Space City Open & Interstellar Showdown

The Space City Pinball League and the Belles of Space City will once again host tournaments at the Houston Arcade Expo on November 10-12, 2023. Mark your calendars to preregister for these events. The SCO registration will open on September 3 at 11am and the Women’s Interstellar Showdown will open on October 7 at noon. Click the images for details.

Week of WPPRS

Join Space City Pinball as we celebrate pinball in Houston with a tournament every day leading up to the Houston Arcade Expo! See the league calendar for details. Players who participate in all the events through Thursday night will be recognized with an “Ordered the Combo” prize!

Space Camp! Women’s Wormhole Weekend

BECAUSE SOMEDAY, YOU’RE GOIN’ UP!

The Belles of Space City invite women of all ages and skills to join us for a weekend of tournaments at the Wormhole, a private pinball club in Houston. At Space Camp, ladies will drill their skills to prepare for the ultimate pinball mission. Over Memorial Day weekend, May 26-28, 2023, the Belles will host four women’s tournaments, with the main matchplay event estimated to be worth 200%. Read all about it here.

Space City Pinball Launches ChatGP-TD, an AI Tournament Director.

Houston, TX – The Space City Pinball League is proud to announce the launch of its new automated tournament director, ChatGP-TD. ChatGP-TD is an innovative and state-of-the-art tournament director powered by advanced artificial intelligence that can instantly render rulings for virtually all pinball scenarios.

With ChatGP-TD, players can rest assured that they will receive the most accurate and impartial rulings possible. The league plans to use ChatGP-TD for all rulings in the coming months.

“ChatGP-TD is going to greatly improve the experience for our players,” said league founder, Phil Grimaldi. “Gone are the days of crummy rulings from our error-prone, human TDs.”

Grimaldi clarified that human tournament directors will still play an important role in league operations. ‘We’ll still need human TDs for freeing stuck balls and whatnot.” Grimaldi said. “Basically anything that doesn’t require cognition.”

screenshot of ChatGP-TD functionality.

The players aren’t the only ones that will see the benefits of this new technology. Human tournament directors, who have long shouldered the burden of running tournaments, will enjoy the benefits immediately. With ChatGP-TD, they will no longer have the responsibility of making the correct ruling in stressful situations.

“I often hear human TDs complaining about how they didn’t play well because they were distracted. HA! Time to find a new excuse, Marc!” quipped Grimaldi.

Replacing tournament directors is only the first use of AI planned for the Space City Pinball League. They plan to soon use AI tools to replace the commentators on their twitch live stream.

“Jamie B, and other human commentators like him, spend upwards of six hours talking on stream. This is hard on his vocal chords — not to mention the folks who have to listen to Jamie for that long. By combining generative language models with text-to-speech programs, we can have an unlimited array of AI-based commentators. Jamie can then focus on what he truly loves — moving the camera rig from game to game.”

The Space City Pinball League is proud to be at the forefront of the pinball industry with the introduction of ChatGP-TD. With this cutting-edge technology, the league will continue to provide a fair and exciting pinball experience for players of all skill levels.

Red Alert! League Nights Return

Space City Pinball League is back at the original home, Eighteen Twenty Lounge! Join us Wednesday nights at 7pm for 7 weeks starting on the 18th of January. We will hold playoffs on week 8 beginning at 6pm. Each night groups of 3 or 4 will play 5 pinball machines, earning points (7,5,3,1) for how each person finishes in the group (1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th). Points will accumulate throughout the season, climaxing on the last night for playoffs for the top finishers. In accordance with the new IFPA rules for leagues, a player must play in at least 4 of the weeks to be eligible for playoffs and to qualify for WPPR points. However, we will count the the top 5 weeks scores to determine playoff standings. Cost for the season is $20.00 per person, payable by week 2. Funds will be used for trophies and prize money.

Read the all the details here.

Houston Arcade Expo Recap

Well, another legendary Week of WPPRS culminating with the Space City Open and Women’s Interstellar Showdown is officially on the books!

Congratulations to our open winners:
1. Colin MacAlpine, 2. Jim Mueller, 3. Tim Sexton, and 4. Mark Meserve

Belle’s Interstellar Showdown Champions:
1. Tracy Abrahams, 2. Lee Ann Scardina, 3. Elizabeth Savoie Dronet, 4. Emily Hoffman

It can’t be understated how much a team effort it is putting together a week of tournaments like this. It’s so awesome to see our community come together, help each other out, and put on a kick ass show! PREMIERE!
Long, but totally warranted list of thank you’s below!
Thanks to everyone who donated games to the tournament and SCPL booth, those who helped fix and repair games, and to everyone who stuck around to help set up and tear down the games, tournament room and booth. Thanks to Wormhole Pinball and Jamie Burchell for providing excellent streaming coverage of the finals! Thanks to Jim Mueller for donating flipper rebuild kits! Thanks to Quasar’s Arcade for the $500 prize pool donation! Thanks to Kalieda Fest Wear and 8 Bit Arcade for the fantastic women’s prizes! And lastly, thanks to Keith Christensen and the Arcade Expo for trusting us to run the tournaments.