Craig Pullen, UK Pinball Champion, explains how to play the drop catch - taking the momentum out of the ball as it travels down the playfield and then flipping it away with greater control.
Written By: Andy Beresford
Video Transcription:
Craig: So the next skill that we're going to talk about is the drop catch. Okay? So basically, this skill is a skill to, again, get the ball back underneath control. And it's aimed at --
So when the ball is coming back down to the flipper, what we're going to do is -- So we'll have the flipper up, and as the ball, kind of, comes down we're going to drop the flipper, and so it's going to take all the momentum out of the ball -- Sorry. Take all the momentum out of the ball, and then the ball's going to be back on the flipper. So we'll give that a go. Okay, I didn't quite get that then.
So we can see that what it's doing is taking a lot of the, kind of, the sting out of the ball, so that then we can make a shot. The problem with the drop catch is we haven't actually got the ball back underneath the trap. What you're having to do is you're taking the momentum out of it, but then you're having to flip the ball back away. So we'll just try that a bit better for you. I didn't demonstrate that particularly well.
So as the ball's kind of all over the play field, and just wild, as they say, what it does is as the ball's coming down, so it could be coming down really, really fast. If we do that, then it deadens the momentum and you're back under a bit more control. So instead of the ball going everywhere all over the play field, what we're doing is we're finding ourselves in a position --
Okay, let's see if we can do it from here. This is probably the perfect -- Okay, so do you see what I was doing then? So the ball -- Taking all the momentum out of the ball, so we're back underneath control. I've actually -- I used to drop catch an awful lot, but I've actually stopped drop catching as much these days because now I do something called a live catch, which we'll be talking about in a bit. But it is an important skill that you need to learn.
So we'll try and demonstrate it a little bit better than I have been. So we'll try it from here if we can. There we go. Yeah. So I'll try it one more time. There we go. There we go. Yeah, so I'm lowering the flipper as the ball's coming down to stop the ball. You know, it's all a timing thing really. So --
Andy: What's the best way to practice it?
Craig: Okay, so as with a lot of these skills the best kind of way to do it is shooting these outer orbits. If it's on a game like this one is where the ball will come all the way around, then you're constantly doing that, and obviously it's improving your accuracy as well, or you can literally just drop the ball and allow yourself to do that to.
Andy: Okay. So for more pinball videos with Craig Pullen please visit www.homeleisuredirect.com/pinball
