The State Pinball Championship will be held in this NYC apartment

Its arcade fire.

One pinball diehard loves the classic pastime so much that she’s turned her Park Slope apartment into a pinball paradise — ditching the usual comforts of home to squeeze 16 of the big, colorful machines into her apartment. its railroad style.

“I have a couch and a bed, that’s it,” Kaite Martin, a 34-year-old bartender, told The Post of her 80-by-15-foot living space filled with $100,000-themed machines, from the Star . Trek, in “Robocop”, and most recently “The Walking Dead”.

Her oldest car, which has a The interstellar-themed structure dates back half a century, in 1978. Martin bought it just a week ago for $1,800. Typically, her hunt for vintage and unique cars involves a lot of begging and pleading on Internet forums, the bumper lover confessed.

Martin’s collection — now worth $40,000 more than he originally paid — isn’t all for fun and games, though.

On Saturday, Martini will make a New York City pinball debut: She’s flipping the script by hosting the International Pinball Association State Championship Flipper, the first time the tournament will be held in a Big Apple residence.

“I have better games than a lot of public places and we can lock down the location so there are no random Tinder dates interrupting you while you’re playing,” she said.

Martin, who fell in love with the game a dozen years ago while working at a pinball bar, will also host and compete in the women’s indoor state tournament on Sunday. As the NYC Women’s Champion in 2023, she is strong competition.

Pin heads come together

The tours usually rotate between NYC, Western New York and the Hudson Valley at bar or arcade venues. And it’s not Martin’s first rodeo: she’s hosted ten tournaments over the years

For this weekend’s contest, Martin created a potluck subcontest so attendees could also compete for the best dish.

To create some space in her cramped quarters, she tried putting one of the cars in her closet for more walking room, but that didn’t work out as planned. Once things are done, it will be down to 12 or 13 cars, leaving enough room to reach essentials like toilet paper.

At first, Martin admitted she thought pinball was “old, lame and stupid,” but fell in love with the competition.

“When I knew there were rules and you could win, I got really competitive and really got into it,” she said.

She bought her first car ten years ago and quickly realized that having the coolest place in town means regularly hosting people to play friendly, non-tournament rounds as well. She has been known to order pizza for the band during large gatherings to play at parties and nights like Super Bowl Sunday.

Martin also runs a women’s league, specifically the New York City chapter of the global operation, and her friends often compete in multiple leagues around the city.

“Half the women there are people you meet who casually play pinball and are really, really into it,” she said.

As for noise complaints around her home, Martin said they are few and far between. Her upstairs neighbors are rarely annoyed by the games as Martin lets their children play. Even better, the cars don’t use much electricity, which would kill the host’s future ConEd bill.

“It’s very lucky,” she said.

On game day, it hosts 24 contestants, potential back-up players in case of cancellation, and a Twitch broadcast team to stream competitive matches live. After all, a mechanic recently upgraded the cars to make them more challenging.

Normal shots like hitting certain parts of the car once for points will need to be hit three times, rubber bands are removed from the posts to make the ball bounce less and the car has been calibrated to be more sensitive to tilt.

Players also got to show off the diversity of their skill sets by competing on three different types of machines: a modern graphically sophisticated one, another from what Martin called the “golden era” of the 1990s, and an earlier, more little electronics from around the world. 1970.

Although the older games do not score as high as the modern ones, this will not matter for the tournament as it is a pure win-loss pattern in head-to-head play rather than total points accumulated.

The winner receives over $1,000 and advances to the prestigious national tournament in March, which will take place this year in Rochester. Runners-up in the invitation-only tournament also earn several hundred dollars.

“Everybody who shows up gets some money because we pay in a pool of prizes throughout the year,” Martin explained. “Each player in each tournament pays $1, and every dollar goes somewhat toward New York State and a portion toward the nationals.”

A game that moves forward

Defending state champion Greg Poverelli, a 34-year-old Astoria resident and real estate manager, welcomes the change of pace to a home game.

“I personally like to play to a house collection rather than a bar,” he told The Post, praising how well Martin has organized tours in the past. Regardless of the close-up, everyone feels comfortable.

Additionally, Poverelli said that although the stakes are high, the local pinball community is close-knit, and the gathering at Martin’s house feels more like a gathering of friends.

“There’s definitely a desire to win and to do well, but it’s much more community-driven than a lot of people realize,” he added. “If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t still be doing it – despite my success.”

NYC pinball’s big shots—some 300 players regularly in the mix—are driven to see the game grow and welcome newcomers. But newbies, beware: The reigning champ said everyone is welcome to play, as long as you don’t refer to “Pinball Wizard” by The Who and later Elton John.

And while the city has always been a pinball haven, Poverelli noted that since COVID-19 and streaming services like Twitch became easily accessible, more and more people are gathering their neighborhoods together for a few rounds.

For beginners, Poverelli shares this advice to help them score high.

“One immediate thing you want to shoot is flashing lights. This will never be a bad start,” he said. “However, I always tell people to remember that it’s a very physics-based game.”

The pinball aficionado—we wouldn’t dare write wizard—stressed being methodical in accordance with the laws of gravity rather than sporadically crashing into speed.

“You can slow the ball down if you have control,” Poverelli said. “You’re much more likely to be accurate and you’re much less likely to put the ball in danger.”