Welcome to Surprise
It takes a special kind of passion to play competitive pinball in 98-degree Arizona heat — luckily, the A/C at Player One Arcade was more reliable than an extra ball setting. On September 15, 2025, the barcade hosted the Player 1 Arcade 2025 S6 Side Tournament, a group matchplay battle that pulled in 32 players from across the region. Organizer Jim Smith oversaw the two-and-a-half-hour contest that tested flipper finesse, nudging instincts, and how many sours you can down before multiball vision sets in.
Player One Arcade has become a local pinball destination, and the Yelp chorus backs it up: a massive lineup of games, a friendly crowd, and murals in the bathrooms that might make you drain quick just to check out another stall. With a 4.6 rating on 200+ reviews, a Monday night league, and nights like this, it’s earned its rep as a desert pinball oasis.
The Arsenal of Machines
What’s a side tournament without a lineup that makes seasoned players smirk and newbies mutter, “I didn’t know pinball got this complicated”? Fourteen machines filled the floor, spanning Stern blockbusters, brand-new releases, and one beloved reboot from Dutch Pinball:
- JAWS (Pro) (2024): The chum bucket harpoon multiball is pure cinema. Fill the bucket, harpoon the fin, then cash in yellow shots — miss, and you’ve basically fed the shark an outlane snack.
- The Mandalorian (Pro) (2021): Mission stackers dream here. Tournament trick: hit Razor Crest three times before starting a scoop mission to supercharge your multiball.
- The Walking Dead (Pro) (2014): Grim audio, brutal drops, and despair baked right into the ruleset. Perfect practice for both mode progression and emotional resilience.
- Pirates of the Caribbean (2006): A mid-2000s Stern that still shoots smooth. Balanced, approachable, and older than some of the players flipping it.
- King Kong: Myth of Terror Island (Pro) (2025): Stern’s newest beast — all jungle ramps, captive balls, and one oversized gorilla toy roaring at your mistakes.
- Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye (Pro) (2025): Too fresh for the meta to exist. Most players were mapping strategies on the fly between plunges.
Add in Stranger Things Pro, Star Wars Premium, Avengers IQ Premium, and Rush Pro, and you’ve got a playlist that mixes the comfortable with the chaotic.
Early Matchplay: Sorting the Field
Pinball tournaments are where social awkwardness meets competitive fire: four strangers step up, shake hands, then immediately try to blow each other off the table.
Round 1 opened on a high note with Foo Fighters (LE) drawing four players who would spend much of the night tangled together: Zack “Zbinxx,” Michael Consalo, Gosnje, and Bradley Jackson. No prior grudge here, but the table turned into a proving ground for who could tame Dave Grohl’s ramps quickest. Early nerves showed, and while nobody punched their ticket to finals in this round, the tone was set — every group had the potential to feel like a mini-finals pod.
Round 2 delivered the first hint of narrative drama. On James Bond 007 (Premium), Cara Eisinger stepped into a group with Kiki Sanchez, Jeff Schad, and Justin Miller AZ. This was the same Bond where Cara had taken lumps in past league play against Jeff, so her steady showing here looked like a small but meaningful reversal. A round later she would see Jeremy Reiman — her near-equal from countless Player One league battles — but Bond was the table where her side tournament momentum really began.
Elsewhere in Round 2, Guardians of the Galaxy paired Mike McClure — the strongest ranked player in the field (#1529 IFPA) — against Diane Smith, the iron woman of Arizona pinball with nearly 400 events under her belt. Rank versus experience is always a juicy clash, and McClure managed to edge her out, reinforcing the numbers but never by much. For Diane, simply staying close against a player of his caliber kept her name in the conversation as pods shifted.
By the end of Round 2, the leaderboard was crystallizing. Jeremy Reiman had steadied his opening, Cara was playing sharper than her league form suggested, and McClure was lurking as expected. All of that converged in Round 3, when the draw dropped Cara, Jeremy, and Xris Rincon onto the brand-new King Kong: Myth of Terror Island. Suddenly, early positioning gave way to the night’s true spotlight showdown.
Spotlight Match: King Kong Stomps Into Competition
By Round 3, the pairings had already teased some rivalries, but the real spotlight landed on a newcomer to the tournament floor: King Kong: Myth of Terror Island (Pro). Released just this April, it was still the shiny new toy in Stern’s lineup, and few players had much experience on it. That made it the great equalizer — skill carried over, but muscle memory didn’t.
For Cara and Jeremy, this was hardly their first collision. In Player One league play, they’d traded wins back and forth, with Cara holding the slight edge in career finishes. Adding Xris into the mix made it a pod where any slip could cost a finals run.
On Kong, it was Cara who found her rhythm first, adjusting quickly to the jungle layout and grabbing the win. Jeremy couldn’t quite keep pace and settled into third, while Xris slotted into second. Amy, despite flashes of strong play, rounded out the group.
The highlight wasn’t just the result — it was the pin. One of the newest machines in competitive pinball became the proving ground where the eventual champion (Jeremy) and two other of the night’s top five (Cara and Xris) clashed head-to-head. Kong didn’t decide the trophy, but it marked the moment the tournament’s frontrunners revealed themselves.
Climbing to the Finals
By the end of the night, four players stood apart:
- Jeremy Reiman: Finally broke through with his first career win, a payoff after grinding through 47 events. Expect his résumé — and IFPA rank — to climb fast.
- Alicia Schad: Only six events into her career and already on the podium. “Up-and-comer” doesn’t even cover it.
- Cara Eisinger: Another top-3 finish, her 10th in the past three years. That consistency is no accident.
- Zac Webb: Just seven events played, with an average finish of 33rd, yet here he was in the finals. A stat line that’ll make spreadsheet nerds scratch their heads.
Behind them, there were stories, too. Kevin Erickson vaulted 15,000 IFPA ranks in a recent tournaments. Mike McClure, the highest seed, added another strong finish to his career totals. And Diane Smith reminded everyone why longevity matters, pushing through her 300+ events with no signs of slowing down.
The Quirks of Side Tournaments
Side events are pinball’s jazz sessions — loose, fast, improvisational. At Player One, the format meant variety: Bond one round, Foo Fighters the next, and suddenly you’re on a brand-new Stern with no idea how to start multiball. Plenty of rounds began with whispered questions between competitors: “So… how do you start this mode?” followed by a quick plunge and a “yeah, I knew that.”
Lessons from the Bride
No tournament side or otherwise is complete without a cameo from yours truly, Bride of Pin·Bot 2.0. And unlike the top pintips rumor mill of “shoot the left ramp, always,” I’m here to give you a few more details for how to win on, well, me.
The core goal? Advance the Face Upgrades as quickly as possible. Every ramp and left orbit gets you closer to the all-important Shoot for the Stars wizard mode, the place where points pour like quarters from a change machine. Don’t waste time dabbling—feed that left ramp consistently, and you’ll see my eyes light up in more ways than one.
Once you’ve got the modes rolling, keep your eyes peeled for Big Bang. This little gem clears the entire playfield of lit shots in one satisfying explosion of points. And if you’re clever enough to stack it with Heartbeat Multiball or Metamorphosis Multiball, well, let’s just say your opponents will be shaking their heads while you casually rake in jackpots.
The right flipper is your best friend here—live catch, control, and set up that ramp over and over again. Smooth, steady shots win the day. Panic-flipping just gets you bricking and embarrassed.
So next time you face one of me in a tournament, remember: the left ramp isn’t just “the shot”—it’s your golden escalator to multiball stacks, Big Bang bombs, and the wizardry of Shoot for the Stars. Treat me right, and I’ll treat you better than Kong ever will.
Surprise’s Second Stage
Think of the side tournament as the second stage at a music festival: maybe not the headliner, but plenty of sets worth sticking around for. Players like Diane Smith and Mike McClure flexed their experience, newcomers made names for themselves, and Stern’s newest titles got put through their competitive paces. It was a reminder that pinball thrives in every bracket, not just the one with the big trophy. The main event? That’s where the spotlight really burned, and we’ll cover it soon.