The Dutch Pinball Open Championship 2009

After skipping a year, the Dutch Pinball Open championship (organised by the dutch pinball organisation) was held again in 2009 on October 3 and 4 in veldhoven, the Netherlands.

Detailed results of the tournament can be downloaded from the specific DPO website.

We visited on sunday, when the main tournament was held. On saturday the recreational games were also available, and pre-qualifications for the main tournament on sunday took place.

At the entrance, Mirco Steffen of High Class Pinballs was selling parts. He had his last available new Attack From Mars playfield (which was sold later that day I've heard), new reproduction Whitewater playfields, and many gold plated parts.

New repro Whitewater playfields. They looked absolutely fantastic ! Mirco told me he didn't have access to the original screens so he had to redraw all the artwork as vectors. This results in excellent quality with clear, sharp edges.

The DPO themselves had their own booth, selling pinball posters, flyers, ..
At the left side are three pinball machines where sub-tournaments were played (set the high score, score as many goals), the winner of each subtournament also got a price on sunday.

An overview of a smaller room where the ladies tournament was being played. As you can see pinball in the Netherlands definitely is not a men-only sport !
Wizard also had a booth in this room, they had their usual amount of spare parts.

Technical service at their best.. forcing open a coin door with a screwdriver ?!

Main competition.. SUPER JACKPOT on Monster Bash. If you're not able to get multiple (super) jackpots you don't make a chance on this type of tournament..

Jackpot !

Overview of the room where the main tournament was held. All the pinball machines were in very good condition.

Part of the hall where pinball machines for recreational play were set up. Almost every game was being played all the time..

As you can see everyone enjoyed playing pinball machines.

The electro-mechanical pinball machines set up in the recreational room.

Zipper flippers..

The statues that could be won.

There was also a kids tournament and a ladies tournament.

The ladies final was played on Sterns latest NBA pinball machine.

These four played the ladies final..

.. which was won by Jasmijn De Jong, here receiving her trophy from Jonathan Joosten. Jasmijn had won the previous DPO women championship too, first time she extended her title..

The final of the main championship was in different stages. Best of 3 games between Roy Wils and Taco Wouters. First game was on Cirqus Voltaire, won by Taco. Second game was played on World Cup Soccer, won by Roy. Roy had won the previous DPO so the big question was if he could extend his title.

Taco playing Bally's World Cup Soccer pinball machine. Everyone in the room could see the action on the beamer.
It's amazing how easy and how fast both players got to the Final Tournament on WCS. When you see skilled players at this level, playing pinball and scoring billions of points looks soo easy.. Until you try to do it yourself at home.

The final game was on Scared Stiff..

Everyone in the room looked in suspense how the game evolved on Scared Stiff. It was very close. Taco was able to build up an advantage (he got over 50 million points in total if I remember correct).
Both players were able to keep pinballs in play when it was very close from draining, resulting in 'oooohs' and 'aaaaahs' from the public. It was almost like the pinball defied gravity sometimes and rolled back up towards the flippers on some saves.
Roy had lost his second ball when he was just ready to start Scared Stiffs wizard mode. Everyone watched how he tried to reach Taco's score with the last ball he had to play.. it really was a great, very high-level, breathtaking final round !

The end of the evening.. time to present the prices. Referee Ad Jonker explains how the final went.

3rd place was for Jasper Van Eeden.

2nd place for Roy Wils

Winner and new DPO champion: Taco Wouters.