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.

Space City congratulates all the Space City Belles that qualified for the state championship. We are especially proud of our own Miette Dronet, the 2022 Texas Women’s State Champion! Stellar play!

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

#texas #state #pinball #finals #lastround

Let’s show the world why Space City is PREMIER! Our flagship tournament, the Space City Open, has been nominated for a 2021 TWIPY! Please take a moment to vote for it and the Houston Arcade Expo. There are lots of other Texans nominated in various categories. Show them some love too! Voting is open through January 17, 2022. Awards will be presented at the Texas Pinball Festival.

Space City Pinball League is thrilled to return to our regularly scheduled league nights and tournaments. We are also excited to introduce some new additions! View our Calendar and Events tabs to find out all the details.

Friends of Space City Pinball,

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have suspended all Space City Pinball leagues and tournaments until further notice.

We realize that pinball is a great way to take your mind off the stress of the day and understand that it is disappointing to not be able to get together, relax and play this game we all love. We all look forward to the day when we can reunite with our pinball family!

There are still ways to stay connected to your pinball friends while socially distancing. One way our members can socialize is to join our league Slack channel; there are usually quite a few of us on it every day.  To join, just send your name to spacecitypinball@gmail.com, and we will send you a link to the channel.   Another way to stay connected is to follow the league’s Twitch channel at twitch.tv/spacecitypinball.  We’ve been streaming quite a bit recently. Of course, the league is also on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Follow us!

Thank you for your support, and we look forward to flipping together again soon. Take care of each other,

Phil, Elizabeth, Chris, Matt, David and Marc

Space City Pinball is going to take the next two weeks off and see where to go from there. The 3X on Tuesday, 3X on Thursday, Monthly on Saturday and E=mc2 on Sunday are cancelled. Extra thanks go to The Game Preserve and EinStein’s for all the support they’ve given the Space City Pinball community over the years.

IFPA to globally suspend sanctioning of events for WPPR points effective March 17th

Houston’s qualifying event will be on March 1st at Einstein’s Pub and Arcade in Richmond, TX. Finals will take place at the Texas Pinball Festival.

The Texas Pinball League unites the leagues in Austin, Dallas and Houston, to create a massive, Texas-sized pinball showdown and party at Finals.

General League Overview: Each major region of Texas hosts a qualifying event, each following the same format with the top 5 players from each event advancing to the finals. The finalists converge in a single city to represent their region. Finals coordinates with the four major Texas events (Texas Pinball Festival, Houston Arcade Expo, Bat City Open, State Championship Series Finals) to reduce travel burdens. The winner are immortalized on the TPL cup and possess the cup until the next TPL season.

Space City Pinball League will have a limited number of posters and stickers available at the Houston Arcade Expo and upcoming tournaments. Framed posters are a $10 donation and unframed posters are $3. Sticker sets are $5. Pay in person or on paypal. See Elizabeth Dronet for details or email her at bellesandchimeshouston at gmail.com.

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.