arborelia

The North Carolina pinball championships are this weekend!

Actually every state's pinball championships are this weekend, but y'know I'm going to be mostly paying attention to North Carolina.

The women's bracket is on this post and our hometown competitors are

• Kat Lake -- that's @FlannelKat, who is my wife! This is very exciting and why I'm going to see the tournament in person
• Ellen Raby, a good friend who introduced me to competitive pinball
• Joan McCool, an older woman who is the absolute nicest, and runs one of the local leagues
• Frances Staelin, who I somehow have not really met?

The rounds are best of 7. Ellen and Joan go up against each other unfortunately quickly.

I believe in Kat making it to the 2nd round, at which point she's honestly doomed, because she's up against Kaylee Campbell, who at this moment is in the final round of the open division (as the only woman, competing against 15 men)! I think Kaylee is an obvious favorite to win tomorrow, especially with all the practice she'll have playing these particular machines.

The open tournament is today, the women's tournament is tomorrow, and all the coverage is at: https://www.twitch.tv/abarigamebar

• Kaylee Campbell is clearly the best pinball player in the state. She won both the open division and women's division this weekend. It was really great to meet her and I look forward to watching her in future championships!

  I've edited this post a few times trying to understand where the competitions proceed from here. I believe Kaylee will be eligible to compete in two separate championships in March: the North American championship in De Pere, WI (because she won the open division) and the Women's World Pinball Championship in Schaumburg, IL (because she is one of the top playing women in the world). I look forward to watching the streams of these!

• Ellen Raby put up an amazing performance, taking 2nd in the women's division. This wouldn't have been possible with the bracket above, but she was re-seeded because of a player who dropped due to illness. She brought the best-of-7 finals against Kaylee to a game 7. Heck yeah!

• Joan McCool took third! I am excited for all of the top 3 players.

• @FlannelKat won the first round and then lost to Kaylee in the second round, which is exactly what I expected. Big congrats to Kat for how quickly she got to be a pinball pro! Five months ago she was just getting interested in pinball, and a couple months ago I remember her saying "hey wouldn't it be awesome if I qualified for the state championship this year" and working hard to get there.

• Frances, sadly, was the player who had to drop due to illness. So I still haven't met her.