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ROME PINBALL |
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Date: Wednesday 12th & Thursday 13th October, 2011 Report by IFPA Italia Now in its 39th edition, the Enada Rome International Amusement and Gaming Show reconfirms - together with Enada Spring - its role as the exhibition leader in both Italy and in Europe, placing itself among the not-to-be missed events in the sector. The Show was organized by Rimini Fiera and promoted by SAPAR, Italian Association of coin-op entertainment machines, with the sponsorship of the AAMS, the support of Euromat and in collaboration with the main trade associations. It showcases the entire spectrum of the gaming and amusement world. At the Expo there were products, technologies and services from the most important Italian and foreign companies. This was useful for updating trade members' knowledge of new slot machines, VLTs and video games, but also pinball machines, billiards, table soccer and all the equipment for amusement, including technologies, payment systems, furnishings, fittings and services for amusement arcades and bingo halls. Plus a complete range of solutions for online gaming (bets, internet stations, lotteries, Texas Hold´em poker, etc.) and gaming offered by web licensees.
It was at Enada where the Rome Pinball Tournament took place.
As last year, in collaboration with Tecnoplay and Stern Pinball, IFPA Italia promoted competitive pinball with an international tournament which qualified for WPPR points. Surrounded by all kind of amusing novelties, the Tecnoplay stand hosted the Rome Pinball Tournament, providing the five newest Stern machines for the competition: Iron Man, Avatar, The Rolling Stones, Tron Legacy and the latest Transformers. It was, in fact, the European debut for the new Stern Transformers game.
Near the competition machines, five more pinball machines kindly provided by I.E.M. were available for free play: Spider-Man, Indiana Jones, Grand Prix, Monopoly and Elvis. On top of that, other stands also gave the opportunity to try the newest Stern game.
The tournament took place on the first two days of the show, Wednesday and Thursday October 12th and 13th. The qualification round started at noon of the 12th, and players could register their scores until 6pm. The following day the doors opened at 10am, with the silver balls flying around the playfields until 3:30pm when the qualification was closed. During this time, players could enter as many times as they liked in order to improve their scores on the five qualifying machines. Attendance at the tournament was not big due to the fact that the event was held on two weekdays, but, in addition to the Italian players, some players also came from both France and Belgium. The big names were the 2010 World Champion Daniele Acciari, the current European Champion Frank Bona and the reigning Italian Champion Mario Anzini.
The top four qualifiers entered the final rounds to decide the Rome Pinball Tournament Champion. The standing at the end of the qualifying round was the following:
As you can see, the match-ups for the semi-finals were then an Italy-France affair: the Italian and French number three Anzini & Dailly on The Rolling Stones, and the two countries' number one players Acciari & Bona on Tron Legacy.
From the two matches, another Italy-France match-up was created for the final, since Michel Dailly and Daniele Acciari both won their games, earning the chance to win the event. At the other end, Franck Bona and Mario Anzini could only battle for third place on the Avatar machine. The lower spot on the podium was won by Frank Bona with a spectacular performance of 119,351,960, versus the 19,571,360 of SuperMario Anzini. The final, as expected, was played on the brand new Transformers.
A great battle to last ball was won by the 2010 World Champion Daniele Acciari with a score of 54,138,480 over the 42,970,160 of Michel Dailly.
After the tournament there was a nice celebration with Mauro Zaccaria, owner of Tecnoplay, and Gary Stern, who awarded prizes and distributed many souvenirs to all the players. Every player left the tournament with a translite personally autographed by 'Mr Pinball' Gary Stern.
© Pinball News 2011 |
