The most frustrating pinball game ever

The game in question is called Whirlwind, a Pat Lawlor game from 1990 that I really enjoy. It was the first game I played in which I discovered the joy of the three-way combo (the game is smart enough to award bonus points if you hit the left loop, upper loop, and side ramp shots in quick succession), but I hate seeing it in competition because it's so damned hard. There are three fairly large spinning discs right in the center of the playfield, and they choose inopportune times to spin as the ball passes over them, flinging it unfailingly towards an outlane or straight down the middle. Combine that with the fact that games in tournaments tend to have really bouncy flippers and wide gaping outlanes, and it really becomes an exercise in futility trying to get a good score.

So, of course, there's one in the bank of games for qualifying in this tournament. And the whole weekend, the damn thing was eating my lunch. I would string together a shot here and a shot there, but nothing consistently good, and starting multiball, which has the greatest scoring potential, was proving ridiculously difficult.

Then... finally... I was in the middle of another poor game when everything just started to click. On ball three (my last one), I hit a million point shot, started multiball, and hit a two-million point shot. My score to that point alone would have been good enough for the top score so far in the tourney. So, of course, the machine decides right then to call it quits. The game suddenly power-cycles and resets during my great multiball, and my three balls helplessly drained past dead flippers.

I was miffed, obviously, but I knew I'd had a decent score to that point and was willing to use those points as my final score for the scorekeeper to record. I've had games reset on me before dozens of times. It famously happened one time to me playing Addams Family in a league playoff match back in Maryland; I was having a great first ball that time, and the machine heartbreakingly reset on me, although by that point it didn't matter because I was already out of the running for the title. That time, I was able to keep the points I had scored up until the malfunction, because normally the game at least has the decency to remember your score when it powers back up.

But not this time; my heart sank as a big double-zero flashed up on Whirlwind's display, as if to taunt me.

The scorekeeper confirmed that the score was null and void; nobody had been watching my game, so nobody could vouch for what the actual score was (I estimated 4.8 million at that point). Once again, Whirlwind had found a way to defeat me... during the one good game I had on the damn thing all weekend.

I did come back later in the evening and put up about 3 million in a game, which ranked roughly 10th among all entries. But still... I'm never going to forget that evil, evil game, and how it has scarred me permanently. Whirlwind is officially, and will forever be, my nemesis.

(Whereas Getaway is my friend.)