Belles & Chimes Madison: A First-Time Winner in Middleton

Twenty-Nine Events In, Jo Poniatowski Wins Their First on the Tyrant’s Eye

Some players arrive at a first tournament win in a season or two. Jo Poniatowski got there the long way. Twenty-nine ranked events, two years in the sport, and a recent stretch that read 39th, 36th, 19th — the ordinary grind of a competitor who keeps showing up without much to show for it. On a humid, overcast Wednesday at the Kickback, all of that turned over at once.

Poniatowski entered the July 8 Belles & Chimes Madison night unranked among the room’s contenders at IFPA #19163, then played five rounds without ever finishing worse than second and closed out the whole thing on the newest machine on the floor. It was the kind of night that doesn’t announce itself until it’s over.

A Full Room in Middleton

The Kickback sits on Lisa Ln in Middleton, a quarter-operated bar that regulars will tell you is the best pinball stop in the greater Madison area — and the reviews back the boast, with clean, dialed-in machines, a craft-beer list worth lingering over, and enough room that a league night doesn’t crowd out a casual visitor. The floor runs 84 games deep, everything from a 1979 solid-state to machines fresh off the line, and the staff keep the lot of them playing true. It’s a good place to win something.

The Belles and Chimes Madison chapter drew 18 players, seven of them IFPA-ranked and eleven not, every one of them representing Wisconsin. Tiffany Han came in as the strongest number on paper at #4214; the field average sat down around #15738, which is to say this was a league night in the honest sense — a room where seeding tells you less than nerve does.

Five Rounds, Three Top Scores

Qualifying ran as group match play: four-player groups, points by finishing position, five rounds across the evening. Poniatowski’s round card came in at 1-1-2-2-1, and the tidier stat underneath it was this — a top score on three of the five machines they played. That’s not a hot streak so much as a steady one.

The round that mattered most for the story came last. On Star Wars (Pro), Steve Ritchie’s 2017 Stern build with its static, un-exploding Death Star glowing over the playfield, Poniatowski closed the qualifier with a 7-point group win in a tight 12-minute game. Chrissy Holguin took second at 5, and Donelle Sauby — the night’s most decorated entrant at IFPA #6953, seven years and 137 events into her career — landed third. That result sealed the top of the qualifier: Poniatowski first, Sauby second, Tamara McKinney third, and with it the No. 1 seed heading into the bracket.

The Bracket Reshuffles the Room

The finals took the top eight into a re-seeded group bracket — four to a group, top two advance, third and fourth go home — a format that keeps handing an edge to the well-seeded, which suited the top seed just fine.

Poniatowski’s semifinal ran on Ninja Eclipse, the First Edition boutique title out of Turner Pinball, designed and largely drawn by Brad Duke — the sort of small-shop machine you don’t see in every bar. It was over in four minutes: Poniatowski on top with the full four points, Sauby second on two, and both of them through to the final while McKinney and Mackenzie Reynolds bowed out.

The other semifinal belonged to Stacie Weis, who had only qualified fifth but plays like someone with more in reserve than her once-in-three-years win rate suggests. On Venom (LE) she took the group outright, Han a clear second behind her, and Kari Pfeffer and Shayna Weisnicht eliminated. Weis and Han shared two games across the whole tournament and Weis finished ahead in both — a quiet run that put her one machine from the title.

The Tyrant’s Eye Decides It

The four survivors settled it on Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye, Stern’s January 2025 LE with Brian Eddy on design, Vincent Proce’s art, and a Cris Velasco score — a machine that rewards patience, letting the ball settle on the shield to stage a clean look at the right ramp or left orbit rather than flailing at it. Under that pressure Poniatowski did what they’d done all night, taking the group with the full four points. Weis followed in second, Sauby third, Han fourth.

That last order carried a subplot. Sauby and Han have crossed paths at 24 shared tournaments, a rivalry Han had held by the slimmest of margins; the last time they’d met, back on June 3, a single spot separated them. This time Sauby finished ahead of Han in both of their shared games and again in the final standings — not a knockout, but the kind of steady narrowing that resets who’s chasing whom.

What Poniatowski Carries Out the Door

A first win is a small thing on a national ledger and a large one on a personal one. For Poniatowski, it snaps a career-long shutout — zero wins across the prior three years — and gives a season that had been all mid-pack finishes a result to build the rest of the year around. The Belles and Chimes calendar rolls on to its next stop, and for once Poniatowski walks in as someone who has closed one out. Twenty-nine events of showing up bought the thirtieth its meaning.

The final podium at the Kickback:

• Jo Poniatowski (IFPA #19163)
• Stacie Weis
• Donelle Sauby (IFPA #6953)