Hello Steemit!

Allow me to introduce myself. I am @pinball-players, but I am also @steemitgraven29, and the author of Boooooooom News. I have decided to separate the pinball writing from the rest of what I do on this platform. Pinball is my greatest passion and has been for almost 17 years. I’d like to share that passion with all of you and moving forward I will do it exclusively from this account.

For me it was always “competitive pinball.” Of course as a child I played a little, and I might not have competed for money, but I was trying to get that high score. My friends and I would brag to each other about the things we accomplished, and I always wanted to have the most bragging rights. Some of those rights included - Jackpots, Wizard Modes, Game Times. Other game-specific brags were made, like "Rudy Hits" or "Million Ramps."

By the time I discovered there were competitions for money, I had been competing for pride for years. My first competitive pinball event was Pinburgh 2001. Unbelievably, the entire event is still archived, thanks to the good work being done by the folks over at the Professional & Amateur Pinball Association (PAPA for short). Pinburgh 2001 took place in a conference hall on the 8th floor of a Best Western just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A few hundred people packed into a room with about a hundred machines. Playing pinball in this environment for an entire weekend was a life-changer for me. It sent me down the path I have been on for the last 17 years.

That's me winning a tie-breaker a couple years ago to stay alive in the Pinburgh Finals. My "moment of glory" if you will. Back in the day it was a few events a year. For me it was a doubles league and Pinburgh. And a whole lot of practice games. Now there are events every week, and usually more than one at that - I'm lucky if I have a chance to warm up. I have gone to as many as four events in one week without leaving Pittsburgh.

So what is the @pinball-players blog going to be about? It’s going to be about a passion for competitive pinball. It’ll have interviews, videos, photos, writeups, strategy talk, and so much more. Like I said above - I have a passion for this sport, and my main goal is to share that passion with all of you. I hope to hear from you in the comments.