Craig Pullen, UK Pinball Champion, explains how to play the live catch - flipping at the moment the ball is reaching the flipper to catch it and then control it within the trap position.
Written By: Andy Beresford
Video Transcription:
Criag: OK. So, now we're going to talk about live catching. OK, so live catching is a skill that I've only been, kind of, doing in the last six months, but actually it's completely changed the way that I play. So if you're able to learn how to do this, then it will really vastly improve your game because it gets the ball back under control.
So what a live catch is, is when the ball is, kind of, coming down from this -- In this situation what you're doing is you are hitting up with the flipper as the ball is coming down. So you're hitting up with the flipper and the ball will stop dead. Hopefully, if you do it right.
That's the perfect one, OK? So as the ball is coming down you hit up with the flipper, you take all the momentum and you're in a trap. Whereas if you drop catch it -- Yeah, yeah, if you drop catch it then obviously the ball is at the end of the flipper, and you're having to flip it away again. So a really, really good way of practicing this is again shooting those orbits, getting the ball to come round. Hopefully, at not too much speed, if you can do that. So that then they're in that position again.
So we'll try it again off this right flipper. Not bad, not as good as the one before, but it's only achieved its end. There we go again. So you're constantly just hitting the flipper up in order to get the ball back under control. So just demonstrating the live catch again. As the ball is coming down this lane, I flip up and then I've got the ball under control. So as the ball is coming down, flip up, and I've got the ball under control.
So I'm going to try and shoot the spinner, and then the ball is coming around, and I managed to achieve its end. Even if the ball, kind of, came up and didn't stop dead on the flipper, it still achieved what I wanted it to achieve.
So let's try it the other way. Not too bad, but not what I wanted it. The balls out of control and I lost it. Now that one is an illegal move, OK? We can't do that in competition, but I'll talk you through how to do that in a bit. OK, so...
So as the ball's going down -- Instead of taking a pot shot with this top flipper, let the ball come over, and we get it under control, and now from here we can make the right decision on what we want to do. The ball is coming down so that flipper, and we live catch and then we can flip it away.
So I think you've got a basic understanding of what live catch is, but again it's about feeling a certain machine. On some machines, it's really, really hard to live catch. Like I was having a bit of trouble before with the drop catch, on certain machines it's much harder to live catch than it is to drop catch. So it's about, kind of, understanding what machine needs what, and using the right skill at the right time.
Andy: OK. So, for more pinball video's with Craig Pullen please visit, homeleisuredirect.com/pinball.
