Bayou City Pinball League

After re-evaluating the situation, the October Strikeouts Under the Moon has been cancelled. I am re-evaluating options for the remainder of the year to include a weekly league with monthly/semimonthly tournaments to resume in January. There may be one or two one-off tournaments to end the year if the venues I have in mind approve.

Yes, the tournaments are still on! September’s tournament will be on the 12th at 7 pm (due to the holiday, and also due to what would have been August’s trivia night being moved to September 5th); October’s tournament will be on the usual first Monday of October 3rd at 7 pm. Same place: Little Dipper, 304 Main Street, in downtown Houston.

I am starting a Matrix space for Houston area competitive pinball players. My email is “shawn” at this website’s domain. (Actually, right now I get everything sent to any address at this domain, but in the future that will likely change.)

[TLDR: Tournaments at Little Dipper still ongoing; primary announcement source moving to this website; events still being planned]

Due to recent events, the website at bayoucitypinball.com should be considered the primary source of information for the time being. I do plan to keep this group updated on a best effort basis, but to say the least, my confidence and trust in Meta’s mission “to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected”, which was already starting to erode, has been eroded massively more in the past 24 hours than from then back the start of the year.

Should (the Facebook) group disappear or my posts to it otherwise censored/restricted, Meta cannot stop me from updating the bayoucitypinball.com website and so that is where updates will be made first henceforth. I will also try to keep Pinside and Tilt Forums updated especially as more events are rolled out.

I have also started a chat on Matrix (in lieu of Slack or Discord as used by others); please ask for an invite if desired. I do have a weekly league in the works which should be announced about this time next week. The tournament on the 11th at Little Dipper is still going forward; I have one announced for October as well but those may be going on hiatus for several reasons and/or changing days.

I regret that I haven’t had time to get more events and more compelling events organized. Obviously, long term, the goal is that I’m not doing everything; that’s not sustainable especially as more people get on board with the idea of a real alternative to the incumbent pinball organization in Houston. I believe in choices and a healthy pinball scene where the power is distributed among many people, not held mostly by one person and their friends (and no, it really does not sit well with me that that one person isn’t even a native Houstonian).

My email addresses for league business are “commish” for official administrative matters and “shawn” for just about anything else (at the domain mentioned previously). These are also outside the realm of what Meta can monkey with.

Thanks for sticking around, and keep on flippin’.

Shawn K. Quinn
Founder/Commissioner, Bayou City Pinball League

The previously mentioned Strikeouts Under The Moon series is still ongoing through at least October. Due to holidays falling on the first Mondays of July and September, the tournaments for those weeks will be moved to the second Mondays (July 11 and September 9 respectively). Note that Little Dipper’s game lineup changed not too long ago (Monster Bash is the new arrival).

There are also plans for a new weekly league in the works that will hopefully be finalized in early July. Stay tuned.

It’s now the early morning of April 2. I have waited until now as I wanted to be sure this was interpreted as a genuine “no duff” announcement and not a poorly timed joke.

The existing rule regarding gambling will be changed in the next rulebook revision. Specifically, any future tournaments held in private locations (including private clubs not available to the general public) will not be subject to the same gambling prohibition as public locations unless requested by the owner.

This is to allow us to host tournaments in private locations more easily, as well as acknowledge that the rule has outlived most of its usefulness as it was originally written.

I get that many players may consider this to just be unnecessary duplication of the existing efforts by other local players. It is not. I support a thriving local pinball scene in the Houston area and the efforts of others will be a part of that in some form for the foreseeable future. Despite some past differences (most of which have been resolved) I don’t harbor any ill will against them and I look forward to working together to grow the competitive pinball scene in the Houston area and beyond.

That said there are some things I have planned for the future that make more sense under the auspices of a separate organization.

One of the main goals, if not the outright primary goal, is to expand the choices available to people who wish to play social and competitive pinball in the greater Houston area as well as bring more people in who still may not know there is such a thing as competitive pinball tournaments and leagues within the Houston area.

Thank you for your support.

Shawn K. Quinn
Commissioner, Bayou City Pinball League

[Note: If this looks familiar it probably is. This is an exact copy of the Facebook post with only slight formatting differences for the website/WordPress.]

[Edits on 2022-06-21: Unfortunately the current reality requires the struck-out portions be placed on hold for the foreseeable future.]