Utah pinballers have a flipping good time with upcoming state championships

SALT LAKE CITY — Endurance, grit, determination, quick calculations, split-second decisions and competitive spirits were at all time highs during a pinball tournament at Kiitos Brewing Tuesday night.

Tuesday's tournament was the final one before Saturday's Utah State Pinball Championship that will also be held at Kiitos Brewing, 608 W. 700 South. After dozens of tournaments over the last few months, the top 24 players were picked to compete for the chance to go to the national championships.

A women's only championship will be on Sunday in South Jordan at Holiday Inn, 10499 S. Jordan Gateway. Simultaneously across the country, state championships will be held in every state and region this weekend to determine the winners who will compete in Chicago for the International Flipper Pinball Association's North American Pinball Championship.

Dan Newman, the fourth-seeded player who will be competing Saturday, can't believe how much the sport has grown in the state. More than a decade ago, he participated in a pinball tournament for a fundraiser and had a blast.

"It was the first pinball tournament Utah had ever had. ... After that I was like 'Man, that sure was fun. I wish there was more.' But there wasn't. Utah had no pinball tournaments, so we kinda made a plan and started Salt Lake Area Pinballers," he said.

He and his buddies went around recruiting people one-by-one to start a pinball league. It took a few months to get to 16 people, but the Salt Lake Area Pinballers were determined and started hosting tournaments. The group even participated at Salt Lake Gaming Con for several years, bringing a whopping 100 pinball machines to the expo, which was not an easy endeavor, Newman said.

The interest in pinball has only grown in Utah. The Salt Lake Area Pinballers have more than 700 people in their Facebook group, and last year they had more than 500 competitors participate in over 140 tournaments throughout the year.

"It's been just fantastic. For years ... if I wasn't putting something on, there wasn't anything happening. Now I don't really have to do anything. I get to go and compete and have fun and other people have picked up the mantle and are advancing it, which is awesome," Newman said.

Newman said it has been fulfilling seeing so many people join in on something he worked hard to develop. He's also been impressed at how much the women's league has grown to where it has its own state tournament.

"I never thought we'd see the day. ... It took a long time before we had many women, it was a lot of just the same middle-aged guys," he joked.

The Salt Lake Area Pinballers is now made up of people of all ages, from teenagers to senior citizens.

"Pinball is kind of multigenerational," he said, adding that the machines have been available for almost 100 years.

Most of the top players are starting to skew to the younger competitors, he added, as they have more endurance to play for several hours straight. Tournaments can last for hours on end, with the potential of a single game to last more than an hour.

Newman won the Utah State Championships in 2020. When he attended the North American championships that year, he said it started at 9 a.m. and a winner wasn't declared until 4 a.m. the next day.

Playing long pinball tournaments takes immense endurance, he said. "You wouldn't think endurance and pinball would be put in the same sentence very often," he said with a laugh.

Newman loves how the game is fun, but it also takes a lot of skill to be thinking steps ahead, calculating angles, utilizing precise timing and researching each machine to fully take advantage of the machine's unique rules. He bought his first pinball machine 14 years ago, but now he has about 30 of them.

"I didn't think I'd own any pinball machines because they're expensive, but pinball finds a way," he said.

One of the top pinball players in the world, Eric Stone, used to live in Utah and was in the same bowling league as Newman. Stone went on to win the North America and a world championship.

Because Utah has more than 100 tournaments a year with at least 400 unique players, it's considered a "super state" for the International Flipper Pinball Association. This means the state has 24 players compete for the championships rather than the typical 16.

The top 24 in Utah will compete bracket-style with rounds of best four out of seven games. The pinball machines are split up into older games (1950-1980), mid-age games (1980-2000) and modern games (2000 to present.)

While it's usually the same handful of people who clinch the top spots, any day it could change with a new player, Newman said.

"You use two fingers and two buttons, and that's it. It's a great thing because people of all athleticism — men can play with women, and it's all an even playing field. In our top 24, we have two women. It's highly competitive. Everybody wants to make the state tournament," he said.

Newman said you don't have to be good at pinball to join the pinballer community.

"It's more of a social thing. Because it's really a game you mostly are competing against yourself, just playing to get better individually. The competition thing is just extra fun that keeps us motivated," he said.

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