10 Games   A
29.    Max Krefft - Group 7 177   10 Games   G
30.    Markus Jentsch - Group 6 174   8 Games   G
31.    Korbinian Ott - Group 3 172   10 Games   G
32.    Frank Behle - Group 9 171   9 Games   G
33.    Henning Jacobsen - Group 8 169   10 Games   G
34.    Thomas Schaffer - Group 4 166   10 Games   G
35.    Sandor Wonschik - Group 2 166   10 Games   G
36.    Peter Schroth - Group 10 158   10 Games   G
37.    Robin Kapek - Group 2 140   10 Games   G
38.    Mirjam Wiest - Group 10 122   10 Games   G
39.    Michael Schroth - Group 10 109   10 Games   G
40.    Silke Pohlmann - Group 11 108   10 Games   G
41.    Georg Aymar - Group 5 108   10 Games   G
42.    Karsten Schmidt - Group 7 96   10 Games   G

Division T2
1.    Rudolf Mathes - Group 11 323   10 Games   G
2.    Lars Rühl - Group 1 317   10 Games   G
3.    Thomas Kull - Group 3 290   10 Games   Swi
4.    Martin Pfeifer - Group 7 279   10 Games   G
5.    Per Holknekt - Group 6 276   10 Games   Swe
6.    Lukas Wiest - Group 10 275   10 Games   G
7.    Albert Medaillon - Group 10 272   10 Games   G
8.    Daniel Haist - Group 8 267   10 Games   G
9.    Florian Delettrez - Group 1 264   10 Games   F
10.    Manuel Donda - Group 6 260   10 Games   G
11.    Tobia Wagner - Group 5 239   10 Games   G
12.    Wolfgang Scholz - Group 8 235   10 Games   G
13.    Martin Berweger - Group 9 232   10 Games   Swi
14.    Eric Buysen - Group 5 230   10 Games   B
15.    Zoltan Babiczky - Group 6 230   10 Games   Swi
16.    Thomas Scholz - Group 8 227   10 Games   G
17.    Federico Croci - Group 7 225   10 Games   I
18.    Fredrik Lindberg - Group 5 223   10 Games   Swe
19.    Steve Woodman - Group 3 215   10 Games   G
20.    Jens Peter - Group 10 214   10 Games   G
21.    Alex Fortsch - Group 7 212   10 Games   G
22.    michael münch - Group 7 212   10 Games   G
23.    Tjalling Smits - Group 3 210   10 Games   NL
24.    Robin Goldmann - Group 4 209   10 Games   G
25.    Guido Heinemann - Group 1 208   10 Games   G
26.    Andrew Portieus - Group 10 206   10 Games   NZ
27.    Ivo Vasella - Group 2 204   10 Games   Swi
28.    Markus Schlenkrich - Group 5 193   10 Games   G
29.    Herzig Patrick - Group 4 187   10 Games   Swi
30.    Daniel Steiner - Group 6 185   10 Games   Swi
31.    Tom Geneyn - Group 1 180   10 Games   B
32.    Steffen Oberländer - Group 11 180   10 Games   G
33.    Dave Roberts - Group 9 172   10 Games   UK
34.    Thomas Schuett - Group 11 167   10 Games   G
35.    Michael Thomas - Group 2 166   10 Games   G
36.    Thomas Moczko - Group 4 164   10 Games   G
37.    Timmy Büchel - Group 4 160   10 Games   Swi
38.    Hans-Christian Winter - Group 11 158   10 Games   A
39.    Thomas Schmieger - Group 8 156   10 Games   G
40.    Carsten Kruse - Group 2 153   10 Games   G
41.    Marcus Alewelt - Group 2 131   10 Games   G
42.    Stefan Eisenrigler - Group 9 124   10 Games   A

Division T3

1.    Mario Höfels - Group 2 292   9 Games   G
2.    Christoph Klimke - Group 4 274   9 Games   G
3.    Christoph Ruiss - Group 2 266   9 Games   G
4.    Martin Ayub - Group 10 257   9 Games   UK
5.    Steve Walker - Group 4 249   9 Games   USA
6.    Bence Szocs - Group 9 246   9 Games   Hu
7.    Victor Håkansson - Group 9 246   9 Games   G
8.    Joachim Spranger - Group 4 240   9 Games   G
9.    David Deturck - Group 5 239   9 Games   B
10.    Joerg Backhaus - Group 6 234   9 Games   G
11.    Tom Altenbach - Group 3 229   9 Games   G
12.    Davide Delprato - Group 3 222   9 Games   I
13.    Andreas Meyer - Group 2 215   9 Games   G
14.    Markus Schmidbauer - Group 6 209   9 Games   G
15.    Henrik Tomson - Group 3 208   9 Games   Swe
16.    Martin Jobst-Tremel - Group 1 207   9 Games   A
17.    Werner Kistmacher - Group 5 201   9 Games   G
18.    Roland Schmidbauer - Group 6 191   9 Games   G
19.    Herzig Stephan - Group 6 190   9 Games   Swi
20.    Wolfgang Scmieger - Group 11 184   9 Games   G
21.    Glenn Verhoosele - Group 3 182   9 Games   B
22.    Thomas Nick - Group 8 179   9 Games   Swi
23.    Michael Lindström - Group 7 173   9 Games   Swe
24.    Alex Duin - Group 7 173   9 Games   NL
25.    robert mayer - Group 9 173   9 Games   G
26.    Thomas Winter - Group 11 172   9 Games   G
27.    Rainer Kaufmann - Group 2 167   7 Games   G
28.    Jan Kubica - Group 1 163   9 Games   G
29.    Norbert Resow - Group 10 159   9 Games   G
30.    Andreas Paul - Group 5 158   9 Games   G
31.    Katharina Freinberger - Group 7 146   9 Games   A
32.    Kai Dehlwes - Group 9 140   9 Games   G
33.    Falk Werner - Group 4 133   9 Games   G
34.    Axel Böttcher - Group 11 131   9 Games   G
35.    Andreas Pickart - Group 8 128   9 Games   G
36.    Günter Freinberger - Group 7 128   9 Games   A
37.    Beat Oechsli - Group 1 126   9 Games   Swi
38.    Sabine Böttcher - Group 11 118   9 Games   G
39.    Isabella Böttcher - Group 1 114   9 Games   G
40.    Andrew Gregory - Group 5 106   9 Games   G
41.    Carol Walker - Group 8 99   9 Games   USA

(The players in divisions T3 and T4 played one fewer game because the Tri Zone machine developed a fault and had to be taken out of the competition.)

Division T4

1.    Christian Balac - Group 9 354   9 Games   Swe
2.    Markus Stix - Group 8 326   9 Games   A
3.    Matthias Huhn - Group 10 322   9 Games   G
4.    Jorian Engelbrektsson - Group 1 316   9 Games   Swe
5.    Erwin Deutschländer - Group 5 307   9 Games   G
6.    Edwin Mole - Group 6 297   9 Games   UK
7.    Jörg Hoffmann - Group 5 284   9 Games   G
8.    Marco Wopkes - Group 11 284   9 Games   G
9.    Patrick Fuchslocher - Group 10 269   9 Games   G
10.    Nico Slemmer - Group 4 265   9 Games   NL
11.    Gregor Zimmerer - Group 11 253   9 Games   G
12.    Jean Cura - Group 10 253   9 Games   Swi
13.    Frieder Maier - Group 9 248   9 Games   G
14.    Lieven Engelbeen - Group 6 247   9 Games   B
15.    Urs Hänseler - Group 12 243   9 Games   Swi
16.    Tom Uban - Group 12 242   9 Games   USA
17.    Martin Wyss - Group 7 240   9 Games   Swi
18.    ? Huhn - Group 10 240   9 Games   G
19.    Bendik Eeg - Group 11 236   9 Games   Swi
20.    Dennis Verleyen - Group 4 236   9 Games   B
21.    Christoph Angel - Group 4 234   9 Games   G
22.    Frank Zieger - Group 9 231   9 Games   G
23.    Holger Wuttke - Group 6 228   9 Games   G
24.    Michel Salathé - Group 3 222   9 Games   Swi
25.    Jasmin DeJoong - Group 1 220   9 Games   NL
26.    Olaf Sibaai - Group 1 217   9 Games   G
27.    Roland Nitsche - Group 11 217   9 Games   G
28.    Andreas Salathé - Group 3 202   9 Games   Swi
29.    Svante Ericsson - Group 5 200   9 Games   Swe
30.    Kerstin Pfeffer - Group 7 199   9 Games   G
31.    Barbara Sprenger - Group 5 195   9 Games   G
32.    Oskar Tausendpfund - Group 12 191   9 Games   G
33.    Sönke Bühring - Group 7 186   9 Games   G
34.    Helmut Meyer - Group 1 183   9 Games   G
35.    Tim Kubillus - Group 2 183   9 Games   G
36.    Jean-Michel LAURENT - Group 6 181   9 Games   F
37.    Robert Zauner - Group 8 180   9 Games   A
38.    Stefan Hoppe - Group 12 180   9 Games   G
39.    Tomasz Opala - Group 3 177   9 Games   G
40.    Sabine Pfeffer - Group 7 172   9 Games   G
41.    Robert Keller - Group 4 169   9 Games   G
42.    Giuseppe Brandalise - Group 3 167   9 Games   Swi
43.    Claudia Gerlach - Group 2 164   9 Games   G
44.    Peter Klug - Group 8 149   9 Games   G
45.    Phillip Eaton - Group 9 147   9 Games   UK
46.    Daniel Gustafsson - Group 8 140   9 Games   Swe
47.    Wioletta Woisch - Group 2 106   9 Games   G
48.    Nicole Woisch - Group 2 82   9 Games   G

On Sunday, the same procedure was used with 17 groups of four players. The only problem was, there were only 12 games on which to play, so there were always 5 teams with nothing to play. This situation worsened when Earthshaker! was deemed irreparable and taken out of play.

The other games used for the final round were: Indianapolis 500, Monopoly, Gorgar, Monster Bash, Ripley's Believe It Or Not!, Cirqus Voltaire, High Speed 2 - The Getaway, Breakshot, Star Trek (Data East), WWF Royal Rumble, Corvette.

Action began at noon and continued (with a break at 2pm) until 7pm when the last team were finished and the result was announced. During the latter stages, the top four positions were not shown on the projection screen to build the excitement.

The top four players were announced as:


Martin Pfeifer, Jörg Ehrentraut, Lyman Sheats & Jorian Engelbrektsson

The results were read in reverse order with Lyman 4th, Jörg 3rd and Jorian 2nd, which meant the Martin had won and was the new European Pinball Champion.


Martin Pfeifer - European Champion

Here are the full results for the 68 players in Sunday's final round.

1.    Martin Pfeifer - Group 8 573   G
2.    Jorian Engelbrektsson - Group 11 550   Swe
3.    Jörg Ehrentraut - Group 14 540   G
4.    Lyman Sheats - Group 2 522   USA
5.    Chris Newsom - Group 10 512   USA
6.    Per Holknekt - Group 1 506   Swe
7.    Lukas Wiest - Group 1 490   G
8.    Paul Jongma - Group 17 482   NL
9.    Trepp Michael - Group 16 482   Swi
10.    Steve Walker - Group 10 481   USA
11.    Jörgen Holm - Group 15 480   Swe
12.    Markus Stix - Group 7 475   A
13.    Albert Nomden - Group 2 473   NL
14.    Victor Håkansson - Group 17 462   G
15.    Martin Hotze - Group 11 457   G
16.    Barp Adrian - Group 8 455   Swi
17.    Lefévre Fabrice - Group 17 452   F
18.    Röbi Sutter - Group 6 448   Swi
19.    Bence Szocs - Group 9 442   Hu
20.    Ingo Gerhard - Group 6 439   G
21.    Szalay Krisztian - Group 12 439   H
22.    Marcus Straube - Group 5 438   G
23.    Serge Darbellay - Group 7 428   Swi
24.    Andreas Harre - Group 5 425   G
25.    Axel Matenar - Group 7 420   G
26.    Jochen Ludwig - Group 9 415   G
27.    Martin Ayub - Group 10 409   UK
28.    Mats Runsten - Group 12 402   Swe
29.    Peter Schmidt - Group 2 399   G
30.    Alberto Nuzzo - Group 3 395   I
31.    Martin Berweger - Group 9 391   Swi
32.    Trent Augenstein - Group 15 390   USA
33.    Christian Balac - Group 11 389   Swe
34.    Manuel Donda - Group 3 385   G
35.    Albert Medaillon - Group 1 380   G
36.    Gregor Zimmerer - Group 5 379   G
37.    Erwin Deutschländer - Group 1 378   G
38.    Mosi Zoltan - Group 15 377   H
39.    Sylvian Grevin - Group 11 375   F
40.    Thomas Teis - Group 14 373   G
41.    Rudolf Mathes - Group 5 366   G
42.    Christoph Klimke - Group 12 363   G
43.    Füredi Sandor - Group 4 362   Hu
44.    Edwin Mole - Group 17 354   UK
45.    Lars Rühl - Group 16 353   G
46.    Peter Schimek - Group 3 347   A
47.    Marco Wopkes - Group 4 343   G
48.    Thomas Kull - Group 13 340   Swi
49.    Mario Höfels - Group 6 329   G
50.    Florian Delettrez - Group 2 329   F
51.    David Deturck - Group 15 325   B
52.    Armin Ständer - Group 6 323   G
53.    Davide Delprato - Group 16 315   I
54.    Andreas Meyer - Group 4 313   G
55.    Daniel Haist - Group 14 311   G
56.    Matthias Huhn - Group 13 310   G
57.    Franck Bona - Group 3 309   F
58.    Stefan Segars - Group 8 305   G
59.    Jean Cura - Group 7 298   Swi
60.    Roland Chrobok - Group 4 291   G
61.    Christoph Ruiss - Group 13 290   G
62.    Stefan Karlhuber - Group 9 284   A
63.    Joerg Backhaus - Group 10 247   G
64.    Jörg Hoffmann - Group 13 218   G
65.    Michael Schlett - Group 14 208   G
66.    Joachim Spranger - Group 8 140   G
67.    Josef Kapek - Group 12 84   G
68.    Nico Slemmer - Group 16 41   NL

There was a lunchtime break in the individual competition on Sunday, not only to get refreshments but also for an upstairs seminar with Lyman Sheats and Tom Uban.

Lyman and Tom spoke to the assembled audience about their time at Williams, the development of Pinball 2000 and the state of the business today in a question and answer format.

There was much talk about "what could have been" with Pinball 2000 and the real reasons Williams pulled out of pinball.

After the individual competition was concluded, there was a bit more fun with a play-off between the top four players on a new-in-box Rollercoaster Tycoon. But first they had to set it up.

After a quick fix to resolve a problem with the game, the final game of the show took place with an assembled crowd keen to see the best four players in action against each other.


Lyman Sheats starts multiball on Rollercoaster Tycoon

Lyman took an early lead and despite the best efforts of the other players, it was one he hung onto throughout the game to take first place.

This year's event firmly established the European Pinball Championship as a sustainable annual event. Players came from all over Europe and from the U.S.A. to Munich and the main competitions winners were not the familiar faces.

Game quality was high with only a few breakdowns which did little to influence the smooth running of the tournaments but that's not to say there is no room for improvement. Indeed, having no room was precisely one of the problems. The venue has a lot going for it but space is not one of them. The main stage area took up too much floor area and left too little for the games and players.

The format of the individual competition was not optimised for the maximum excitement and tension. If the top four players went into a final game to decide the winner there would be a good reason for the rest of the players to hang around. Otherwise - unless you happened to be one of the three other people in their group - how many people have actually seen the winner play?

It was also a bit galling to travel all the way to Munich to represent your country and to be knocked out after playing just one ball. There has to be a fairer way than that to whittle down the numbers.

Getting the Pinball 2000 system working (albeit with a few bugs) was a major coup and not to be underestimated though. Congratulations to everyone involved in setting that up and also to the folk behind the main scoring systems for a clear and informative display.

Overall, everyone in our group enjoyed the trip and the selection of games in the recreational room was a revelation to many. Who knew all those old '70s and '80s Bally games could be so much fun? They certainly made a nice contrast to the more familiar dot matrix games in the competition room. It was a shame that brand new World Poker Tour wouldn't power up properly - not a good advertisement for Stern.

EPC Three Minute Tour
Take a video journey through the European Pinball Championship in just three minutes.
9MB Windows Media

So next year it's off to Sweden for the 2007 EPC. Best of luck to them and we hope to be there to report from the show.


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