Date: 21st & 22nd May, 2016 Location: Unit 5, Turbinestraat, Veenendaal, Netherlands The NFV (the Nederlandse Flipper Vereniging, or Dutch Pinball Association) has been running since 1992 and operates a donation scheme where members can gift a machine to the association. That machine then becomes part of the association’s collection which is used to allow shows such as the Dutch Pinball Open to take place each year. Those machines are housed in the NFV’s clubhouse where they are restored and made available for members to play on select dates. The location of that clubhouse has changed a few times over the years, but is currently located on a light industrial estate in the city of Veenendaal in the centre of the country. Turbinestraat in Veenendaal The NFV clubhouse building is about as nondescript as you could find. The NFV clubhouse There are very few clues that this is the NFV building. For the Dutch Pinball Masters there was an advisory sign regarding parking arrangements which, other than the sound of flippers flipping and some familiar faces in the ‘smoking area’ by the door, was the only indication. You’ve found the right building Once you opened the door though, there were no more doubts. The table in the lobby had copies of the NFV magazine, ‘Spinner’ The opposite wall featured individuals and companies who support the NFV Then it’s into the main building which is a large unit with a high ceiling and a mass of pinballs. Inside the main building For this event, the machines were split into three distinct groups. Those on the left of the picture above were used in the Dutch Pinball Masters (DPM). The machines on the right were free play machines for practice and casual play, while those on the back wall were either part of the Classics tournament or reserve machines for the DPM. Dutch Pinball Masters machines Free play machines At the front of the room was a kitchen and bar area which served freshly-cooked food through out the weekend as well as tea, coffee, soft drinks, wine and Heineken beer. The kitchen/bar area Although there was a reasonably captive audience, prices were very reasonable. A hamburger cost €2 ($2.24/£1.55), as did other kinds of meat-in-a-bread-roll snacks. Sandwiches were €1.50, while €6.50 would get you a big meal with fries and salad. Non-alcoholic drinks were all €1, with beer and wine costing double that. We especially enjoyed the homemade chicken soup which cost just €1.50 for a bowl and tasted delicious. For those enjoying the refreshments or just needing a place to sit and rest, several sets of tables and chairs were set up next to the kitchen/bar. A chance to relax between games At the very front of the building were several small rooms, one of which was the repair centre for any tournament games which couldn’t be quickly fixed in the tournament area. Machines in the repair centre So that’s the setting, now on to the tournaments themselves. Apart from the glory, WPPR points and prize money, these are what the competitors were playing for The first competitive event was the Team Tournament which began at 6:30pm on Friday. Unfortunately we were negotiating the Antwerp ring road on our way to our hotel in Ede, so missed the Team Tournament. However, there were eight teams taking part. DPM Team Tournament Teams Dutch Pinball Team Pinball DNA Pinball Universe Competition Team Team Switzerland Spain Steel-CLAD Team Utrecht-Torhout Team Archiball The teams were divided into two groups of four, and played a match against each of the other three teams in their group. A match was a mix of pairs games where one member of a team plays another member of the opposing team to win one match point, and split-flipper games in which two members of the team take one flipper button each and play against their opponents doing the same to win two match points. When all matches were over, the two teams with the most match points from each group went into the two semi-final matches, with the winner of the first group playing the runner-up in the second group, and vice-versa. The semi-final matches were played in the same way as the first round, and the winners of the semi-finals then played another such match for the final. When all the games had been played, the winners were Team Switzerland who beat the Dutch Pinball Team into second place, with Spain in third. Winners of the DPM Team Tournament, Team Switzerland: Ramon Richard, Robert Sutter, Levente Tregova & Michael Trepp Second place, Dutch Pinball Team: Paul Jongma and Albert Nomden Third place, Spain: Julio Vicario Soriano & Gabriel Ortiz While the Team Tournament was taking place, the remaining non-tournament machines in the NFV clubhouse were available for practice in preparation for the start of the main DPM on Saturday. Entry to the DPM was limited to 144 competitors. This was an increase from the 104 permitted in 2015 and resulted in qualifying being split into three sessions rather than the previous two. In each session, four groups of twelve players competed in a match-play format, where everyone played a single three-ball game against every other member of their group. Machines for the qualifying round were preassigned from the 24 used for the DPM. They were: DPM Machines 1 – Tommy, The Who’s 2 – Junkyard 3 – Fish Tales 4 – Demolition Man 5 – Scared Stiff 6 – Indianapolis 500 7 – Monster Bash 8 – Roadshow 9 – Attack from Mars 10 – Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s 11 – Tales from the Crypt 12 – World Cup Soccer 13 – Dirty Harry 14 – Medieval Madness 15 – Jurassic Park 16 – High Speed 2: The Getaway 17 – Pirates of the Caribbean 18 – Monopoly 19 – Spider-Man 20 – Avatar 21 – Star Trek: The Next Generation 22 – Congo 23 – Creature from the Black Lagoon 24 – Hoops If a DPM machine developed a fault which couldn’t be quickly fixed, the machine was wheeled out of the area to the repair centre and one of the nominated reserve machines took its place. So the list of machines above would change from time to time. The right bank of DPM machines The left bank of DPM machines Players inspect the machines before the first round begins The first qualifying groups (A-D) began at 10am on Saturday, with the second session (E-H) at 1:45pm and the third (J-M)at 5:30pm. All were allocated 3.5 hours to play their 11 matches, and although there were a few which took longer, the timings were about right. Every player was given a score card which showed the machines and opponents they would play in each round, and whether they would be player one or player two in each game. Rules for the tournament were posted in the DPM area The first matches begin The score cards also had space to record whether you won or lost a round, but the winner of each round also recorded their win at the main tournament desk. Results were recorded on your score card The winners of each round were recorded on paper These results were shown on a projector screen using a spreadsheet created by tournaments maestro, Ad Jonker. The DPM results system Results system designer and inputter, Ad Jonker At the end of each qualifying session competitors could see if they were amongst the top four players with the most wins and so needed to come back the next day for the start of play-offs at 10am, or if they could have a lazy Sunday. While the DPM was underway, the Classics Tournament was also running at the back of the hall. Eight machines were used and players had ten qualifying games which they could spread across any or all of the eight, with the restriction that they couldn’t play any one machine more than twice. The Classics Tournament machines The machines were: DPM Classics Tournament Machines 1 – Nitro Groundshaker 2 – Flash Gordon 3 – Eight Ball 4 – Wizard! 5 – Kiss 6 – Mata Hari 7 – Harlem Globetrotters 8 – Charlie’s Angels Play in the Classics Tournament Scores were recorded on tablets and fed into a central scoring system which ranked all the scores and showed the results on a terminal. Players check their standings on a terminal Players had until 8pm to complete their ten games, at which time the qualifying round ended and the sixteen top-ranked qualified for the play-offs which were scheduled for 9pm that night but actually ended up starting nearer 9:45pm. Those sixteen qualifiers were: Classics Tournament Qualifiers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Julio Vicario Soriano Daniele Baldan Robert Sutter Roy Wils Jorian Engelbrektsson Philippe Bocquet Carlos Javier Parra Kevin Roelants Gabriel Ortiz David Mainwaring Albert Nomden Tobias Wagemann Martin Ayub John van der Wulp Dirk Elzholz Devis Pierantozzi The top four qualifiers received two byes to get straight into the quarter-finals, while the next four got a single bye. All play-off matches were best-of-three games on machines drawn at random. Classics Tournament organiser Paul Jongma keeps track of the results The four semi-finalists were Kevin Roelants, Robert Sutter, Jorian Engelbrektsson and Carlos Javier Parra. Jorian played Kevin in one semi-final, while Robert played Carlos in the other. Robert Sutter playing Wizard! in the final rounds Robert and Jorian then played the final, in which Robert was triumphant. Kevin and Carlos played for third place, with Kevin taking the win. Albert Nomden presented the awards. DPM Classics Tournament winner, Robert Sutter Second place, Jorian Engelbrektsson Third place, Kevin Roelants Here are the full results of the DPM Classics Tournament: DPM Classics Tournament 1 Robert Sutter 2 Jorian Engelbrektsson 3 Kevin Roelants 4 Carlos Javier Parra 6 Roy Wils 6 Albert Nomden 6 Daniele Baldan 6 Julio Vicario Soriano 10 Martin Ayub 10 Philippe Bocquet 10 Dirk Elzholz 10 Devis Pierantozzi 14 Tobias Wagemann 14 John van der Wulp 14 David Mainwaring 14 Gabriel Ortiz 17 Daniele Celestino Acciari 18 Alain Boulieu 19 Jonas Valström 20 Norbert Broman 21 Robert Lau 22 Ergun Erdemir 23 Vincent Chardome 24 Matt Vince 25 Jean Philippe Congnard 26 Paul Jongma 27 Kelly Lembrechts 28 Arjan Neet 28 David Dutton 30 Olli-Mikko Ojamies 31 Ralf de Kleine 32 Joel Wozniak 33 Kirsten Adam 33 Anthony Rorive 35 Jan Anders Nilsson 36 Thomas van Clapdorp 37 César Dubón Martinez 37 Archibald Lefevre 39 Lieven Engelbeen 39 Levente Tregova 41 Michael Trepp 42 Taco Wouters 43 Edwin Nijs 44 Ad Jonker 45 Evert Brochez 46 Aki Seuranen 47 Karl Weber 48 Jonas Johansson 49 Christophe Wozniak 49 Clara Boulieu 51 Jochen Ludwig 52 Sebastien Puertas 53 Fredrik Mellberg 53 Mattias Jeppsson 55 Eric Buysen 55 Benjamin Gräbeldinger 57 Jean Philippe Passarieu 57 Jules Reivers 59 Jürgen Gärtner 60 Arthur de Jong 61 Cayle George 62 Rafael Masedo Rodríguez 63 Norman Heikamp 64 Alex Duin 64 Bjorn Brand 66 Mark van der Gugten 67 Didier Dujardin 68 Nils de Kleine 68 Artur Natorski 70 Jürgen Schmitz 70 Mario Kertels 72 Kevin Sultana 73 Heinz Baumann 73 Adrian Barp 75 Cezary Glowala 76 Olivier Renders 77 Ernö Rotter 78 Glenn Verhoosele 79 Rob Overdijk 80 Peter Blakemore 81 Jasmijn de Jong 81 Sébastien Muller 83 Ivan Geentjens 84 Michel Rorive 85 Ramon Richard 86 Helen de Haan-Verbeek 87 Craig Pullen 88 Frank Wolthers 89 Johan Småros 90 Bart Bartholomeus 91 Ralph Beckers 92 Jim Lindsay 93 Rob Breyne 94 Hinnerk Helbrecht 95 Morten Søbyskogen 96 Magnus Lindström 97 Laurent Mahe 98 Neil Fellender 98 Pontus Qvarfordh 100 Ollivier Francq 100 Matteo Filippin 102 Marc Steinmeier 103 Karin Weilenmann 104 Marco Suvanto 105 Evelyne Desot 106 William Dutton 107 Pascal Leroy 108 Christoph Korrodi 109 Florian Thomas 110 Fred van den Bosch 111 Tobias Löfstedt 112 Tom Andre Andersen 113 Laurence Boulieu 114 Gerard Vos 115 Frank Goeltl 116 Daniela Oymann 117 Greg Mott 118 Vin Jauhal 119 Joeri Stroobants 120 Dirk Klaver 121 Sandra Søbyskogen 122 Kyoo Barbaix 123 Sjoerd Schouwstra 124 Dina Fukson 124 Gema Lopez Torralba 126 Eko Elens 127 Ruben Vrouwe 128 Carlo Vijn 129 Thomas Doepelheuer The 48 qualifiers (the top four in the twelve qualifying groups) for the DPM had to register at the tournament desk by 10am on Sunday to start the play-off rounds. They were then split into four groups of twelve to play head-to-head match play games in exactly the same way as in qualifying. Sunday’s DPM play-offs begin More play-off games The four players with the most wins in each group would progress to the quarter-finals. They were: DPM Play-Off First Round Qualifiers 1 2 3 41 2 3 41 2 3 41 2 3 4 Daniele Celestino Acciari Ivan Geentjens Will Dutton Jochen LudwigKrisztian Szalai Albert Nomden Archibald Lefèvre Robert SutterJorian Engelbrektsson Julio Vicario Soriano Craig Pullen Michael TreppTaco Wouters Ernö Rotter Roy Wils Sylvain Grévin Many pictures of the results were taken These sixteen were then paired to play best-of-five matches on randomly-selected machines. Cards with machines numbers were laid out on the tournament desk and players chose an available machine for their next game. The next machine is chosen Half the eight pairings needed all five games to decide the 3-2 winner, with three more needing four games. Quarter-final matches That round left just eight players to compete the semi-finals. They were: DPM Semi-Finalists Daniele Celestino Acciari Roy Wils Ernö Rotter Jochen Ludwig Jorian Engelbrektsson Ivan Geentjens Will Dutton Michael Trepp After the semi-finals, the last four who would compete in the final of the DPM 2016 were decided. Daniele Celestino Acciari, Ernö Rotter, Michael Trepp & Ivan Geentjens (picture: Ad Jonker) So it would be a truly international field of an Italian, a German, a Swiss and a Belgian who would compete for the Dutch Pinball Masters title. Four games would be played, all chosen by the players. Points would be awarded for finishing position in each game, with 9 points for a win, 5 points for second, 2 points for third, and no points for ending in fourth place. Each player drew a numbered card. Ernö picked #1 and so chose the first machine to play. He also had to take the player one position on that game, and he chose Creature from the Black Lagoon. After the first ball it looked like a good choice, as Ernö led with 34.4M. Daniele was closest on 12.8M, while Michael and Ivan had 5M scores. When Ernö bumped his score up to 182M on his second ball it was looking good, but Daniele scored 560M to take the lead. Ernö made a push on his last ball but could only reach 342,554,260. Michael ended on 31,243,830, but Daniele’s total of 574,116,430 made him the clear winner with Ivan in fourth on 16,815,710. So after one game Daniele had 9 points, Ernö 5 points and Michael 2 points. Michael chose Indianapolis 500 for his game but struggled to put up a big first ball score, earning 64.2M. Ernö was in the lead with 225M, with Ivan on 93.3M and Daniele on just 3.5M. The second ball changed nothing, but the third and final ball saw Daniele stage a great recovery, leaping from 10.2M to 320,278,870 which was enough to give him the win. Ernö was then in second with his total of 284,504,320, while Ivan was third on 134,858,130 and Michael rued his choice of machine with 118,441,550. With two wins, Daniele was looking good to take the title on 18 points. Two second places put Ernö in with a chance as well with his 10 points, but with Michael and Ivan on 2 points each, they both desperately needed a win on the next game to remain in contention. Game three was Daniele’s choice of Demolition Man and after two balls it didn’t seem like a wise selection as his 37.4M score was the lowest of the four. Ernö was way ahead of the pack with 474.4M, while Michael had 54.8M and Ivan 43.3M. The final ball saw Daniele make a real charge to end on 516,117,560. Ivan brought his score up to 77,128,360 to put him in third place. Ernö needed to score 42M to regain the lead which he did, although only just, finishing on 524,291,360. Michael’s 72,271,020 wasn’t quite enough to steal third. Ernö takes the win on Demolition Man (picture: Ad Jonker) So far, the top two places in each game had been shared by Daniele and Ernö. If Ernö won the fourth and final game and Daniele came second there would be a tie with two wins and two second places each. Ivan and Michael couldn’t win at this point, so were playing for third place. That final game was Tommy, chosen by Ivan who started. Once again, it didn’t appear Ivan had chosen wisely when his first ball ended with 26.4M on the board. Ernö did worse with his 11.7M, but it was Michael who took charge, scoring 231M with his ball one. Daniele was in second place with his 77.2M. Ball two changed everything and set up an exciting finale. Ivan raised his score to 160.9M, but Ernö stormed ahead with a 773.9M second ball total. Very close behind was Michael who consolidated his good start with a 716.2M ball two score. Daniele was also moving up the board by making a total of 354.9M going into each player’s final ball. If Daniele could win the game he would win the DPM. Second would give him a tie. Ernö needed to win and then hope Daniele didn’t take second if he was to take the title. On that last ball Ivan improved a little to 270,858,700 but was still firmly in fourth place. Ernö improved by a similar amount to end in the lead on 857,045,840. Michael wasn’t able to improve his score by much. His 735,047,200 total put him in second place, with just Daniele to play. Daniele plays the last ball of the last game of the final (picture: Ad Jonker) Daniele needed nearly 400M to take second and more than 500M to win, but in the end it was not to be. He could only add 90M before the ball drained and his total of 447,947,230 put him in third place. That meant, with two wins and two second places, Ernö Rotter was the winner with 28 points. Daniele Celestino Acciari was second on 23 points, his second place on Tommy gave Michael Trepp third on 7 points, while Ivan Geentjens was fourth on 4 points. The awards were then made, with all four finalists winning cash prizes. Dutch Pinball Masters 2016 winner, Ernö Rotter (picture: Ad Jonker) Second place, Daniele Celestino Acciari (picture: Ad Jonker) Third place, Michael Trepp (picture: Ad Jonker) Fourth place, Ivan Geentjens (picture: Ad Jonker) Here are the full results. Lower places were decided by the number of wins in the last group in which they played. Dutch Pinball Masters 2016 1 Ernö Rotter 2 Daniele Celestino Acciari 3 Michael Trepp 4 Ivan Geentjens 6 Roy Wils 6 Jochen Ludwig 6 Jorian Engelbrektsson 6 Wil Dutton 12 Robert Sutter 12 Julio Vicario Soriano 12 Craig Pullen 12 Krisztian Szalai 12 Sylvain Grévin 12 Archibald Lefèvre 12 Albert Nomden 12 Taco Wouters 17 Sébastien Puertas 17 Cayle George 21 Thomas van Clapdorp 21 John van der Wulp 21 Dirk Elzholz 21 Martijn van Aken 21 Edwin Nijs 27 Tom Vis 27 Paul Jongma 27 Olivier Renders 27 Martijn van Amsterdam 27 Levente Tregova 27 Jasmijn de Jong 27 Arjan Neet 27 Johan Småros 37 Martin Ayub 37 Jürgen Schmitz 37 Stanislas Chabior 37 Matt Vince 37 Greg Mott 37 Olli-Mikko Ojamies 37 Dirk Klaver 37 Gabriel Ortiz 37 Jules Reivers 37 Glenn Verhoosele 37 Bart Volman 37 Eko Elens 45 David Mainwaring 45 Heinz Baumann 45 Devis Pierantozzi 45 Pascal Leroy 48 Jonas Johansson 49 Nils de Kleine 49 Fred van den Bosch 57 Lieven Engelbeen 57 Jerome Constenoble 57 Cezary Glowala 57 Joel Wozniak 57 Cesar Dubon 57 Rob Breyne 57 Laurent Mahé 57 Thomas Doepelheuer 57 Jürgen Gärtner 57 Robert Lau 57 Alain Boulieu 57 Vincent Chardome 57 Frank Goetl 65 Sébastien Muller 65 Ollivier Francq 65 Evert Brochez 80 Wilbert der Kinderen 80 Philippe Bocquet 80 Vin Jauhal 80 Dina Fukson 80 Kirsten Adam 80 Jean Philippe Congnard 80 Helen de Haan-Verbeek 80 Matteo Filippin 80 Mark van der Gugten 80 Jonas Valström 80 Michel Rorive 80 Gerard Vos 80 Christoph Korrodi 80 Eric Buysen 80 Justin van Schooneveld 80 Jan Anders Nilsson 80 Barry Driessen 80 Ramon Richard 80 Roger Wijnands 80 Tom Loomans 80 Kevin Roelants 80 Benjamin Gräbeldinger 80 Adrian Barp 80 Laurence Boulieu 80 Jean Philippe Passarieu 80 Daniele Baldan 80 Ralf de Kleine 80 Ralph Beckers 95 Marc Steinmeier 109 Peter Blakemore 109 Aki Seuranen 109 Ergun Erdemir 109 Carlo Vijn 109 Kevin Sultana 109 Mattias Jeppson 109 Pontus Qvarfordh 109 Hinnerk Helbrecht 109 Bart Bartholomeus 109 Jasper van Embden 109 David Dutton 109 Florian Thomas 109 Bas van Embden 109 Didier Dujardin 109 Tobias Löfstedt 109 Marco Suvanto 109 Artur Natorski 109 Norbert Broman 109 Anthony Rorive 109 Daniela Oymann 109 Bjorn Brand 109 Kay Kuster 109 Magnus Lindström 109 Bas Vis 109 Fredrik Mellberg 109 Rob Overdijk 109 Kyoo Barbaix 124 Jim Lindsay 124 Steven van der Staaij 124 Alex Duin 131 Evelyne Desot 131 Neil Fellender 131 Tobias Wagemann 131 Karl Weber 131 Mario Kertels 131 Rafael Masedo 131 Morten Søbyskogen 131 Christophe Wozniak 131 Kelly Lembrechts 131 Norman Heikamp 131 Joeri Stroobants 138 Karin Weilenmann 138 Frank Wolters 138 Lars Buge 138 Carlos Javier Parra 142 Tom Andre Andersen 142 Sandra Søbyskogen 142 Gema Lopez Torralba So once again the Dutch Pinball Masters has proved itself to be one of Europe’s major tournaments with many of the top players. The match play format seems to be enjoyed by everyone who took part, giving a guaranteed number of games against different opponents on assorted machines. The increased field only resulted in one fewer game per group while allowing a third qualifying session to be fitted into Saturday’s schedule. Any rulings which were needed were made by Albert and Paul jointly and seemed to be fair to all players. This no doubt contributed to the overall good conduct by all the players, and the generally friendly and laid-back atmosphere in the building. The schedule of matches and the scoring system all seemed to work well, with only a short delay between recording scores on paper and them appearing in the spreadsheet on the projector screen. We liked the new Classics Tournament format. Limiting the number of games to ten made it much fairer for everyone and meant all the players got to play all their games in the time available. The only real issue was with the restricted space in the DPM tournament area. This was the same last year and at times is was impossible to get to your next machine due to spectators and fellow players blocking the way. It got pretty warm in the hall on Saturday, but opening the side loading doors helped keep temperatures down while also providing an alternative entrance/exit. The team at the bar provided swift, friendly service with a good selection of snacks, full meals and drinks at reasonable prices. Our only suggestion here is for a better beer choice than just Heineken when the Netherlands has so many great beers available. We’re sure Ad Jonker would have some good suggestions. We’re already looking forward to next year’s DPM and the chance to get just that little bit closer to the final.