On the plunge, always try to land in a lane that is still lit/not collected yet. Early in the game, get stuck in the 10-point bumpers as much as possible if they are lit, or try to collect more playing cards if not. Once you've collected 8-10 playing cards total, begin shooting for the Ace hole, the leftmost of the four saucers in the center of the table- each one kicks to the right, so the further left the saucer is that you shoot, the more points you'll get.
16 playing card lanes are present around the playfield: Jack, Queen, King, and Ace of each suit. All lanes score 5 points. Rolling through a lit lane will unlight it and light the corresponding card in the grid of inserts at the center of the table.
The center saucers score 10 points, plus an additional 10 for each suit of the corresponding card lit, for a maximum of 50 points. The Ace, King, and Queen saucers each shoot directly to the left, so you can maximize your points by always shooting the Ace saucer regardless of its value since that allows you to collect them all. The Jack saucer should eject nicely to the right flipper. If all 4 suits of one card have been collected, that hole will be lit for a special about 20% of the time. 1-point switch hits rotate whether or not each saucer is lit.
Collecting the four Club suit cards (K in the upper left, Q in the middle right, J in the right out lane, A in the center drain) will also light the center top lane for a special occasionally. The top lane special is in the same rotation as the four saucer specials.
All bumpers score 1 point when not lit or 10 points when lit. The two yellow bumpers above the top lanes are passive bumpers, while the red bumpers are traditional pop bumpers. Don't worry too much about the yellow bumpers on the plunge; focus on getting a lane you don't already have. If the ball is reasonably under control near the flippers and the bumpers are lit, try to shoot just barely to the outside of the center pop bumper with the goal of getting the ball to rattle around between two or more bumpers for 10 points each.
There are no in lanes. The flippers back up directly to the slingshots. The slingshots always score 1 point. The out lanes, which have a very wide and vaguely funnel-shaped entrance, score 5 points as they are the Jack of Spades (left) and Jack of Clubs (right). In the center drain are two posts that form the entrance of the Ace of Clubs center drain lane. It's more possible than it may seem to get a friendly bounce off one or both of these posts to save a ball back into play that was out of range of the flippers. The ball can drain under a raised flipper, falling outside the posts that make the center lane.
There is no end of ball bonus of any kind. All card progress always carries over from ball to ball.
To my knowledge, Specials cannot be worth anything other than a free game. There are no extra balls in Kings and Queens, and I have never seen a special be worth points.
As a fun fact, this game became famous when played by the titular character of the 1975 film version of Tommy, the famous rock opera album by The Who that helped coin the term "pinball wizard".
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