HUNGARIAN PINBALL OPEN 2015

We’ve previously reported on the opening, the temporary closure, the threat of confiscation, and the success of the appeal by the Pbal Gallery pinball museum in Budapest. So when we heard there was a pinball tournament planned there in November, we just had to visit and show our support.

This was our first visit, not just to the museum, but to Budapest and also to Hungary. Our two hour Ryanair flight from London landed at Ferenc Liszt Airport mid-afternoon on Friday. Twenty-five minutes and 7,000 Forints ($25/€22.50/£16) later, and our taxi dropped us off outside the Hilton.

From there it was a five-minute walk across Váci út and down Radnóti Miklós utca for three blocks to the Museum, which was easily spotted thanks to the neon sign outside.

A pair of notice-covered doors opens out onto the street which, with smoking banned inside, became the gathering point for smokers attending the tournament.

Go through the doors and you have a few steps down before you reach the front desk.

Registered players signed in at the reception desk, and collected their player badge and Classics Tournament score card.

They were also asked to sign the tournament poster situated at the bottom of the stairs.

The Museum is made up of a series of cave-like rooms of varying size. Some feature bare stonework, while others have a much more contemporary look with plastered walls and suspended ceilings.

We would be competing in three tournaments over the weekend. The main Hungarian Pinball Open had a qualifying round which could be played on either Friday evening at 7pm, or Saturday morning at 9am. The Classics Tournament qualifying could be played at any time on Friday or Saturday, but in practical terms couldn’t be played while you were playing in the Open. Then there was a Pingolf Tournament on Sunday, and a Team Tournament which was also held on Sunday.

Entry to the event cost 12,000 Forints ($41/€38/£27) which included all tournaments and a Goulash lunch on Saturday. The prize for the winner of the Open was a restored and clearcoated F-14 Tomcat machine.

Two guests were celebrating their birthdays on Friday, so in the evening several boxes of delicious cakes were delivered to the upstairs chill-out area so everyone could help them celebrate.

Our Open qualifying was on Saturday, so we played our Classics games on Friday.

Classics qualifying ran from 4pm until midnight on Friday, and continued at 9am on Saturday until 5pm. Competitors could choose to play any six from the fifteen machines available. The machines were:

Classic Tournament Machines

Capt. Fantastic Centaur Circus Eight Ball Deluxe Elektra Fathom Kiss Medusa Pink Panther Rocky Sexy Girl Space Invaders Space Riders Spider-Man, The Amazing Wizard!

 

However, instead of just playing a single game on each, a three-player game was started with the same player playing all three. The scores from the three games were added together to give an overall score for that machine.

Scores on each machine were ranked, the total ranking points for the six machines were added up and the top sixteen players qualified for the play-offs which took place on Saturday evening.

Those sixteen qualifiers were:

Classic Tournament Qualifiers

1 John van der Wulp 2 Sághy Kálmán 3 Zsolt Szabo 4 Gabriel Ortiz Llonis 5 Tamas Odler 6 Mathias Leurs 7 Rich Mallett 8 David Deturck 9 György Kovács 10 Péter András Simon 11 Berecz Istvan 12 János Dakos 13 Cezary Glowala 14 Rafael Masedo Rodríguez 15 Zoltán Dósa 16 Laszlo Horn

 

Both of the qualification sessions for the main Hungarian Pinball Open tournament divided players into four groups of 18 (72 players per session) and created 17 matches where everyone in the group played a single 2-player, 3-ball game against every other player in that group.

When all seventeen matches in the group were completed, the seven players with the most wins progressed to the play-offs on Saturday evening. In most cases 10 or more wins would be enough to guarantee progression, while 9 wins was more precarious and could lead to a tie-break.

If a tie was created, it would be broken by creating a mini-league between the affected players to see who beat who in the head-to-head matches, with the player or players with the most wins progressing. If that still failed to break the tie, a play-off game would be used to decide.

The Friday night session finished around midnight, after which players and spectators were invited to take a coach on a short sightseeing tour which ended at the Gozdu Sky Terrace rooftop bar.

With the start of our qualifying session only a few hours away, we grabbed a taxi and returned to the Hilton for a few hours’ sleep and a hearty breakfast before returning to the Museum for our qualifying sessions.

The machines used in qualifying in the four areas were:

Hungarian Open Tournament Machines

Addams Family, The Star Wars Episode 1 Revenge from Mars Pinball Magic Party Zone, The Shrek Creature from the Black Lagoon Funhouse Scared Stiff Attack from Mars Cactus Jack Avatar Fish Tales Cirqus Voltaire Guns ‘N Roses Family Guy Medieval Madness Space Station Freddy: A Nightmare on Elm Street Dr. Dude Twilight Zone Banzai Run Iron Man Congo Elvira & the Party Monsters Godzilla Star Wars (DE) Scared Stiff Getaway, The: High Speed 2 Indiana Jones (WMS) Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Time Machine (DE) Diner Sopranos, The Star Trek (Stern) Baywatch Tommy, The Who’s Lost in Space Simpsons Pinball Party, The World Cup Soccer Earthshaker! Jackbot Monster Bash Hurricane Tales of the Arabian Nights

 

As results were reported they were recorded on paper on the wall and an overall tally of wins for each player was updated.

There was a break for lunch where all players were provided with a bowl of traditional Hungarian Goulash and slices of bread to help mop up the sauce.

Soon after the last game of the second session had been recorded at around 3pm, the list of the 48 qualifiers was announced.

Hungarian Pinball Open Qualifiers

Daniele Acciari Albert Medaillon Alberto Olivero Balázs Pálfi Bart Vyvey Berecz Istvan Carlos Javier Parra Cezary Glowala Csapó dr Imre Daniel Nowak POL David Deturck David Mainwaring Dennis Verleyen Didier Dujardin Ernö Rotter Evert Brochez Florian Horvath Fred Van Den Bosch Füredi Sándor Gábor Fekécs Glenn Verhoosele Jakub Cieplinski János Sándor John van der Wulp Jörg Buchacher Kim G. Hansen Krisztián Szalai Laszlo Horn Marcin Kisiel Markus Stix Mathias Leurs Miklós Szebenyi Odler Tamas Olivier Leurs Olivier Renders Ollivier Francq Peter Andersen Peter Boncza Pier Villa Piller Zsolt Rafael Masedo Rodríguez Rich Mallett Roland Schwartz Sandor Varga Stefan Karlhuber Szabo Istvan Tibor Járosi Zsolt Mészáros

 

They would shortly begin the play-offs to reduce the numbers from 48 to 24.

In this round the seven qualifiers from one of Friday’s groups were pitted against seven from one of Saturday’s groups. Every player played a single game against each of the seven qualifiers in their opposite group.

In addition, they carried forward the number of wins they achieved in qualifying, so a good performance in the qualifying round put you in good stead to be one of the six who make it through this second round, or even one of the top two who earns a bye through the next round.

That third round saw the sixteen players who finished 3rd-6th in the four second round groups play four 4-player games with scoring of 8-5-3-1 for 1st to 4th places in each game.

The top two from those matches (eight players) were joined by the eight who received a bye after the second round, and they played the quarter-finals in the same format as the third round to reduce the number remaining to eight.

The semi-finals used the same format, with two 4-player games where the top two went into the final. For these games all the action moved to the back room.

The final four were Daniele Acciari, Markus Stix, Mathias Leurs and Krisztián Szalai. We’ll re-join them shortly, but interspersed with the Open play-off rounds were the play-offs for the Classic Tournament.

The sixteen qualifiers played eight head-to-head best-of-five matches to whittle the numbers down to eight and then to the final four.

The four who went to the final were György Kovács, Rafael Masedo Rodríguez, Cezary Glowala and Sághy Kálmán.

The Classic Tournament final was decided by a single 5-ball game on Bally’s Kiss.

Cezary Glowala was player one, followed by Sághy Kálmán and Rafael Masedo Rodríguez, with György Kovács the fourth player.

Cezary got off to a good start, racking up 160K by his second ball, more than three times his nearest rival. He strengthened that position with another 100K on his third ball, while György was closest of the others on 145K.

Rafael was a little way behind on 112K with Sághy some way off the pace with 39K after some tough rebounds.

Cezary added around another 100K on his fourth and final balls to end on 456K.

Sághy started to have more of the run of the ball, but it was ultimately too little, too late as he ended on 111K. Rafael only improved slightly with a 177K total, which left György as the only man standing between Cezary and victory.

György moved ahead of Rafael into second place, but his game ended on 190K, making Cezary the winner.

Prizes from the Museum and the sponsors were then presented by tournament director and fellow Classic Tournament finalist Sághy Kálmán.

Classic Tournament Results

1 Cezary Glowala 2 György Kovács 3 Rafael Masedo Rodríguez 4 Sághy Kálmán 6 Laszlo Horn 6 Mathias Leurs 6 Rich Mallett 6 Tamas Odler 12 John van der Wulp 12 David Deturck 12 Gabriel Ortiz Llonis 12 János Dakos 12 Berecz Istvan 12 Zsolt Szabo 12 Péter András Simon 12 Zoltán Dósa 17 Peter Andersen 18 Olivier Leurs 19 Péter Szamosi 20 Botka Boldizsar 21 Gergely Csonka 22 Stefan Karlhuber 23 Acciari Daniele 24 Tibor Járosi 25 David Mainwaring 26 Öjvind Strömsholm 27 Miklós Szebenyi 28 Marcin Kisiel 29 Martin Ayub 30 Albert Medaillon 31 Daniele Baldan 32 Ernö Rotter 33 Olivier Renders 34 Konrad Maslowski 35 Ollivier Francq 36 Antti Peltonen 37 Markus Stix 38 Markus Schrodt 39 Vargha Ákos 40 Bart Vyvey 41 Benjamin Ruso 42 Zsolt Mészáros 43 Joël Wozniak 44 Artur Natorski 45 Berndt Ion Teodorescu 46 Kim G. Hansen 47 Füredi Sándor 48 Frank Goeltl 49 Anatol Pante 50 Carlos Javier Parra 51 Rafal Jodelko 52 Dimitri Verhoosele 53 Tobias Löfstedt 54 Szabo Istvan 55 Bartosz Radomyski 56 Mattias Jeppsson 57 Sandor Varga 58 Alejandro Yepes Piedra 59 Robert Glashuettner 60 Didier Dujardin 61 Rob Breyne 62 Gaby Molotov Gavrilita 63 Jan Anders Nilsson 64 Devis Pierantozzi 65 Maarten Lemey 66 Mario Kaufmann 67 Dennis Verleyen 68 Daniel Nowak POL 69 Deborah Medaillon 70 Piller Zsolt 71 Gábor Fekécs 72 Bernhard Binderr 73 Ovidiu Cacina 74 Csapó dr Imre 75 Arno Nöbl 76 Pier Villa 77 Andrzej Cieslik 78 Zoltán Szemes 79 László Kadala 80 Tom Geneyn 81 Molnár Péter 82 Jörg Buchacher 83 Jakub Cieplinski 84 Tamás Marjai 85 Alexander Muer 86 Péter Busa 87 Milan Caranovic 88 Bencsik László 89 Vlad Terzi 90 Oskar Strandberg 91 Fred Van Den Bosch 92 János Sándor 93 András Lugosi 94 Peter Boncza 95 Zoltán Polgár 96 Mihály Horváth 97 Evert Brochez 98 Laszlo Imre 99 Ruha Istvan 100 Alberto Olivero 101 Csaba Asztalos 102 Michal Piasecki 103 David Schrittwieser 104 Guttmann Zsolt 105 Sebastian Gwizdała 106 Begońa Motilla Mulas 107 Sharis Dewulf 108 Jenna Muer 109 Kovács Gábor 110 Andrew Luke 111 Cinthya Messiaen 112 Tóth Szeles Attila 113 Susanne Schrittwieser 114 Katona Tamás 115 Eva Polgar 116 Attila Abonyi 117 Attila Jonas 118 Marta Scibisz 119 Thomas Rüegg 120 David Medaillon 121 Cristian Istrate 122 Kornél Kosdi 123 Gábor Varga 124 Karin Ruhmannseder 125 Gema López Torralba 126 Liv Decay 127 Vlad Filimon Nastase 128 László Tempfli 129 Balázs Pálfi 130 Hendrik Calis 131 Glenn Verhoosele 132 Florian Horvath 133 Eszter Hoppán

 

With the clock showing something around midnight, it was time for the Hungarian Pinball Open final. The machine chosen for the final was Stern’s Star Trek LE.

Krisztián began the final with a 66M first ball.

Daniele had an uncharacteristic rapid drain of his first ball with only 251K on the scoreboard. Mathias played third and only fared slightly better 5M, while Markus did a little better still with his 24M first ball score.

Krisztián only added 13M on his second ball to reach 79M, Daniele had a second bad ball to reach just 1.2M. Mathias did about as well as Krisztián to stand on 17M, but it was Markus who started challenging for the lead with his ball 2 total of 62M.

Ball three changed everything at the top.

Krisztián scored another 7M to reach 86M. Daniele finally had a good ball and jumped up to 50M. Mathias mirrored Krisztián again to add 7M to his total and score 24M. But it was Markus who powered ahead, reached Kobayashi Maru multiball, and ended his third ball with 203M on the board.

The fourth ball brought only small increases all round. Going into the last ball Krisztián had 97M, Daniele 57M, Mathias 27M and Markus 227M. Could any of the chasing pack catch Markus?

Krisztián really looked like he could do it. He put together some good multiball modes and had brought his score up to 217.9M when a desperate save resulted in a tilt.

Daniele struggled to really get going and could only add another 11M to end his game with 68.0M.

Mathias finally had a half-decent run and was closing in on Daniele’s score when the ball drained. After the bonus had been added, his total was 68.1M, just 85K ahead but enough to secure third place. Markus didn’t need to play his fifth ball as he’d already won.

Prizes were presented by Museum owner Balázs Pálfi and Sághy Kálmán.

Open Tournament Results

1 Markus Stix 2 Krisztián Szalai 3 Mathias Leurs 4 Acciari Daniele 5 Odler Tamas 6 Gábor Fekécs 7 Laszlo Horn 8 Ernö Rotter 9 Peter Andersen 11 Csapó dr Imre 11 Füredi Sándor 11 Jörg Buchacher 13 David Deturck 14 Evert Brochez 15 Sandor Varga 16 János Sándor 17 Glenn Verhoosele 18 Olivier Renders 19 Roland Schwartz 20 Fred Van Den Bosch 20 Rafael Masedo Rodríguez 22 Albert Medaillon 22 Stefan Karlhuber 24 Daniel Nowak POL 26 David Mainwaring 26 Rich Mallett 26 Zsolt Mészáros 35 Alberto Olivero 35 Balázs Pálfi 35 Bart Vyvey 35 Berecz Istvan 35 Carlos Javier Parra 35 Didier Dujardin 35 Florian Horvath 35 John van der Wulp 35 Marcin Kisiel 35 Olivier Leurs 35 Peter Boncza 35 Pier Villa 35 Piller Zsolt 35 Szabo Istvan 35 Tibor Járosi 45 Cezary Glowala 45 Dennis Verleyen 45 Jakub Cieplinski 45 Kim G. Hansen 45 Miklós Szebenyi 45 Ollivier Francq 49 Zoltán Szemes 50 Péter Szamosi 50 László Tempfli 53 Botka Boldizsar 53 Laszlo Imre 53 Mattias Jeppsson 53 Stefan Folkesson 56 Anatol Pante 57 György Kovács 61 Bogdan Constantin Ghiga 61 Mihály Vándor 61 Péter Busa 61 András Lugosi 61 Jan Anders Nilsson 61 Kornél Kosdi 61 Martin Ayub 61 Gábor Vanderer 76 Berndt Ion Teodorescu 76 Maarten Lemey 76 Mario Kaufmann 76 Andrew Luke 76 Gábor Varga 76 Gergely Csonka 76 Jenna Muer 76 Markus Schrodt 76 Marta Scibisz 76 Robert Glashuettner 76 Tóth Szeles Attila 76 Alejandro Yepes Piedra 76 Konrad Maslowski 76 Kovács Gábor 76 László Kadala 76 Andrzej Cieslik 76 Zsolt Szabo 76 Csaba Fodor 76 Frank Goeltl 76 Oskar Strandberg 76 Rafal Jodelko 76 Sebastian Gwizdała 99 Karin Ruhmannseder 99 Mihály Horváth 99 Thomas Rüegg 99 Bernhard Binderr 99 Daniele Baldan 99 Gaby Molotov Gavrilita 99 János Dakos 99 Csaba Asztalos 99 Liv Decay 99 Marjai Tamás 99 Öjvind Strömsholm 99 Péter András Simon 99 Sághy Kálmán 99 Artur Natorski 99 Devis Pierantozzi 99 Ruha Istvan 99 Begońa Motilla Mulas 99 Joël Wozniak 99 Tom Geneyn 99 Bartosz Radomyski 99 Bencsik László 99 Fekete Tibor 99 Gabriel Ortiz Llonis 116 Cinthya Messiaen 116 Sharis Dewulf 116 Tobias Löfstedt 116 Vlad Filimon Nastase 116 Alexander Muer 116 Antti Peltonen 116 Gergely Csosz 116 Guttmann Zsolt 116 Rob Breyne 116 Susanne Schrittwieser 116 Vlad Terzi 116 Molnár Péter 116 Zoltán Polgár 127 Arno Nöbl 127 Milan Caranovic 127 Cristian Istrate 127 Dimitri Verhoosele 127 Eszter Hoppán 127 Deborah Medaillon 127 Michal Piasecki 136 Benjamin Ruso 136 David Schrittwieser 136 Eva Polgar 136 Ovidiu Cacina 136 Zoltán Kiss 136 Attila Jonas 136 Verebi András 136 David Medaillon 136 Hendrik Calis 136 Pupek Attila 136 Somogyi Nándor 136 Katona Tamás 143 Pawel Nowak 144 Gema López Torralba

 

That was far from the end of competitive events though, as Sunday still held the Pingolf and Team tournaments.

Pingolf required players to play three 9-hole rounds on a total of 27 separate machines. A target score was set on each machine. If that score was reached within the three balls allowed, the score for that ‘hole’ was the number of balls it took. If the target wasn’t reached, then there were various numbers of balls for different score levels.

So for Revenge from Mars above, the target was 50M. Score that on the first ball and you received a 1 (hole-in-one) for that game. Use two balls and get a 2. Achieve it on the third ball and get a 3.

Fail to reach 50M after three balls and if your score was above 37.5M you got a 4, between 37.5M and 25M and it’s a 5, and if your score was below 25M you got a 6.

The aim was to complete all 27 holes (machines) with the lowest total score possible.

There were no play-offs or a final in the Pingolf. When everyone had finished all their games the results were announced, with Daniele making up for his disappointment in the Open final by taking first place here.

Trophies were presented by Gábor Vanderer and Balázs Pálfi.

Pingolf Tournament Results

1 Daniele Celestino Acciari 2 David Deturck 3 Markus Stix 4 Albert Medaillon 6 Devis Pierantozzi 6 Daniele Baldan 6 György Kovács 8 Peter Andersen 8 Laszlo Horn 10 Reményi Gábor 10 Daniel Nowak POL 12 Sandor Varga 13 Kim G. Hansen 15 Mattias Jeppsson 15 Olivier Renders 15 Martin Ayub 17 Cristian Istrate 18 Arno Nöbl 20 Joël Wozniak 20 Evert Brochez 20 John van der Wulp 22 Ollivier Francq 23 Glenn Verhoosele 24 David Mainwaring 24 János Sándor 26 Sághy Kálmán 27 Anatol Pante 27 Jan Anders Nilsson 30 Fred Van Den Bosch 30 Tom Geneyn 30 Stefan Karlhuber 32 Péter András Simon 34 Alberto Olivero 34 Markus Schrodt 34 Didier Dujardin 38 Peter Molnar 38 Ojvind Strömsholm 38 Robert Glashuettner 38 Tobias Löfstedt 38 Dennis Verleyen 41 Olivier Leurs 43 Tamás Marjai 43 Berecz Istvan 43 Antti Peltonen 45 Rob Breyne 46 Artur Natorski 46 Ovidiu Cacina 49 Zoltán Szemes 49 Mathias Leurs 49 Frank Goeltl 52 Maarten Lemey 52 Bart Vyvey 52 András Lugosi 54 Gabi Molotov Gavrilita 54 Cinthya Messiaen 56 Sebastian Gwizdala 57 Miklós Szebenyi 57 Michal Piasecki 59 Vargha Ákos 60 Pierangelo Villa 62 Attila Abonyi 62 Péter Busa 62 Vlad Terzi 64 Berndt Ion Teodorescu 65 Milan Caranovic 66 Thomas Rüegg 67 Marjaine Brasso Adrien 68 László Kadala 70 David Schrittwieser 70 Balázs Pálfi 70 Sharis Dewulf 72 Jakub Cieplinski 73 Hendrik Calis 74 János Dakos 75 Karin Ruhmannseder 76 Vlad Filimon Nastase

 

The final event was the Team Tournament. Six teams of four competed in the back room:

Team Tournament Teams

Samorza Team De Gernoazen Pythons Polish MF Killers Adolf + The Piss Artists Liv, Vlad, Christian, Bogdan

 

The teams played a single 4-player game on each of four machines, with each player playing one ball of the game. The scores on each machine were ranked and ranking points awarded.

When all the scores had been recorded, the winners were Adolf + The Piss Artists, with De Gernoazen second and Samorza Team third.

Team Tournament Results

1 Adolf + The Piss Artists 2 De Gernoazen 3 Samorza Team 4 Polish MF Killers 5 Pythons 6 Liv, Vlad, Christian, Bogdan

 

The Team Tournament result brings our coverage of the three days of the Hungarian Pinball Open to an end.

The team at the Pbal Gallery Hungarian Pinball Museum is no stranger to organising pinball tournaments, but this was their biggest yet with the maximum number of players allowed (all 144 of them) taking part over the two days.

As first-time visitors, we thoroughly enjoyed the event. Holding the Open and Classics tournaments on Friday and Saturday meant there was no rush to complete proceedings late on Sunday afternoon so players could get home in time for work on Monday.

We also enjoyed the formats. How many PinGolf tournaments have 27 holes to play, and when was the last Classics Tournament in which you took part where everyone gets to play 27 games? Meanwhile, everyone in the open had a guaranteed minimum of 17 matches which allows for a few stumbles without the possibility of getting your second wind.

Our suggestions for improvement concern what to do about no-shows, making sure the number of carry-over wins for the second round of the Open is correct before the round starts, and maybe freeing up some of the modern machines after the first round of the Open so those who were eliminated have something to play. Those quibbles aside though, we had a fun time despite not even getting a sniff of a trophy.

Budapest is a very attractive city, with a curious mix of neoclassical and baroque architecture sitting alongside concrete monstrosities from the communist era and much more contemporary steel and glass constructions. Our mini-sightseeing tour left us regretting not having more time to explore – something we’ll surely remedy on our next visit.