Daniel Albeyta Owns the Floor at the PBJ Monthly
Daniel Albeyta arrived at Pinball Jones on July 5th and simply never let up. The Fort Collins local, currently sitting at IFPA 973 after a year of steady rating gains, topped the field on most machines he played throughout the day. By the time the brackets resolved, Albeyta had secured first place in a decisive fashion.
Escaping the Heat on Linden Street
While it was 95°F and clear outside, the 17 competitors settled into the cool, subterranean nostalgia of PBJ. Patrons frequently point out the underground spot’s well-kept machines and enthusiastic staff, making it a reliable hub for local competitive play. The qualifier field featured three players in the national top 1000 and two of Colorado’s state top 10, bringing an average NACS state rank of 174.
Early on, Nick Firmani found his footing on Stern’s 2021 Godzilla (Pro). He put up a 1,000,000,000-point game that stood as the widest scoring margin of any machine in the phase. Elliott Layne, the top seed and state’s 11th-ranked player, took second in that specific group with 187,000,000. Competitors looking to push their scores on Godzilla should remember that the Ally, Anguirus, allows the action button to act as a one-time add-a-ball during any Multiball.
Down the line, Caleb Gibney bested Aidan Lancaster and Levi Fels on Bally’s 1994 World Cup Soccer. Their Round 4 matchup wrapped in 21 minutes, with Gibney securing the 7 points. Players looking to maximize their score on World Cup Soccer should note that hitting the Extra Ball button once per multiball will relight the jackpot. In Round 1, Jerry Valentine started his day strong on The Big Lebowski, securing 7 points with a 1,500,000 scoreline over Firmani.
Fellows Breaks the Deadlock
The middle rounds saw ongoing local contests shift. Nolan Fellows came into the day deadlocked in a nine-tournament rivalry with organizer Paul Kardell, but Fellows tipped the scales to finish ahead this time. Meanwhile, Jerry Valentine managed to claw back some ground against Levi Fels, tightening up the results across their seven shared events. Valentine, visiting from Billings, Montana, has seen his rating trend upward over the past year to hit the IFPA 1000 mark. Kardell also found himself extending a long-running, 17-tournament rivalry against Aidan Lancaster, as Kardell finished ahead more often across the afternoon.
The qualifying phase culminated with a heavy-hitting Round 8 pairing on Stern’s Deadpool (Pro). Albeyta secured the win in the 16-minute match, leaving Matt Cole in second, Valentine in third, and Kardell in fourth. For those looking to keep the sword play going, completing the D-E-A-D drop targets will relight the battle on this machine. That Deadpool win was a microcosm of Albeyta’s afternoon, as he put up the highest score on six of the eight machines he drew in the opening stage.
Clock Management on Funhouse
The field narrowed to eight players for the evening finals. Head-to-head performance became the priority in the group bracket format, where the top two in each group advance and the bottom two are eliminated. The semifinals produced the longest game of the tournament: an 88-minute four-player bout on Williams’s 1990 classic, Funhouse. Albeyta emerged with 19,000,000, outpacing Layne’s 10,000,000 and Cole’s 4,200,000. For competitors facing Rudy in the future, remember that shots advance the clock to 11:30; from there, locking two balls and shooting the mouth starts multiball, where the trapdoor awards the jackpot.
Not all semifinal matches took quite that long, though Fels did grind out a 52-minute victory over Valentine, Fellows, and Kardell on Fish Tales. Players stepping up to Fish Tales can build massive points if they lock balls in Caster’s Club on the right side, then during multiball put a ball back in Caster’s Club to light the jackpot on the left orbit. Layne, an eight-year veteran bringing the momentum of three consecutive top-three finishes into this event, continued to push through the bracket alongside Valentine and Albeyta.
A Runaway on Isla Nublar
Albeyta’s momentum carried straight into the decisive games. His dominance was punctuated during a semifinal game on Jurassic Park (Pro). He posted 511,000,000 points, creating the widest scoring gap on any machine during the finals. Firmani took second in the group with 77,000,000, while Cole and Layne rounded out the four-player match. If you want to chase a half-billion points on this table, keep shooting the raptor cage or gate to eventually start a 3-ball multiball, then hit both ramps and all CHAOS letters to add another three balls and light super jackpots.
In total, Albeyta put up the top score on four of his six finals machines. Combined with his qualifying run, he controlled the tempo of the event from the afternoon groups to the final bracket.
Tournament Final:
- 1st: Daniel Albeyta
- 2nd: Jerry Valentine
- 3rd: Elliott Layne
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