Date: Sunday 2nd October, 2011
Location: Planet Bowling, Lomme, Lille, France.

This was the third Ch'ti Pinball Tournament organised by the Ligue Nationale des Joueurs de Flipper (L.N.J.F.) and hosted by EPC Champion Franck Bona.

The tournament was held at Planet Bowling in the town of Lomme, near Lille in the north of France which made it convenient for visitors from Belgium, The Netherlands and the UK to attend.  Nine UK players made the trip, some coming just for the tournament on Sunday and others arriving the day before.

Those who came on the Saturday were treated to a pre-tournament party at Franck's house, where the great weather allowed a barbeque to be set up and everyone contributed food, beer and wine to keep a steady supply of all three throughout the evening.

The barbeque at Franck's home

The barbeque at Franck's home

Franck prepares Camembert and Calvados before it goes into the hot coals to melt

Naturally, Franck has a great selection of games both downstairs and (impressively) up some narrow stairs with some equally impressive high scores.

All the twelve machines used in the tournament were set up in Planet Bowling on Sunday morning and as soon as they were ready, practice began.

Practice on one bank of tournament machines

Planet Bowling is a huge sprawl of different room containing numerous bowling lanes, pool tables, arcade games, bars, snack shops and probably much more we never discovered.  The tournament took up one small section and it was separated from the adjacent pool tables by a mesh curtain.

More practice on the second bank

Entry to the tournament cost €15 (plus €1 to cover PayPal fees) and was limited to a maximum of 64 players.  The twelve machines used were:

The trophies for the tournament
(photo by Franck Bona)

Qualification began at around noon when the 63 competitors present could choose any six out of the twelve machines and play a single game on them. They could play individually or in groups because all that mattered was the score.

All the scores on each machine were ranked and ranking points awarded. The machine scores and overall ranking positions were shown on a big projector screen.

Players watch the scores on the screen

When everyone had played all their six games (or they had played enough to qualify), the top 32 players went through to the play-off rounds.

With qualification over, it was also time to present the award to the Best Junior Player who was Clement Carré.

Franck announces the Best Junior Player award

Best Junior Player - Clement Carré

Then it was time to resume the competition.

Players on the second bank of machines - Junkyard had to be removed from the competition due to a fault which couldn't be repaired quickly

The play-offs were single elimination four-player matches where the top two players in each match went through to the next round.

The play-off rounds begin

That left sixteen for the second round of play-offs, then eight and then the final four who were Timothée Hulin-Bouard, Thomas Bougard, David Grémillet and Olivier Renders.

Host Franck tries for a place in the final, to no avail

Unfortunately we couldn't stay until the end as we had to catch the ferry back to the UK, but the final was won by Timothée who finished ahead of David, with Thomas in third and Olivier fourth.

The top four players (L-R): Timothée Hulin-Bouard (1st), David Grémillet (2nd), Thomas Bougard (3rd) and Olivier Renders (4th) with Clement
(photo by Franck Bona)

Here are the full results:

The Ch'ti Pinball Tournament will be back in 2012 and we'll have the details in the Pinball News Diary as usual.

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© Pinball News 2011