Contestants: Fritz Kubacky

In November 1983 a 15-year Fritz came to a Contestant audition in San Francisco, saying he wanted to be on a Team show. After looking at his game scores in the audition room, we thought he'd make a great individual player and cast him in a one-on-one competition against another great player, Mitch Harmon, on Starcade! Show #102.

It was a fairly tight competition between the 2 except on the game Blaster. Fritz took this game by over 12,000 points which is interesting because his opponent, Mitch, picked the game. During the tryouts Mitch had scored 5,700 points on Blaster, Fritz had scored 6,000 but obviously Fritz caught a break on the show and Mitch was not able to make up the huge gain Fritz took on this first game.

Games on Show #102

Cube Quest, Blaster, Star Wars, Astron Belt and Mazer Blazer. Grand Prize: MegaZone.

In his short bio, Fritz said his interests included programming computers, working with electronics and he hoped some day to build his own game. His hobbies were playing video games and building bikes.

He was an avid game player and had achieved 5,000,000 points on Dig Dug and 300,000 points on Time Pilot. He claimed to be 'best at Dig Dug, Mario Bros, Star Wars, Time Pilot, Dragon's Lair and Food Fight" - all the hot games in 1983.

Fritz was serious about his game play, saying "I know a lot of people who have developed patterns (of play) for games. I have made a very effective point gathering pattern for Dig Dug (obviously, this works since his high score was 5 million points). I feel that a good pattern helps a player more."

All the really avid gamers saw the game as a challenge, not just a game to play.

Fritz's sister Gretchen checked in for him. In 1996 Fritz left this world for what we like to think is a new adventure in the next.

His sister remembers Fritz as, "an avid reader, an amateur philosopher, a good chess player and a really amazing bicyclist - doing 30 to 40 mile rides on a daily basis. And he could fix anything imaginable that was wrong with a bicycle. Fritz wasn't afraid to express his feelings and he had many friends - some on the margins of society who were otherwise shunned by 'normal' people - whom he saw for their souls and befriended, rather than judging them on their looks or accomplishments."

We like to think that Fritz has moved on to bigger and better things in the next world ... and that he is exploring new ways to experience all that that world has to offer, and he still has that same bright smile we remember.

Starcade! remembers Fritz.

Fritz's Game Scores