Belgian Pinball Championship 2007

BFK logo Together with the organiser of the Collector Fantasies show we organised the Belgian Pinball Championship 2007. Contrary to the BPO 2004 that we organised together with the dutch pinball organisation and to which only DPO members could participate, this championship was open for every belgian.
 

The competition got a lot of attention in the media, here you find an overview of newspapers and even television programs (third item on the national news of sunday evening !) that talked about us.

The tournament setup was simple. Each player could qualify on saturday or sunday (until 3pm) and for that they had to play 1 game (3 ball setup) on each of the six machines. These pinball machines were:

  • Kiss
  • Junk Yard
  • Diner
  • Ripleys Believe it or not
  • Grand Prix
  • 4 Million BC

BPC

BPC

We also had a Taxi and Fireball as backups, and a secret pinball machine that was wrapped up to only play the final on. That game was delivered on friday night by the show organiser and stayed wrapped up until sunday afternoon.

BPC

Het waren kasten van verschillende types, dat was een bewuste keuze. As you can see these are different types of pinball machines. The organisor of the show wanted to have at least one electro-mechaniscal (4MBC), one numeric (Kiss) and an alpha-numeric (Diner) machine, as a pinball champion has to be able to play on these older games too. We also provided some input about what games we preferred in the competition. No games on which good players could play for hours, so no Pirates of the Caribbean, and if possible games that were less known. Contrary to foreign competition we did not want a row of the known Williams games that everyone has at home.
We got a lot of positive reactions to our selection of games. Most people liked to play on the older games and even serious players that only play on new games did on pretty well on the older machines too.

Depending on the score on each machine, points were awarded and the best eight players could play the semi final on sunday afternoon.

BPC organisation

The amount of points that could be won on each machine depended on the number of players that entered the competition. Best player on a machine would get the number of competitors as points, next had 1 point less, and so on until the last player received 1 point for that machine.

BPC

This way of ranking cause for a lot of excitement on sunday afternoon. Each time a new player entered the tournament, more points could be won but small changes (up and down) in the positions were possible for each of the players.

BPC

Saturday already 20 players qualified and Kevin Roelants held first position.

BPC

BPC

Most of the 'better' players only showed up on sunday.
Although 48 players had pre-registered for the competition, not everyone showed up. Some visitors of the show did enter also the competition. Finally we ended with 42 players.
Here you see the final result of qualifications:

Naam Kiss PT Junk Yard PT Diner PT Ripleys PT Grand Prix PT 4 MBC PT Total
Baeyens Bart 122440 30 5794650 26 15932320 42 13845310 35 25731070 40 26850 37 210
Deturck David 48940 8 28615540 42 3098790 31 16832320 38 32000000 41 36200 41 201
Bostyn Andy 92900 24 20849290 40 9947940 40 14095730 36 5387100 15 26110 36 191
Baelen Edwin 82050 23 5702260 25 6003060 36 10742770 30 12505780 34 31180 39 187
De Koninck Joeri 167290 37 2595500 13 9421940 39 21360970 39 6588080 19 19920 28 175
Engelbeen Lieven 239750 41 8072170 33 3360180 32 2690860 8 5554550 16 44440 42 172
Quintijn Steven 143370 33 24097650 41 521530 4 26819340 41 5189740 14 21650 33 166
Roelants Kevin 77040 20 10947100 37 4862100 34 6525740 26 3239010 10 22660 35 162
Croes Anthony 262120 42 2940450 17 2831460 28 4341170 15 13541310 35 15520 21 158
De Kroes Werner 146260 34 4137540 22 1605270 22 9090970 29 5698990 17 21600 32 156
Brochez Evert 73020 19 12907770 38 1969540 23 3746810 11 11702640 32 20070 30 153
Verhoosele Glenn 116210 29 5840130 27 1238230 16 15623340 37 11166130 30 8730 11 150
Buysen Eric 69570 18 3928510 21 5774450 35 6898290 27 10287880 27 14540 19 147
Geneyn Tom 234680 40 6378410 29 1514040 20 2399000 6 19666230 39 10170 13 147
Keuppens Bart 94840 25 9476400 36 3095990 30 11882180 32 3115630 8 10520 15 146
Verleyen Dennis 183330 38 2831130 16 12800970 41 1146720 1 3649630 11 29430 38 145
Van Tubergen Harry 69440 17 5234950 24 957170 12 13836140 34 10452920 28 15780 24 139
Van Wonterghem Pascal 68030 15 13832710 39 6178010 37 8573850 28 1442780 2 12270 17 138
Vinckier Wouter 160200 36 1499690 5 369500 1 10916350 31 8660340 25 22070 34 132
Geleyn Kurt 62570 12 6791750 30 3425810 33 6062880 23 1700150 4 20010 29 131
Deboosere Jos 156410 35 3056970 19 7503210 38 2357260 5 10469480 29 5810 4 130
Van den Bergh Peter 40310 5 2750490 15 773530 8 47434080 42 6615440 20 32510 40 130
De Charleroy Peter 68590 16 7709000 32 2845920 29 2340140 4 7442750 21 17800 27 129
Verhoosele Dimitri 100500 26 6097340 28 754560 7 4507700 16 37066750 42 7630 9 128
Van Clapdorp Kris 125550 31 1143880 3 1081080 13 6329400 25 8615570 24 20530 31 127
Dubus Philippe 200030 39 2729580 14 483020 3 5661630 22 8505940 23 15550 23 124
Oversteyns Michel 42780 7 9056390 34 413080 2 6163080 24 11941720 33 8450 10 110
Vuylsteker Wim 108960 28 2404500 11 900540 10 12075650 33 8327470 22 6020 5 109
Verhe Aeneas 65180 14 2280940 10 2776860 27 26216050 40 3009470 7 6640 7 105
Janssens Alain 79020 22 4512120 23 929210 11 4297840 14 11684210 31 5200 3 104
De Block Kristof 62060 11 2514590 12 2388640 26 5156090 20 8852020 26 6530 6 101
Desmet Bram 31730 4 1923480 9 1401430 18 5130180 19 15194470 37 10510 14 101
Jacobs Cedric 77670 21 1350240 4 1523620 21 3894540 13 4183590 12 17640 26 97
Kennes Filip 41410 6 3630950 20 2032320 24 4833380 18 1350550 1 15550 23 92
Lenaerts Frank 133080 32 868030 2 1167220 15 1894520 3 13931740 36 3690 1 89
Proot Stefan 23820 3 7074850 31 1299040 17 3193670 10 6332240 18 7100 8 87
De Ruyter Michel 52880 10 9242420 35 1108530 14 1803310 2 3157750 9 11540 16 86
Winkeler Ben 20420 1 1760860 8 803570 9 2793910 9 19506330 38 14410 18 83
Brochez Ronny 103060 27 1698360 6 594030 5 5318950 21 1447550 3 8820 12 74
Jacobs Evlyn 64180 13 2977890 18 600000 6 2588900 7 2400460 5 16240 25 74
Vermeulen Wim 49860 9 571080 1 2199340 25 3765580 12 2557070 6 14710 20 73
Van Schil Isabel 20950 2 1754420 7 1434780 19 4717590 17 5040020 13 4240 2 60

As said the best 8 players continued to the semi finals. There were some surprises. Although everyone who qualified was a good player, some players could not qualify (like the previous belgian champion).

BPC

BPC trophy

Time to start the semi finals. These were played at the same time on a Ripleys Believe it or not and a Grand Prix pinball machine. Both were set on 4 pinballs. The other machines were set aside to make room, and the players draw numbers to decide on what machine they would play.

BPC Grand prix pinball
Most players didn't know Grand Prix well, so they took their time to study the playfield and rule card.
Left Andy, right David.

BPC
With two dozen viewers the semifinals started..

BPC

BPC
Steven Quintijn in action.

BPC
Andy and Edwin.

Results semi final on Ripleys:
Lieven Engelbeen : 28.371.120
Kevin Roelants : 11.946.850
Joeri De Koninck : 10.172.810
Steven Quintijn : 5.564.010
Each player did about the same. At the end of the third pinball, three players had scores 8 million. Lieven started as first with his 4th pinball and managed to start multiball twice. This resulted in a very nice increase of his score. Kevin also had a good multiball game.

Semi final on Grand Prix:
Edwin Baelen : 17.651.550
Bart Baeyens: 13.073.840
Andy Bostijn : 6.665.560
David Deturck : 3.367.920
Surprise here was the loss of David. During qualifying he was able to set a very high score on this game, but during this semi final he lost most of the pinballs very fast..

Then it was time to unwrap the secret pinball machine on which the final would be played. Unfortunately Family Guy did not arrive on time, so there had to be played on World Poker Tour. None of the finalists had ever played on this pinball machine. The machine was set to five pinballs, and each of the players could play 1 ball to get at least a bit of a feeling how the machine played. After this the tilt was set less responsive and on three tilt warnings.

BPC Bart Baeyens
Bart Baeyens

BPC Lieven Engelbeen
Lieven Engelbeen

BPC Kevin Roelants
Kevin Roelants

BPC Edwin Baelen
Edwin Baelen

Contrary to the semi final Lieven didn't play good. Half way through the game it became clear the battle for the title would be between Bart and Edwin. During the second to last pinball something also became clear to the organisation... Suddenly 'extra ball lit' appeared on the display of some.. but it was not sure if extra balls had been disabled ! Oops..
As the game had been wrapped up all weekend, only just before the start of the championship it was quickly checked and this was forgotten.
The championship went very smooth for the whole weekend but this one mistake could become critical for the final round !
So with the players there was agreed to continue the game, but an extra ball could not be played.

Bart used his last pinball to increase his score to 30.5 million points.
Kevin and Lieven couldn't come near.. so everyone waited in tension until Edwin had played his last pinball !
That one ended with 27 million points and some change.. But what we feared had happened, he had been able to get an extra ball. The extra ball was shot onto the playfield, let drain.. shot again by the ballsaver.. but even with the extra points this earned him, his score was just a little bit below that of Bart ! Final over, and the winner with the most points is Bart Baeyens !

Final on World Poker Tour:
Bart Baeyens: 30.550.630
Edwin Baelen : 27.000.000
Kevin Roelants : 13.876.310
Lieven Engelbeen : 5.717.740

BPC Bart Baeyens
Bart got the trophees and can call himself Belgian Pinball Champion 2007.

BPC Bart Baeyens
He was immediately interviewed on television.

BPC Edwin Baelen
Second place was for Edwin Baelen.

BPC Kevin Roelants
Third place was for Kevin Roelants.

BPC Lieven Engelbeen
Fourth was Lieven Engelbeen.

Here are some pictures of the Collector Fantasies show itself:

Pump
Peter Smets demonstrates a Pump It Up dance arcade game.

collector show

collector show

Jukeboxes and neons

Jukeboxes and neons

Star Wars Episode One
Belgian Star Wars fanclub Teekay 421 also had a very nice booth.

Jukeboxes

Lethal Weapon, Corvette
Some of the pinball machines for sale at the show.

Bagatelle custom pinball
Henk De Jager had brought again some of his custom pinball machines.

Thanks to Kris and Isabel, Luk and Stefan for their photographs.