"In the Zone"...is it just me???

[spacejam0]

Hello fellow pin-heads

As a kid I was a huge pinnie fan. About 6 months ago (after a 30+ year break) I re-discovered the the joy of the sport of pinball (I call it a sport instead of a hobbie because it makes me feel better about the many hours i spend playing...if its a sport it must be keeping me fit....thats what I tell my wife.

Anyway what I find when I'm playing is that I either play pretty average (and this is usually when my mind is distracted thinking about other things of for some unexplained reason the machine is being particulaly cruel) or it's like all of a sudden I'm in some sort of a zone in my mind at one with the machine almost like dancing with it. It feels like an out of body experiance where by I'm watching rather than playing can hit anything I want and have no fear of the ball draining..its a real buzz. An example would be for 5 balls on an average EM game say 30,000 but for 1 ball same game when I'm in the zone i can clock it with an extra ball and 2 or 3 specials.

Is it just me or do other people experience this ???

[Strangeways]

I've always beem around machines, but I do sometimes lose track of time and place when playing certain games. So much so that moving from an EM to SS to DMD totally throws my judgement. The "zone" for me will mean constant playing of a SS and NOT playing a DMD for a while, or constant EM and NOT playing SS or DMD. You kinda lose focus.

Certain titles hold my attention longer - especailly Paragon.

[studley67]

those times bonus targets sure are hard to hit with the suicide flippers(paragon)

[Retropin]

I like to break out of the zone.... or any comfort zone.

I quite often flip from a Bally SS to a 1951 machine with reverse 2" flippers... is a real head screw  and takes quite a bit of adjusting.
On the other hand..going from my WMS APOLLO from 67 with 2" flippers then onto a later machine makes playing the later model that bit easier

[Caveoftreasures]

playing pinball is something i like to do when i am really in the mood.

when ya head is full of distractions, the games seem to go for only a few minutes and the score is bad.  

some pinballs can be cruel even when ya head is in the right place, BLACK KNIGHT 2000 is such a machine that you had better bring ya best when you hit the start button or it just smashes u into pieces. A nice challenging pinball always leaves u saying " I will get u next time u bastard" lol  

[beaky]

the worst thing that can happen when your in the zone is the pin re boots for the first time for no obvious reason when u r on the 5th ball 

[pinnies4me]

Absolutely know what you mean. Every now and then my exceedingly average playing skills forget to present themselves, and suddenly I can do no wrong, and the game even seems to be serving me balls and wanting excellent shots in response. Happened once when a mate threw the towel in on AFM - it was recently polished and extremely fast, and after draining the third ball for barely a score, it was returned and auto-launched "Return to Battle". I told him he can't give up "after the game gave you a bit of charity" (to rub it in! ) and as he shook his head, I took the flippers - and proceeded to have the most extraordinary game of my life - collected the two reasonably easy extra balls available, and from there proceeded to Rule the Universe in a 30 minute marathon game. My wife and my mate watched on, I was laughing the whole time at what almost felt to me like I was watching someone else. I know these times will be few and far between, but boy, being in that zone is amazing!!