SALEM — In the world of competitive flipper pinball, a quick button press can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
Salem resident Bowen Kerins has felt both in his more than 30 years of competitive pinballing, and is hoping to draw on that experience to earn him a win at this weekend’s International Flipper Pinball Association’s 10th Annual State Championship series finale.
Kerins, 49, is one of 16 of the top-ranked pinball players in the state who have earned a shot at going head to head at the Western Mass Pinball Club in Palmer, where each player displays a range of techniques, strategies, and skill shots to score as many points as possible with two flippers and a a 2 ¼ inch silver sphere.
The Massachusetts State Championship takes place Saturday at the same time as other statewide competitions, with more than 1,100 players in 49 states going head to head. Following the state championship, the winner will head to Rochester, New York, for the national championship against all other state champions competing for a $10,000 cash prize.
Having won the State Championship five times out of six previous attempts, as well as winning the World Championships five times, and Nationals once, Kerins has seen some of the best players at the top of their game and still fall short of victory.
Although technical skills such as timing, aim, and ball control are integral to being a good player, Kerins said that it’s the tension that players feel when down to the wire that often ends their run.
“You just have to make one good decision at a time,” he said. “Some people handle that stress with music, others dance around a little bit. It can be different for me each day, but at this point I’m so old that I’m just like ‘alright, let’s play’.
“People have been playing pinball for hours at a time the whole week in order to get to the final, and then they’re tired, nervous, and thinking about the prize money. None of that matters. All you can do is go up, play your game, and hope it works.”
Kerins, who grew up in Newport, Rhode Island, before moving to Salem, first got involved in pinball competitions at 17 after discovering the community during his time at Stanford University. There he ended up meeting a couple of the highest ranked pinball players in the world who taught him a variety of skills, including the ability to bump the machine.
After winning his first world championship, Kerins had to turn down an appearance on The Tonight Show to not fall behind in school.
Today, Kerins meets fellow members of the New England Pinball League at the Double Bull in Peabody every Wednesday, one of the few locations that still operate pinball machines.
“It’s a little harder to get into just because there aren’t as many places to play pinball as there were in the 80s and 90s,” he said. “Thankfully in Salem, we have multiple places to play including Bit Bar, Engine House Pizza, Essex’s N.Y. Pizza & Deli, and then Double Bull in Peabody.”
Outside of his competitive pinballing, Kerins works for a San Diego company that writes math textbook curriculums for students. Additionally, he has a second job as a rules designer for the pinball company Barrels of Fun.
Kerin’s first pinball machine which he helped design is a machine released 18 months ago themed after the 1986 film “Labyrinth” with David Bowie.
“And that game is already getting around the world,” Kerins said. “It’s fascinating to see it pop up in different places. I never thought that I would ever get to do these things.”
Kerins also runs a YouTube series where he provides tutorials on how to play specific themed pinball machines. However, even after 30 years of playing countless different pinball machines, he still finds the sport exciting as every ball can do something unexpected.
“One thing [I enjoy] about pinball versus video games, is that you are actually affecting something physical that you see and can control right in front of you,” Kerins said.
“And some of the things that you do in pinball, they’re not only unique to whatever the theme is, they’re unique to that particular ball at that time. So you can do the same actions and have different outcomes because of the chaotic nature of the ball.
“The ball could fly in the air, bounce over everything, and then you’re done — I’ve lost that way before. But at the same time you can have something where you hit the wrong thing, but the ball bounces around and ends up exactly where you needed it to go. Those are the experiences you end up really remembering, because it’s all right there in front of you. I would encourage people to play the game and get out there and be physical with it — because that’s what can’t be replicated.”
Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202