Fruit Machine Chat

Anyone know anything about this London / SE based player?

He's an extremely competent FFQ player, judging by scores. Second only to INCA although he's getting better (I've seen quite a few 105+s by MIKE recently, and a pal saw a 109 or 110 MIKE score in Watford, which to put it mildly is none too shabby). Is it INCA under a different name? I don't think so as he doesn't play with Chelsea which INCA and various aliases of INCA always seem to use. Could it be PIKE under a name change? I'm not sure.

I suspect MIKE must be a very strong player more generally. I played a machine in a fairly obscure London suburb yesterday evening with had a recent-ish MIKE 107 on FFQ, and the whole machine was tough as old boots - I put about £6 in with no return on any of my usual suspect games, which is as bad as it gets for me. I wonder whether I'd missed MIKE by a matter of a day or even hours.

I'm reliably informed that PIKE likes to go on tour around the country and was doing this towards the end of last year- why would pike use anything but PIKE?has anybody ever noticed that INCA can be on the top scores on an itbox but those in close vicinity is not-do the high scores get reset from time to time?

cool wrote:I'm reliably informed that PIKE likes to go on tour around the country and was doing this towards the end of last year- why would pike use anything but PIKE?has anybody ever noticed that INCA can be on the top scores on an itbox but those in close vicinity is not-do the high scores get reset from time to time?

To be honest my question about PIKE was rhetorical - I know PIKE pretty well, and (a) I don't think he would change his monicker like that, (b) if he did, I think he would have told me, and (c) the pub I was at last night was not in an area of London I would expect PIKE to bother visiting.

On the INCA question, yes - I have noticed that phenomenon, both inside and outside of London. I suspect that it's simply that INCA (like all of us) probably has a pretty top-notch, but not complete, knowledge of machine sites, and will visit the ones he knows but not deem it worth wandering about trying to look for others on the off-chance (he'd be better off going to a definite site and emptying it). I suspect that the ItBoxes that are unINCAed are more likely to be those that do not feature on the online resources used to locate ItBoxes, but that may be wrong. For a (much) lower-level player like me, it's actually a better relative bet to wander about looking for new machines than it is for the top boys, I think, in that the opportunity cost of not playing is lower for me than it is for them.

As far as I am aware, FFQ scores do not get reset in the ordinary course - I see very occasional instances where a historic scoreboard is reset to become empty, but I suspect it is where the whole machine has been reinstalled due to a technical fault. It's always nice as the first few games on FFQ always yield a fairly easy £8-£10 (read "£20JP first go" for better players).

cool wrote:has anybody ever noticed that INCA can be on the top scores on an itbox but those in close vicinity is not-do the high scores get reset from time to time?

I haven't noticed that so much but have noticed, as I've mentioned on here before, that he will leave untouched games that would seem to me to be an essential play, particularly Millionaire in obvious 'pay mode'.

cool wrote:I'm reliably informed that PIKE likes to go on tour around the country and was doing this towards the end of last year- why would pike use anything but PIKE?has anybody ever noticed that INCA can be on the top scores on an itbox but those in close vicinity is not-do the high scores get reset from time to time?

Have also spotted this phenomenon - can partly be attributed to machines being resited I think. So for example not sure he has ever visited my current patch of London but has the FFQ score on one itbox which was introduced as a second machine in one pub. i.e they brought in an Incad machine from another site. Thanks