Belles and Chimes Reunion

Time to party! The Belles of Space City invite current and past members to join us for a reunion at Wormhole on April 13, 2024! RSVP here. We have also added new B&C shirts to our league store in a variety of colors.

Belles & Chimes is an international network of women’s pinball leagues. The Houston chapter was founded in 2018 with a goal of providing a fun, safe, and supportive environment for women and girls to socialize and play pinball together.

Beginner and novice players of any age are encouraged to join. Playing with others is a fantastic way to improve your pinball skills!  For the more experienced players, Belles & Chimes tournaments offer a unique opportunity to earn IFPA points available specifically for women’s-only competitions.  

The Belles kick off summer with Space Camp! A Women’s Weekend at the Wormhole. We invite women from the Houston area and BEYOND to join us for this WPPRtunity! 

Houston Women’s IFPA events are qualifying events for the IFPA Women’s North American Championship Series. For details regarding qualifying in Texas, please visit the Championship Series page. 

In addition to local tournaments, the Belles of Space City are proud to direct the women’s tournaments at major events including the Texas Takedown at the Texas Pinball Festival and the Interstellar Showdown at the Houston Arcade Expo.

Houston Arcade Expo Recap

Space City Pinball League, The Premier Pinball League of Texas
Space City Open: 1st Wesley Johnson, 2nd Preston Moncla, 3rd Mark Meserve, 4th Garrett Shahan
Interstellar Showdown: 1st Alice Young, 2nd Melody Zisman, 3rd Rachel Morris, 4th Kelli Raisler
Interstellar Showdown Semifinalists: Miette Dronet, Jessica Thaxton, Summer Ellington, Hope Love

Holy smokes, y’all! That was awesome! As a tournament director, I could not have asked for a better event. All the games arrived in excellent condition. There were so many volunteers willing to help with set up. Even when games went down, our techs, Jesse Bodell and Mike Flanagan, got them back up and operational in short order. The players were respectful and jovial. The rounds started and ended on time. There were very few malfunctions or complicated rulings. And the finals…my goodness the finals. I’ve been on the tournament scene for over 10 years. That was, without a doubt, the most fun and electric finals I’ve ever witnessed. Legendary!

While I would love to take credit, the reality is none of that could have happened without there being such an amazing pinball community here in H-town and Texas. The positive energy this past weekend was truly special. I could not be more proud of what this scene has matured into. We’ve really come a long way.

Big congratulations to Wesley Johnson for taking the crown — the first Space City pinball player to do so! That final shot on Fish Tales was so clutch! Congrats also to Alice Young for earning the rhinestone hat in the Interstellar Showdown after a tough battle on Tron. Well played!

Thanks to Keith and the Houston Arcade Expo for trusting me to run the tournament all these years. Shout out to my assistant TDs: David Pollock, Marc Gammons, David and Elizabeth Dronet, Leslie Speights, Lee Balusek, Matt Quantz. Thanks to Jim Mueller for bringing the spare parts. I think we used most of them! Thanks to Jamie Burchell, Erin Anthony and Wormhole for streaming the tournaments! Finally, thanks to everyone else who brought games and helped with set up and tear down.

-Phil and the Space City Team

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.