Gas station sandwiches, parking lot mixed drinks, and a whole lotta pinball: Observations from the D82 Tournament Series
By Rick Brewster
Pinball’s a-poppin'. Peep those beautiful playfields and translites.
District 82, a compound with 110 pristine machines covering every era, has quickly found its way into being both a recreational and competitive pinball destination. Sure, it’s tucked away from major metropolitan areas, but who cares? It’s a spot worth visiting regardless of your skill level in pinball. (No, they’re not paying me. It’s just a cool fucking place.) It’s quickly cemented itself as the tournament destination in the US after the pandemic made casualties of both PAPA & Pinburgh. (RIP, for real. Pour one out. This still makes me legitimately sad.)
These super series happen once every couple of months - there are two official Super Series in April and October (6 tournaments), and lesser-but-still-kinda-super series that are sprinkled in between
Side note - Erik, give these a name please! I never know what to call the in-between series, other than a mouthful of kinda-super-but-not-officially-super super series. (editor’s note: Really got a way with words there, Rick.) These series attract pinball players from all over the world and all kindsa skill levels. From newbs to, well, legends. You show up, you get a crack at the best. And if you don’t play well enough to get a legitimate crack at the best, you still get to play a lot of competitive pinball, and who doesn’t like that?
Allow me to share some #PinballShowerThoughts from the most recent series, the Triple Flip Open, held June 3rd-5th, 2022.
Bow down to our governing overlords, the IFPA. Or be suppressed.
There are a whole bunch of approaches to competitive pinball.
Yeah, yeah, this could be said about anywhere, but D82 is a place where you can truly be your pinball self and let your freak flag fly. As for me and probably most other folks who read Nudge, well, we don’t really give a fuck about what people think when you’re playing pinball - whether you’re looping a game at a brewery for a few hours gunning for a high score, shamelessly exploiting the shit out of games during your league, whatever.
You’re probably not going to show up to a weekly event with fingerless gloves. (Editor’s note: hypothetically I’m into fingerless gloves. I wear goggles in pickup basketball.) You’re likely not gonna be doing stretches or meditation between rounds. There’s a certain social limit outside of dedicated pinball facilities that most don’t seem to cross. (And if you do, I salute you.) But, at D82, you’re surrounded by your people. No one’s gonna think anything of you when you show up with a coin fanny or a towel hanging out of your pocket for wiping games down before your ball. That also means that no one’s gonna think any less of you if you show up and crack a PBR as Erik is sounding the 9AM tournament buzzer.
It’s pinball. This is a place where you are totally free to do your thing, whatever slothful, disgusting, or strange thing that might be. As long as you aren’t screaming at other players, or walking around in zombie mode tripping over your own feet, go nuts.
Believe it or not, this is what peak pinball performance looks like.
WPPR Farms are here, and they’re here to stay.
What’s a WPPR Farm, you ask? Other than the subject of some crudely created memes, a WPPR Farm is a single location that hosts multiple tournaments in a short timeframe. This provides players with the opportunity to earn significantly more IFPA ranking points (called WPPRs = world pinball player ranking). The more WPPRs you have that count toward your top 20 events over the past 3 years, the higher your world ranking is. (Editor’s note: Nerds. NERDSSSSS) Other examples of WPPR Farms outside of D82 include the Delaware Pinball Collective in the US, and Borås Pinball, Bulls & Balls Fulda, and Lund Pinball Academy in Europe.
You think D82 is messing around with their game setups? They aren’t. It’s not easy to play here.
Are WPPR Farms a good or a bad thing?
Let’s break it down.
The good: more bang for your buck with tournaments. Let’s say you decide to go to Expo but you don’t qualify. You might squeak out a couple of points, and you also might have a crack at a Classics tournament to salvage your tournament weekend. Show up to D82? A guaranteed 3-6 tournaments, played in full, depending on just how super that particular series is. If your priority is tournament play, and both Expo and a D82 super weekend cost about the same? Easy choice.
And if your priority is WPPRs, it’s a no-brainer. You have an opportunity to compete against some of the best pinball players in the world - not once, but multiple times in a short timespan! Roughly 30 of the world’s top 100 players are present in any given series. What better opportunity do you have to compete than that?
The bad. There’s plenty of back and forth on pinball forums, but I haven’t been able to find an argument against WPPR Farms that holds any water. Complaints usually boil down to, I’m not there, so I don’t like the points other players are getting. (Or, just that the IFPA and all of its ranking methods stink. There sure seem to be a lot of personal vendettas against the Sharpe bros out there.)
Yeah, it sucks if you can’t make it to the couple farms on your continent to harvest some points, but you can say that about any tournament. Don’t be that guy, you sound like a dick. Let’s go the other way! Give us more WPPR Farms! Let’s be thankful for the ones that exist. Like specifically, thank you to Erik Thoren and everyone involved with D82. Their dedication is literal insanity: this doesn’t happen without the countless hours they put in, and the insufficient sleep Erik gets during these tournament series. It’s a recipe for a breakdown, if he didn’t love pinball so damn much.
The most important piece of a D82 series: the dollar games post-tournament.
Be ready. The bathroom situation takes up more mental energy than you’d think.
This is not a knock on the venue. Yes, there ARE enough bathrooms for the full capacity in attendance at D82. This was also true when I worked in an office setting. However, what works in theory, doesn’t always bear out in practice. This, combined with finding a place to sit and relax in between rounds, ends up requiring more brain power than you might anticipate. If all you wanna do is relax and take care of yourself after getting house ball after house ball it’s gonna be hard. Sometimes, your zen is nowhere to be found.
Here’s the lowdown on where to shit:
If you want to use the one indoor, single-use bathroom. Either keep making loops and hope it’s open (rare after about the midway point of a matchplay round), or stand waiting outside and deal with the shame of everyone knowing you want to poop. Once you’re in, there is NO PEACE. Be prepared for someone to jiggle the handle trying to get in every 45 seconds or so. Put some earbuds in and hope for the best.
If you want to use one of the three porta-johns out back. The best option for number one. Your funeral for number two.
If you want to hoof it to the Kwik Trip - It’s approximately 1100 feet away, per Google Maps. You best be done early, and power walking if you’re going in between rounds, though. Bonus: you get a moment of real Wisconsin culture.
If you want to hope your body cooperates before you leave your lodging for the day. Godspeed!
Party central, as indicated by the three large traffic barrels and an Escape Room Wisconsin sign
De Pere, Wisconsin has… somehow become the epicenter of competitive pinball in the country?
The Green Bay, Wisconsin metropolitan area is a pretty funny place to be a tournament hotspot. It’s a city with an economy built around 8 NFL weekends a year.If you get an Airbnb, there’s a pretty good chance it’s going to be Packers themed. Erik doesn’t schedule his fall events until the Packers schedule is released, because it’s just not possible to deal with the lodging scarcity. The metro area is… not that big.
You know how Packers players love to not live in Green Bay during the offseason? (Editor’s Note: Rick how dare you. This is such Vikings trash. Move on. This is the greatest franchise in the history of sport and the only publicly owned team in the NFL.) Look, I’m not hating - I’m a Midwesterner from a small town, I get it - but Green Bay is no Las Vegas. (Sorry, Davante Adams enthusiasts.)
There IS a casino though. Gambling once you get done with your 15 hours of tournament play is the exact sort of degenerate activity that both screams of a cry for help, but also just a great weekend. Hey, we’re all degenerates in some way.
But as Mr. Doc Monday likes to say, be well, please. De Pere, Wisconsin (population 25,410 via the 2020 census) is even smaller. I remember being pretty surprised the first time I pulled up. I knew it was gonna be a quiet spot, but not as quiet and isolated as it is. But, it’s pretty nice to take a walk and be around nothing and have absolutely no one after you take a fourth on Palooka.
The logistics of tournament players getting to De Pere that aren’t within a reasonable driving distance seem pretty frustrating. Your options are to fly into Chicago, rent a car, and drive 200 miles north - or, hope to find a connecting flight into Green Bay or Appleton (and still maybe have to rent a car). You’re looking at at least a few hundred bucks in travel expenses and lodging, before tournament entry, food/drink, and all that jazz. I guess if you’re good enough, you bank on finishing in the top 8 and getting a check or two to help offset the costs. In any case, I respect the shit out of anyone who regularly makes this trek that is not within a reasonable driving distance.
Luke is very likely setting up for a tap pass here, ready to make Dalton Ely’s dreams come true.
If you didn’t bring food, sure hope you like Jamaican food and gas station sandwiches.
I love the D82 business model. Pay money, play unlimited pinball. Unlike the vast majority of pinball locations, D82 makes no money on food/drink or coin drops. As a result, it’s pretty funny that the keys for their games are just kept hanging right under the games. It makes sense, but it still feels kinda wrong.
There’s no pressure to buy $7 tap beers, a pizza log appetizer platter, or some other bar food monstrosity. You know, the kind you don’t really want to buy but you do anyway because you need to eat and you’re already there. (Side note: the existence of pizza logs was indeed confirmed and sampled at an offsite bar in Green Bay. 4 out of 10.)
The good news is that you can bring in your own food, get something delivered, mix up some drinks in the parking lot, or bring in a case of brews to the BYOB fridge. There’s a small drink tax in that a beer or three of yours may go missing from said fridge (the later in the evening, the higher the tax), but them’s the breaks.
A pretty accurate depiction of D82 around midnight during a tournament series.
It’s a wonderful model and a breath of fresh air compared to other pinball venues. That being said - if you didn’t plan ahead, your options are to hope the Jamaican food truck is present and open out the front door. (8 out of 10. Pretty dang good. Best food I’ve eaten out of styrofoam with plastic utensils in a long time. Jerk chicken and plantains, baby!)
Or, again, Kwik Trip. I could write a whole article about how fucking awesome Kwik Trip is. In the world of gas stations, it is truly top tier. That being said, it’s still a gas station, and your best option for quick sustenance is a microwaved sandwich. Maybe you throw in a banana at the checkout. Whatever it takes to make yourself feel better. No matter what, you’ll need some calories to stop taking fourths on Palooka.
The lesson here is, plan ahead and bring a cooler with your own food and drinks. Scrambling to order food between rounds isn’t fun. Be prepared. See you at the next one.
