The Cupids and Canines Casino and Pinball Night has been rescheduled to Saturday, March 27, 2010. Updated details about the event can be found here. Cupids & Canines Casino Night 2010 will benefit the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, and Bow Wow Buddies.

• Where: PAPA World Headquarters in Scott Township, PA (directions)
• When: Saturday, March 27, 2010, from 7pm to 10pm (or later) 
  (pinball tournament opens at 11am)
• Why: A fun Valentine evening for you and your date!
• Price: $30/person, $50/couples (also available at the door)
• Parking: Free shuttle! Follow this map to the lot.

                          

EDIT: Cupids and Canines has been postponed due to the huge snowstorm. It will be rescheduled.

STERN’s Big Buck Hunter Pro Pinball is In the Wild!

STERN’s newest pinball game, Big Buck Hunter Pro, has been released to market. For those of you in the New York metropolitan area who want to try out the game, it will be on route at Amsterdam Billiards in Manhattan. Big Buck Hunter Pro, along with Twilight Zone by Bally, will be the games used for 2010, Season #1 of the New York City Pinball League. Commissioner “Max Pinball” is now accepting players to sign-up for this season. League rules, format and more information can be found at http://nycpinballleague.com. Players of all ages and skill levels are welcome.

Pinball + Gaming + Pooches = Charity!

On Saturday, February 6, 2010, the Professional & Amateur Pinball Association (PAPA) will host is annual Cupids and Canines Casino and Pinball Night charity event to benefit The Western Pennsylvania Humane Society and Bow Wow Buddies. The event will be held at the at the PAPA World Headquarters near Pittsburgh, PA. The facility is home to over 400 pinball games from every era. Along with the opportunity to sample all of these great machines, you can participate in the pinball tournament organized by world champion Bowen Kerins, and play blackjack, craps, roulette, and poker all for charity. The event starts at 7PM, but pinball tournament participants can get in as early as 11:00 AM.

Last year, more than $10,000 was raised for charity. Here are videos from the 2009 event.

Part One: Before the event

Part Two: Let the games begin!

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I’d like to give respect to Geraldo Beedog and Señor Perrito del Burrito for inspiring me to produce this tiny nugget of sweet journalism :`-)

                          

Bowen Kerins

“mgk”

from ninjadoug92‘s youtube channel:
“…The gauntlet tournament at PAPA’s Cupids and Canines event. For the tournament you had a list of 5 games, you started at the middle of the PAPA complex and had to run to each game, coin it up and attain a certain score before you could move on.”

                          

Before the Event:

During the Event:

At the Cupids and Canines Casino Night and Pinball Tournament on February 7, 2009, over 350 people played blackjack, poker, craps, roulette and pinball at the Professional Amateur Pinball Association’s (PAPA) headquarters in Scott Township (Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania. Tournament players and pinball enthusiasts could play over 400 pinball machines from all eras, including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Batman (The Dark Knight), two of the newest offerings from STERN Pinball, Inc. In addition to the admission fees, all coin-drop from the pinball machines went to charity.

Every paid attendee at the event received $20,000 in “play money” to use at the casino gaming tables. Each $5,000 in “play money” earned you one ticket to use for the chance auction and raffle. You could also re-buy “play money” if you were tapped out.

Among the charities that benefitted from this event were: Bob Wow Buddies (Camp Bow Wow) and the Pittsburgh-area Humane Societies with the goals of promoting canine cancer research and animal adoptions.

Want some "Candy"?

Though the event officially opened at 8:00 PM, PAPA President, Kevin Martin opened the facility at 11:00 AM for the pinball tournament competitors. Multiple time World Pinball Champion Bowen Kerins organized the event.

Among the games involved in the tournament were:

Batman (The Dark Knight)
Harlem Globetrotters
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Family Guy
The Simpsons
Flip Flop
Paragon
Jungle Queen
Medieval Madness
Judge Dredd

Joust - 2 Player Versus Pinball Game

A $10 entry fee bought you a slot in a group of 8 players for a satellite tournament/preliminary round (though, your admission into Cupids and Canines came with one free entry into the tournament). Each group of 8 players was split in half. These two groups of 4 played a “best of three” series where first place in each game earned 4 points, second place earned 2 points, third place received 1 point, and fourth place got zero points. This was later changed to a “best of two” series because of the high amount of people who wanted to enter the tournament.

Finishing first or second overall in your group meant you advanced to the next round of four players with the winner of that group reaching the final round. A great feature about this system was that as soon as you lost a round, you could immediately reenter. A new preliminary round began as soon as eight more players were ready. A portion of the entry fees for the pinball tournament also went to charity. Trent Augenstein, ranked number 6 in the world as of this writing, won the tournament and took home an electromechanical pinball machine donated by PAPA.

It was a fantastic event, and I encourage all, who are looking for a slice of pinball heaven, to come out to the PAPA world headquarters when it reopens for the PAPA 12 World Pinball Championships this August.

Pinball, as far as the eye can see!

Cupids and Canines
PAPA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Article

I realize now that it is not a particularly good idea to record by walking around with the camcorder at belt-level. It seems to produce a bouncy, first-person shooter type of effect on the video. “The More You Know…”