Thanks for starting this thread so I didn't have to

Anyone plan on streaming their State Championship?

There are leagues that cross state lines during the course of their season (mostly on the east coast where the States are small).

So we had a decision to make with respect to how to handle those multi-state leagues.

A) Don't count the league towards any SCS standings

B) Let the League President decide which state they would like to have their league listed under for SCS purposes

C) Include the results in the SCS standings for every state that the league was held in over the course of that particular season

We ended up going with option C to be as inclusive as possible for all players involved, knowing that players only have the ability to participate in one State Championship on February 13th. This option essentially helped us create the Rhode Island SCS which is currently made up of New England Pinball League results ONLY. Option A would have left Rhode Island blank, and Option B (assuming the NEPL President would have selected whatever state suited him/her best personally - which probably wasn't Rhode Island) would also have kept Rhode Island out of the SCS for this year.

Todd beat me to it!

Washington D.C. is not a state, but there is a DC-S

http://www.ifpapinball.com/rankings/custom_view.php?id=121

Winner still advances to Nationals . . . but that doesn't make it a "State".

DC does have their own tourney on 2/13.

It's my understanding that any tournaments held JUST in DC aren't listed on the other states. Any leagues that were held in DC AND either of those neighboring states should be included in both based on how we do it.

If there are any events listed in MD or VA that didn't have any actual play included in those states please let me know and I can look into that.

I'm curious how the league actually makes up its final standings when you have players competing all over the place. How do they decide a "winner" between these groups of players that seem to be not competing with one another?

Once the qualifiers get locked down for VA, do me a favor and let me know how many of those qualifiers didn't play any competitive pinball within VA state limits. I'll be curious to see what the actual impact is for SCS purposes.

I'd love to see that format, especially knowing that you need a direct play component for next year between these interstate people.

Ultimately I'm still not convinced you would make an impact on the SCS qualifying for 7 out of those 8 states, and it would actually bring Iowa into the fold as no IFPA events currently exist there . . . so I say GO FOR IT!

So assuming a bunch of players would be willing to compete in an event they know they can't win (assuming they won't travel for the final) . . . I challenge you on the top winners qualifying for multiple states based on just this result.

Looking at Super League under WPPRv5.2 from a random month with 260+ participants. 14 players got 10 points or more. 6 players got 20 points or more.

I get what you're saying, and HYPOTHETICALLY the double dipping could be flawed, but ultimately if you actually did this, I don't think the impact would be nearly as big as you would expect.

Only one way to find out . . . bring on the SUPER DUPER LEAGUE

I take it that means you vote Option A

A) Don't count the league towards any SCS standings

At this point I'm not worried about hypothetical situations. We'll react to ACTUAL issues based on the events being organized, how they impact the SCS qualifying, etc.

I'm confused because it sounds like we're doing something NOT consistent with Washington DC.

I'm assuming this is regarding the DMV 'stuff'? (I believe that stands for DC, Maryland, Virginia)

Based on our 2015-16 SCS rules, as long as there was ACTIVITY in DC, Maryland and Virginia for a given result, then those results count in all three areas.

If the Washington DCS didn't exist, then these results would count towards just Maryland and Virginia.

Tell me what I'm missing Keith

We're allowing Washington DC to have a "DC-S", but that doesn't take away from our 2015-16 rules for the SCS.

Our current rule is:

Every event held in the US will be included in a state for the SCS as long as there was activity within the state lines as part of the results of that event.

By this rule as we currently organize the SCS, these DMV events HAVE to count in Maryland and Virginia . . . assuming that there was activity within those state lines as part of the results submitted.

What you are proposing is fine for debating rules changes for the future . . . but your proposal to change the 2015-16 qualifying rules on December 28th isn't a great idea IMO. If I'm understanding you correctly that's exactly what you're suggesting?

Enjoying those hypotheticals?

I'm sure everyone is just dying to get into the IL SCS . . . although I could use the help in trying to get out of IL myself to avoid Zach and Henderson

Unrealistic hypotheticals won't lead to changes in the system.

Actual happenings on how players are impacted will.

(Seriously, let me know once the VA field is locked for 2015-16 how many players made it without playing a single competitive event on VA soil. That's actual evidence worth noting that can lead to change.)

Time to form the IFPA VA Union . . . band together with all the tournament organizers within the VA borders to not participate in these cross-boarder events

I'm not concerned with what the qualifying standings look like for VA at the moment. I'm more concerned after everything shakes out when people declare what state they will be participating in. Looking at Illinois we only have 7 of the top 25 in the standings that are actually from Illinois, which is a similar issue we deal with (players not playing in their 'home state').

When all is said and done, we'll analyze those 16 VA finalists and see what exactly we're dealing with. The percentage of points that came from these cross-boarder competitions versus earning points from dedicated VA events. That's an exercise I believe is worth doing AFTER those finalists are locked in. We can talk about it on your pod because one of us is bound to be right on how big of an issue it actually is

I understand you completely. These people are participating in a cross-boarder league where SOME people play in VA as part of the league, but the results include SOME people that don't play in VA. People that played in VA are getting credit for beating people in other states they never faced directly, and people outside of VA are getting credit for beating people within VA despite never having faced them directly.

I was simply making the point that we deal with issues that seem like they would be a HUGE IMPACT in theory (the 'home state' thing being the next best example) . . . only to come to the realization that it's not that big of a deal once you take into account all the declarations of these players that have multiple SCS options to consider.

I LOVE your rant. All I'm saying is to save it until January 16th after SCS registration closes, and THEN we can see just how much our current process is fucking everybody

I'll leave it to the IFPA State Rep as to reseed or not. Just make sure that's clearly laid out before things start. It's definitely a little complicated to recreate the brackets because every time you lose you move into this new "pod" for lack of a better term where you're playing the other people that lost in that same round. At some point there's going to be someone that goes 0-4 in matches and finishes in 16th place. I plan on just printing a ton of 8 player single elim brackets, and moving the losers of each round onto a new sheet.

For any of these matches there will not be a "no waiting rule" in place. I personally can't stand them . . . they lead to players finding ways to avoid starting their match until the game they want is available (countless timely bathroom breaks), and also lends the tournament to be mostly about the shortest games having a bigger impact on the tournament results (this means that these matches become more 'classic' based if there's a mix of old and new games available). Every match can wait as long as they want to play any game they want, with preference being given to Winner's bracket matches having priority over any of the consolation matches.

There is NO "no waiting rule" for any match.

The priority of a machine will go to a winner's bracket match, but that consolation match is more than welcome to wait for that machine to open up after the winner's bracket game is done on it.

So if I'm waiting for Tron in a loser's bracket match, and Zach/Henderson walk over and say, "We want to play Tron" . . . they get to play it before I do . . . but then I can still wait for it and play it after them (unless another winner's bracket match comes over and wants to play it before we start - then we have to wait for them to finish).

The biggest thing stopping a league from doing this is that it actually requires someone to put in the effort to do it. It's just another hypothetical situation I'm not going to worry myself about until someone actually tries to pull something like this off.

LOL yup . . . it's an awesome rule to have at Nationals. We had something like 15 matches to start, and only 9 games available.

First group - Tron
Second group - Tron
Third group - Tron
Fourth group - Tron

Still finished in under 3 days

I actually can't talk this out without drawing it out either

The winners of round 1 advance through the normal bracket (nobody can finish worse than 8th).
The losers of round 2 will go into their own 4-player bracket that gets played out to determine 5th through 8th.

The losers of round 1 will be put in a new 8-player bracket
The winners of this round will advance to the 'final 4' of this bracket (nobody can finish worse than 12th overall)

The losers of that first Consolation bracket will be placed in a new 4-player bracket
The winners of this round will advance to the 'final 2' of this bracket (winner gets 13th, loser gets 14th)

The players that lost every match up to this point play a final match (winner gets 15th, loser gets 16th)

Yeah I'll whip something up and make sure it's in the 'welcome packet email' for all the State Reps.

Correct!

I would take those people and list them as 'tied for as low as possible' at the moment they left.

So if after round 1, 2 people lose their first match, say F-this, and leave . . . they would be tied for 15th/16th.

It was done . . . and will be analyzed in depth after SCS registration is done to determine the impact it had on qualifying. Your time will come Taylor . . . NOT YET

Thinking about this more last night, you should definitely reseed top to bottom for every 'new consolation bracket'.

That way as people decide to quit and leave, the benefit of those bye rounds goes to the highest seeded players left in that pod. It also eliminates the possibility of both participants of a match quitting and neither advancing (becomes a bit of a cluster for the remaining players).

Before you start any new consolation bracket, wipe away anyone who has decided to quit, put them in last place of that pod, and then bracket up the remaining players to play their matches.

It'll be original seed, which is your "State Rank" going into the tournament.

One down . . . wayyyyy too many to go!

Virginia randomly happened to be on top of the plaque pile. Taylor's ears must be burning

IMG_3175_(resized).JPG

Unfortunately they aren't available. I'm able to get one of our Raw Thrills vendors to do us a favor by running these for us, and I'm tapped out of favors with these guys

If you want a high res version of the logo I can definitely send that your way. You can then do with it as you please.

Last year I think we finished close to 2am with an insane 7 game final between Zach and Henderson that lasted 3+ hours.

Fortunately this year I'm hosting at my place, so if that happens again I can just go upstairs and go to bed

Games were way too easy, and yes LOTR was in it (that game alone took over an hour - I believe Zach lost with something like 130mil)

At least this year if I clog a toilet I can just blame my 4 year old!

That's exactly what I'm doing, being fully prepared to have to deal with people saying "Fuck this I'm outta here. I'm not spending another hour playing for 12th or 13th."

IMO those bye benefits should always go to the highest seed in those situations.

Reseed to limit the potential of people leaving really messing things up.

It always gives the highest seed the benefit if any player quits and leaves, which I can imagine will be probable. I anticipate after someone loses their first two matches, and is left playing for 13th-16th place, you may get some level of disinterest.

Making 35 trophies (40 including Canada) hits our expense account pretty hard.

Making 160 of them and needing to ship all those out . . . besides the money aspect I might just kill myself putting all those together

Let me phone the batcave and see if Shepherd can make that happen.

I just added it to the standings page (at the bottom):

http://www.ifpapinball.com/championship-series/scs/standings

Getting it integrated into the player profiles is beyond my pay grade

No worries at all Jeff. I only posted that because that was originally the plan back for year 1 ... Until I actually did the math

Boom goes the dynamite (updated results are in):

http://www.ifpapinball.com/view_tournament.php?t=11102#results

Yep! Every State Rep will get an email along with the email addresses of the players in their state (top 50 I believe is what I do).

There will be a sample email to send, along with details on our registration page (state reps will be in charge of updating us on who is in/out for their state). Our back end auto no's anyone that has multiple states to choose from and made their selection known.

Email should go out a week from tonight-ish once we lock 2015 down.

That's the plan ... Or sooner hopefully

Mine arrived safely as well ... Although it wasn't much of a trip

image_(resized).jpeg

Here's the IL lineup:

The Walking Dead Premium
Tron Pro
AC/DC Premium
Metallica Premium
World Cup Soccer
Twilight Zone
Demolition Man [claw disabled, set to Extra Hard]
Attack From Mars
The Addams Family
Dracula
Fish Tales
Funhouse
Whirlwind
Jackbot
Eight Ball Deluxe
Barracora
Cyclopes
Air Aces
Monaco
Countdown
Sharpshooter
Hoops

The strategy changes from multiball via claw all day, to actually having to play the game

Your first claw award automatically selects claw freeze, so there's some strategy into getting your first multiball out of the way on your own so your first claw award lights your 2nd multiball.

The right ramp doesn't divert to the claw so it comes right back at your keeping the flow going. Combo points are important, demolition time is on the table, and you might just get crazy enough to want to shoot a yellow spot target to light a freeze (which I never did in the first 10 years I owned the game before I disabled the claw).

Went from a game on the chopping block at my place to one of my favorites now.

There was some talk about how TECHNICALLY I can't force everyone to play out their matches, because it's possible for all the players to agree to forfeit all the consolation matches, and I can't stop all 8 players that lose in the first round from agreeing to all stop playing.

This is really about making sure there's no ambiguity before the tournament starts. Last year we ran into issues with states deciding to play things out, a player not realizing they were doing that, being given 16th place in the standings, and being really upset about it.

I'm fine with you doing what you want as long as it's published in advance, with a solid reminder before you start the tournament with how it's going to be handled for all the players.

That's completely acceptable.

Actually none of the consolation stuff has any impact on the WPPR value. Meaningful games played for TGP has to do with games played to decide the winner. It's a single elimination best of 7 tournament to decide the winner (88% TGP), regardless of no consolation matches, or the most insane consolation bracket you could possibly think of.

22 is correct