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.”

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.

Check out the VOD of the IFPA North American Championship Series finals for Texas, covered by Wormhole pinball!

#texas #state #pinball #finals #lastround

Space City Pinball League is excited to welcome new leadership! These board members will work together to promote the growth and expansion of the league in Houston and the surrounding area.

 

• 1820 Director: Erich Stinson will organize the seasonal weekly league meetings.
• The Game Preserve Monthly Director: Marc Gammons will oversee the monthly matchplay events.
• The Game Preserve Weekly Director: David Pollock will run the Three Strikes Tuesday tournaments.
• EinStein’s Monthly Director: Matt Quanz will supervise EinStein’s Drainiacs.
• Belles & Chimes Houston Director: Elizabeth Dronet will lead the Belles of Space City women’s tournaments and socials.
• Chief Financial Officer: Chris Palis
• Marketing and Communications Director: Phil Grimaldi

 

For more information about the league visit the Events and Calendar section of the website, join our Facebook group, or follow us on Instagram. Additionally, scheduled tournaments are published on the IFPA calendar.

Hurricane Harvey brought unprecedented floods and destruction to the city of Houston. Nearly 200,000 homes are estimated to have been damaged or destroyed, including those of members in the Houston arcade and pinball community.

For this reason, the 2017 Houston Arcade Expo pinball tournament was held as a charity fundraising event where tournament entry fees were waived for any family whose home was flooded during the storm. Additionally, the Space City Pinball League donated tournament entry fees to the Greater Houston Community Foundation and to support Allen Robertson and his family, who suffered a catastrophic loss of their home. The league offers their gratitude for all those who participated in the event and to the Bat City Pinball Club in Austin for their sizable contribution.

 

The best beer league in Houston will be returning for its 6th season at the Eighteen Twenty Lounge on September 11, 2017. There will be an 8 week season, followed by finals.

The Space City Pinball League offers friendly competition for players across a wide range of skill levels, from complete newbie to seasoned star. Our host, the Eighteen Twenty Lounge, provides a fresh array of new games each week. The league is a great opportunity to meet new friends, learn the rules to the latest games, and pick up some sweet flipper skills.

If you are interested in learning more about the league, please email phil@spacecitypinball.com or visit us on facebook!  The full schedule can be found on our Calendar page. 

The purpose of this analysis is to provide a data driven perspective on the impact of the IFPA’s recent announcement to charge $1.00/per player for every tournament submission. My approach was to examine the 2016 calendar year as a proxy for determining the impact in future years. The data for this analysis was obtained directly from the IFPA via their API. Analysis code and data files are available at my github repository. Readers are encouraged to report errors by contacting me directly or by submitting a pull request in github.

The full report can be viewed here.

The best beer league in Houston will be returning for its 5th season at the Eighteen Twenty Lounge on March 6. There will be a 7 week season, followed by finals.

The Space City Pinball League offers friendly competition for players across a wide range of skill levels, from complete newbie to seasoned star. Our host, the Eighteen Twenty Lounge, provides a fresh array of new games each week. The league is a great opportunity to meet new friends, learn the rules to the latest games, and pick up some sweet flipper skills.

If you are interested in learning more about the league, please email phil@spacecitypinball.com or visit us on facebook!  The full schedule can be found on our Calendar page. 

The Space City Pinball League will be hosting a “Critical Hit” charity pinball tournament on Saturday December 3 at The Game Preserve!

This tournament will follow a standard “three-strikes” group match-play format. Players are placed in groups of 3-4 and play on a random machine. The bottom two players of each game receive a “strike”. Players who recieve three strikes are eliminated. Importantly, the format has a special twist: it incorporates card-based “role playing game” elements. Players can earn and buy “spell cards” that grant them special powers, which they can use to their benefit in the tournament. Some example spell cards are:

• Confusion. Change you group’s selected game to one of your choosing
• Darkness. Play entire game with score displays covered.
• Forbiddance. Swap a specific player from your group with a random player from a different group.

There are 20 different cards in total. All players with a world ranking between 1-250 will receive one random card at the beginning. All other players will receive two random cards.

It costs $10 to enter the tournament. Additional donations are encouraged.

Phase 1: Match Play / Earn Spell Cards – 3pm-5pm
Players placed into random groups of 4 (sometimes 3). The top two players after each game will earn a random spell card. Upon the conclusion of Phase 1, any remaining spell cards will be auctioned off with 100% of the proceeds going to the charity pool. Games and positions will be randomly assigned during this phase. New players can join any time during this phase.

Phase 2: 3-Strikes – 6pm. 
Players placed into random groups of 4 (sometimes 3). The bottom two players after each game will receive a strike. In the case of a 3 player group, only the 3rd place player will receive a strike. Players are eliminated from the tournament once they receive 3 strikes.

All money collected during the tournament will be donated to one of the following local charities, which will be chosen by the champion:

• Houston Area Women’s Center. Ending sexual and domestic violence.
• Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston. Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston brings people of diverse faith traditions together for dialogue, collaboration, and service, as a demonstration of our shared beliefs
• Houston Food Bank. Filling pantries, filling lives.
• Houston Habitat for Humanity. Building homes, community, and hope.
• Healthcare for the Homeless, Houston. Promoting health, hope and dignity for Houston’s homeless through accessible and comprehensive care

Can’t make it to the tournament but still want to contribute? Contact Phil at phil@spacecitypinball.com.

Special Thanks to Karl DeAngelo, who created the “Critical Hit” concept, format, and playing cards.

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