TIF Italian Pinball Championship 2009

Flippers.be goes international :-) We visited the TIF Italian Pinball Championship that was held on June 1 and 2 in Cesano Maderno, near Milano. More information about this tournament can be found at www.giocoflipper.it and it was organised by Fede of Pinball Restore.

The address we had was just a street name in the village, Piazza.. which means square. No house number. Weird.. we didn't know what to expect when we drove towards this place.. would we find it ? What to expect, a large hall on this place like with most pinball tournaments ?
No, not at all.. the center square of the town was closed off because of a street festival.. and right on the square itself was the tournament. Yes, you read that correct, in open air.

Piazza Cesano Maderno
The Piazza where the tournament was held..

Indiana Jones pinball machine in sun
All games were set up underneath party tents, using extra covers to shield off the sun as much as possible to reduce reflections in the playfield glass. Pinball owners in Italy mustn't be afraid of fading pinball cabinets..

TV interview
Local and national television crews showed up. Not bad for the first time the tournament was organised, and hopefully next year more people will join because they saw it. See the movie on youtube.

Albert Medaillon of www.pinball-led.com/
Albert Medaillon of pinball-led.com was selling his led kits, pinball neon clocks and more..

trophys
The trophys that could be won.. 'Pinball Specialist', 'Master of Pinball' and the winner became 'GOD of Pinball'. Impressive titles.. sounds better than #3, #2 and 1st place.

medieval madness cactus canyon monster bash
Before the competition started people could already play the games.

pinbal players

electro-mechanical games

The competition finally started around 3.30 pm. All players, 18 in total (some had registered but didn't show up, others already left) were divided in groups of 4 and a referee was dedicated to each group. The setup of the competition was quite simple: everyone played one game on each game. 100 points were for the highest score, 95 for second position, and so on. The player with the highest number of points overall became champion. Most players were from Italy but some came from Germany and even from Poland.
Games to play for points were:

  • Red Show
  • Super Sonic
  • Moon Flight
  • Lucky Strike
  • Monster Bash
  • Cactus Canyon
  • Medieval Madness
  • Tales from the Arabian Night
  • Champion Pub
  • Indiana Jones
  • Street Fighter II

Red Show em

carry streetfighter
Around 8pm everyone was finished playing..

final results

Top 3 players with trophy
And around 8.30 prizes were awarded. Here are the 3 winners with the organisers of the competition on the left.

All players
Group picture of participants (some had already left).

In the end it was quite a nice tournament. We hope next year more people will visit it..

Italian TV news clip about this tournament.