RUMFORD — Twenty pinball players, some from as far away as Massachusetts, competed in the Rumford Pinball Classic Tournament on Saturday afternoon at the Oxford Lanes Bowling Alley.

The tournament was jump-started by residents Eric Schmersal and Paul Litalien Sr. as a means to revive the community’s interest in pinball, as well as bring some attention to Oxford Lanes.

“I think we had a pretty good turnout for our first year,” Schmersal said prior to the competition. “All we were trying to do is get the community excited about pinball and give them something fun to do.

“My excitement for doing this is their excitement,” Schmersal said. “We’re just thankful for everybody coming out today and participating.”

All participants competed on nine Solid State classic pinball machines from Bally, Williams, Saga, Data East and Gottlieb, which dated from 1980 to 1996.

Nick Graham of Mexico signed up to compete, along with his six-year old son, Logan, who was the youngest competitor in the tournament. According to Graham, Logan is a B-ranked player, which means that “he knows all the basic tools of how to play pinball.”

Schmersal, who originally stated that he would be sitting out of the tournament, ended up playing to replace a player who did not arrive in time.

Schmersal said that he used to play pinball all the time, “gave it up for a while and then got back into it a few years ago.”

“I probably have more than 20 machines at my house right now, and I can’t find it in me to get rid of them,” Schmersal said. “I do a lot of technical work on them too.”

One of the big names competing was John Reuter, a Gorham man with a collection of nearly 100 pinball machines. Reuter runs his own pinball tournament, called PinMaineia, from his home and was on hand Saturday for the Rumford tournament.

“Pinball is the king of the arcade, no questions asked,” Reuter said. “It’s a sport very similar to golf, where you can compete against others or compete against yourself. It’s one of those sports where there’s no perfection. You’ll always be working on getting better.”

He added that he believes the reason many arcades are getting shut down is because “the games stink.”

“A lot of the arcade games nowadays, with the video element, are too easy,” Reuter said. “You play the game, you finish it and you shut down. I call it the law of diminishing returns. With pinball, there’s no limit to the skill. There’s always more skill to be had.”

Reuter started playing pinball when he was eight while living in New Hampshire, inserting quarter after quarter into the machines and resorting to any method to get a few extra minutes on the machine.

“I used to go around to the machines and bang on the coin slot to see if any were stuck in there,” Reuter said as he laughed. “I would hit the ‘Play’ button just in case somebody walked away from the machine without realizing they still had credits left to play. When I got my first jobs, all my money would go towards pinball. It was a magical place for me.”

The decreasing popularity of pinball was what motivated Reuter and his friend Bowen Kevins of Salem, Mass., to start pinball clubs that would help bring a competitive, yet friendly nature to the game.

“The way that pinball tournaments were set up in the past were bracket-style elimination, where the players were whittled down until their was a winner,” Reuter said. “We decided to design tournaments that were non-elimination but still competitive, and that’s how the Pin Golf idea came about.”

Reuter first instituted his new idea in 2007, where he held the first PinMaineia pinball tournament out of his home in Gorham.

“After that, the Pin Golf thing started spreading like wildfire,” Reuter said.

Tournament play Saturday was based on Pin Golf, which Schmersal said shared similarities with mini-golf rules.

Each team competed by playing on nine different pinball machines with a set score.

“We tally all individuals that come to compete and place them into even teams, usually four to a team,” Schmersal explained Tuesday. “Each team has a captain and a cool name; they pick the players’ shooting order.

“What you do is, each player has three balls to achieve the score picked for that machine,” Schmersal continued. “The lower the number of balls it takes you to get the score, the better your individual and team score will be. Just like miniature golf!”

The tournament began at 1 p.m. and was still ongoing as of 4 p.m.

[email protected]