Venue guides
3rd Lair: twelve classics in the back of a skatepark
The most committed classic bank in the metro, nothing on it built after 1986, and a Sunday monthly where a field of eight plays everything twice.
·4 min read·Tilt Stats
Blogpage 9
Tournament strategy, the numbers behind competitive pinball, and what is new on Tilt Stats.
Strategy
Before you plunge: everything a pinball machine page can tell you
Upset rate, average game length, who runs the game and who it eats, high scores from four different sources, rulesheets and tutorial videos. A tour of what is on a machine page and how to use it in the two minutes before your game starts.
·6 min read·Tilt Stats
Venue guides
Stray Dog: eight machines on Hennepin and the Alley Cat series
The newest room in the record. Nine tournaments in four months, 60 different players through the door, and a Saturday target match play that feeds a bracket the same afternoon.
·3 min read·Tilt Stats
Tournament recaps
Sixty-five players, thirteen machines: Broken Clock runs the tightest room on the list
Every other tournament in this top ten spread itself across forty machines or more. Broken Clock put sixty-five players through thirteen, which meant you played the same games over and over against people who were getting better at them in real time.
·5 min read·Tilt Stats
Site news
How to follow a pinball tournament live
Live standings, the round-by-round view, brackets, the finals cut line, and a printable card that gets the room to the page. What happens on a tournament page while the event is running.
·4 min read·Tilt Stats
Venue guides
Full Tilt Tavern: the first-Wednesday womxn's night, one year in
Twenty events, one director, and a monthly that has not missed since October 2025. A small room doing the unglamorous work of getting new players their first IFPA points.
·3 min read·Tilt Stats
Venue guides
Flaherty's Arden Bowl: a best-game Friday and a bowling trophy
Eighteen events in a year, most of them best game, most of them starting at half past three on a Friday afternoon. The thinnest data set of any active room, and one of the more interesting ones.
·3 min read·Tilt Stats
Venue guides
Shipyard Brewing Company: the one-night venue
One tournament, four players, two games, and a name that explains itself. What happens when a travelling player runs an event in a bar that has never hosted one.
·3 min read·Tilt Stats
Tournament recaps
Sam and Jared's farewell party: fifty-seven people show up to say goodbye
A Saturday-night send-off for two players leaving town turned into the ninth-biggest tournament in the Minnesota data. Eric Fryc won eleven of thirteen, Luke Nahorniak went out eighth, and two brothers played the only tracked tournament of their lives.
·5 min read·Tilt Stats