The Return of the Women's Tournament

My time with MyJohn and his family was perforated by an event I actually "studied" for, my second women's tournament! Last time we were out that way, we found a place in Primm, NV that had super cheap rooms and crazy loose machines since it's off strip. We left the night before so we could rest up and be only 20 minutes from the Pinball Hall.

My slot machine game face

Husband and I goofed around a bit, playing paparazzi alongside machines (like the Batman TV themed one below) and joking around with the weekday staff, who typically don't see much love from patrons.

The next morning, magically hangover free (seriously the staff liked us a lot) I was registered and warming up for my second plunge into "professional" pinball.
It was so exciting to see so many familiar faces, especially after following each other on facebook for the last year. Some of the women that coached me last time were so excited that I came, and also seemed more confident. It's really an incredibly positive environment, where 99% of the women there want to enjoy playing, and want to help you get better/enjoy it too. That 1% sucks, but we'll get to that later.

My first matchup was with the same wonderful player I started against last year! She and I shared a laugh, but then we got down to business.

I beat her out on our first machine, and she was so excited to lose because she loved how much I improved and how clearly I was loving pinball. We bonded even more, and because we were so animated at coaching and cheering each other, we had some action shots taken for some local circulars.
Yeah, we're cute.

The next machine she tried the same strategy as before. I kicked ass on computer programmed machines, so we went old school and I got whalloped.

I squeaked it out in the final round with an insanely tight game on ACDC. We were jumping and squealing so much we had a small audience, and when my partner lost, she again was almost more stoked on my behalf than bummed she was out.

As you can see from the score above, my next match was pissed and thought I was hustling her. All I can say is, it ain't hustlin baby, that's all skills!
She was understandably a bit upset by that landslide, but got pretty ugly about it as time wore on, especially when she picked the notoriously unforgiving Adam's Family, which I've never played. I still almost beat her, but for that first ball when I learned how easily this machine drains.

We were tied 1-1, and at this point she was being a poor sport with a generally dour attitude. What compounded it was the mini entourage I had forming because I am apparently incredibly fun to watch with all my reactions.
Sadly, I made a huge mistake, trying to use Elvira to my advantage, except half the field was malfunctioning, so all of my gameplay strategy was moot.
I lost, badly, and got a "good game" send off from my followers, who chased me down a few minutes later to watch my sourpuss competitor get completely destroyed by one of the more famous league players.

You betrayed me!

We wrapped up, hugs and cards exchanged, and started back towards home.
Despite it being a weekday, we still hit traffic, which chewed up time and gas, so we took a small detour.

As you can tell, I'm having some fun with glare/lens flare technique as of late.

We got in, much to the dogs' delight, as we had basically done a 24 hour turnaround. The dogs always seem to panic if we pack bags, since even leaving for groceries feels like forever to them.
Once they had dinner, we were simply too tired to do much else, luckily we had a generous gift card for Outback from our neighborfriends after house sitting, so they "treated us" to a delicious consolation dinner.

Even though I lost out, I moved up in the bracket this year and also made my competitors work hard for it. I got destroyed the prior year like the newbie I was, so that growth was worth celebrating.
This cake was one of maybe two chocolate cakes in my life I had to get a box for. It is fuuuuuuudgyyyyyy.

And so, a full day ended with treats all around. Until next year!