Pretty sure IFPA doesn't want to collect a yearly fee, due to legal and taxing issues it would cause on his end.

Better to just push that down to the TDs to worry about.

They were talking on the radio about how awful the US tax code has gotten and how America is the only country where average citizens still have to pay tax preparation companies every year.

Please don't make a silly system where people have to jump through hoops and loopholes to save on fees. This whole thing is already off to a creaky start.. we don't need additional complexity.

I would like to push back a bit on 'luck'. Your initial argument (you're Josh T, right?), while true, had 2014 written all over it. That situation no longer exists.

And in no way am I faulting you for winning, regardless of the size of the turnout. Hardly your fault. You don't have to apologize for winning. But just keep up with the current situation. And I'm not sure how it's anyone's fault, the IFPA or whoever, if one doesn't live in a state that puts on larger annual events.

And I also agree that there are a lot of very good, top 100 worthy players who aren't in it, like my friend John, who finished 4th at Pinball Expo. On the flip side, I would hardly call myself rich. I travel as cheaply as possible. I play in 2 out of state events per year when you take out Wisconsin, my neighbor to the east (historically I would usually do the 3 events at MGC, Wauna, Mad R., one of Tom's), and if it's not in driving distance, it's likely not on my schedule, bar Pinburgh. So no, it's not merely a measure of wealth. Being able to afford to travel is one thing, actually doing well in events is another.

I'm not going around the country playing circuit events. I had to go on a two+ year streak of lots of high finishes to get to the top 100. Not a single 25 point event with 8 players in my record (that I'm aware of).

Pay your fee $1 at a time to the TD of the 5 events you choose to play in.

Or participate in our "Amateur" events in 2019 at no charge, should we choose to go that route.

Is there a new announcement I missed?

Been busy today and only skimming.

Is there now the ability to run "amateur" events and participate as an amatuer and still get IFPA tracking, but just not get "Pro" status or ability to play in SCS and Nationals?

Sounds like we can now elect not to pay and that just means no SCS play or Nationals play???

potentially in 2019 after the 2018 changes have happened and the results of those changes to the landscape.

Similar to the Women's Rankings it will have to be started from scratch.

ONLY Amateur (non-points) events would be included, so it would be a completely separate system. The #1 ranked Amateur player would add the same A-WPPR's to the pot that KME does for the system today.

It would start day 1 with everyone ranked as #1, and we would build from there from the ground up.

Every time we've worked ourselves into creating a separate Amateur WPPR system the interest has been next to nothing. Perhaps the endorsement fee will be the thing that will trigger this interest and allow us to cater to all players better than we can now.

We'll decide whether it's worth putting in the effort to get A-WPPR's off the ground sometime during 2018 when we see how it's going. If you look at the Women's WPPR rankings now and how it's integrated into the player profiles, you can toggle between those systems pretty seamlessly. It would be the same toggle between "Professional" and "Amateur" Rankings systems.

You're referencing one specific tournament where nobody showed up because there was an inch of ice on the ground as my reason for breaking the top 100? LOL, really?

Winning 4 events in a row *IS THE DEFINITON OF LUCK*. That was tail end of 2015. Even the most consistent players, against similarly skilled opponents, are going to have bad runs. It's fact of competition. Nobody stays on a hot streak forever. If you're seriously telling me to keep up...you know who I am, you can see how many events I'm participating in. I finished 30th @ TPF, which was actually better than I expected given how many of those games I had no clue what the rulesets were (4MBC, Dr. Dude, Indy 500, Big Game)...I'm looking at you guys!)

You're taking yourself as an example that I'm wrong, but living within striking distance of three major events is the *exception* not the *rule*. Your situation is not applicable to the vast majority of participants, and neither is mine, as I could attend Bat City Open, TPF, and HAAG, all within 5 hours of me. Oh, and also throw in Silverball Showdown in OKC. But I can't...because...I have a real job in corporate america working for a slavedriver company that doesn't give two craps about my free time.

Ok, so in this scenario, tournaments would be dropping points into two different buckets? It's logical that if a player is gunning for one type or the other (pro/am), they're going to be inclined to skip tournaments that don't match their chosen bucket, which hurts overall participation. I personally wouldn't bother with an amateur tournament under this scenario unless it was local and convenient, not would I host an amateur tourney... why bother? If I am going after points, I would want comparison to the top players.

I'm not aware of the weather conditions.

One specific tournament? Let's take a look. Assuming I have the correct person here (let me know if I got this wrong):

https://www.ifpapinball.com/player.php?p=10774#active

https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=7786# Flip Off Hunger, you won, 26.63 points, 11 players.
https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=7741# Jammed Quarters Annual at Cinemark, you won, 26.10 points, 5 players.
https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=7273# Alan Marx Memorial IFPA Pinball Fundraiser, you won, 25.89 points, 12 players including 6 who had never played a sanctioned event before.
https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=8087# Jammed Quarters Christmas Blast, you won, 26.94 points, 10 players.

You have other events in 2014 (not 2015 for the record) which would not come close to their point totals with today's system. So no, I'm not referencing *one* tournament. I'm also not trying to say you aren't a good player either. That's not the point. I'm pushing back on your assertion that it's easy to make the top 100. All you need is cash. That just isn't true.

What about pro level events that can't do the cash part?

I think you just summarized the real value ifpa and wppr points.

That $5 only comes out the same if EVERY player on a ranked result sends in the five bucks. Nahgonnahapppen.

knock it off you guys, you are making us wisconsin people look like suckers.

Making ?

You are a sucker. I'll let you post your own provocative pics.

Well, thanks, I guess, but I don't really need anyone else's validation as far as that goes. I've pretty much accepted that I'm "good" but not "top tier"....damn inconsistency is my #1 enemy.

I'll agree to disagree, though? I think if you feel like you have the skills, at THIS point AFTER the rules changes, you DO have to have the money and time to travel or you will not break the top 100 most likely. I'm operating under the assumption that anyone shooting for the top 100 probably feels like they are at least somewhat competitive. It took me 3 years to get there, and I still needed things like TPF to boot. I don't think it's exactly fair to say that for example, my wife, who has so little interest in competing that she will not even attend weekly league to help our numbers for MY benefit, could crack the top 100 with enough time and money...of course that's not true, because she will never, ever put in the effort to develop skills or learn rulesets to do that. At some point you have to assume there's a little bit of common ground, yeah? I wasn't trying to say that any Tom, Dick, Harry that just wants to put up numbers with no genuine effort could make it by travelling, but there is a SIGNIFICANT and NON-TRIVIAL advantage that IFPA has decided to leverage against players that CANNOT travel with that specific rules change a while back..

Your choices to get into top 100 anymore are very well defined, for those who actually have a legitimate shot, skillwise:

1. Travel
2. Have a very fortunate living situation AND capitalize those 3 or 4 wins a year that are worth 50+ points
3. Organize 50 point tourneys yourself and be convincing enough to get people to them to participate, and do well in your own events.

1 is not an option for me, and even if it was..I can't think of any dumber use of my money than chasing Dick Points.

3 is not an option for me. I couldn't get enough people to show up, and I don't have a venue large enough to do it anyways... plus, I never ever have saturday or sunday off, which is the only times that most people can attend a tournament large enough to qualify for full point value.

Summary: All I was trying to say was "STOP CARING ABOUT RANKING"...it's pointless. If you want to set a personal goal and go after it...great. I did that, I accomplished it, and now I'd just like to be under 500th so I can play B-Div where I probably belong.
2 is questionable, as my 30th place finish @ TPF shows, but I'm okay with that.

Exactly THIS . . . you can enjoy pinball, and even competitive pinball with caring about the rankings.

Not caring about the rankings makes it possible for you to avoid any of this fee related nonsense, if you feel it is nonsense.

(I'm going to ignore the fact that by playing in TPF, you actually donated $5 to the PAPA Circuit through your participation. The 40 finalists that make the Circuit Final and will be playing for a portion of that $5 you paid thank you for your support)

To be fair, the fee for TPF tournament entry did not change one iota from before it was a circuit event to after. So that had absolutely zero bearing on my participation. And I will still participate in TPF tournaments regardless of whatever you guys decide to do because I'm not going to stop until I walk with a 1st place win, and I like to support the show. I didn't even think about the fact that it was a circuit even the whole weekend. I totally forgot about it.

So, thanks for the cheap shot, I guess. Says nothing at all about me or my decisions. If you were ignoring it, you wouldn't have mentioned it. You're like that person that's like "Well I'm not telling you what to do BUTTTTTTT...."

greed. reminds me of that new commercial where the girl has the lemonade sign up saying 1 dollar for lemonade. then the guy gets one and it is 2.35 cents for standing in line fee/ See the cute little girl fee/ Cup fee/ Lemon removal fee ect.. this 1 dollar is just the start of it . Just like how every other week Sterns pro game goes up every title release . It never ends.. Cant stand Non profit groups and charity groups to because they are in it for the money and not so much for the fun times therein/ what a shame.. keep on flippin

gatsby_704 (resized).jpg

"Just sayin' brah" is very similar to that.

i doubt this approach makes those issues go away.

That's exactly what I meant but couldn't remember the phrasing, thanks.

I used to play in a Sanctioned pool league, APA. I wonder how that works, as I know they are in Wisconsin as well. You pay your league fees, then at the end of the year there is a tournament, where you win a trip to Vegas, to play in the nationals. There is also usually a cash tournament in the fall. At least in the league I was in.

I said it that way because a lot of people constantly tell me I must be wrong about it and that I don't know what Im talking about. I've spent hours down the rabbit hole. You didn't, but I've had players accuse me of purposely lying about this for whatever reason, and people literally flat out tell me I'm wrong and don't know what I'm talking about.

I sort of bring it on myself because our show is very open with everything, although certain things (like this whole bull) I purposely spun to put the best foot forward on it. It benefits no one if I am in a public fight with legislators who don't care.

Like I said, ultimately I don't need people to believe me, it just is what it is.

This goes for pretty much everything up here. Video slots in bars is one that I know. And hell, there was mining operations that wanted favorable permits and blatantly made huge cash donations to get exactly what they wanted.

Sadly, most people don't care.

Either because it's not enforced against it (likely) or because the association paid for it to be exempt (I don't think this has happened with pool).

Oh, and if it's on Milwaukee, there are other reasons.

I have to keep deleting stuff I type because of how stupid the law is and I don't want to get anyone I know in specific trouble... Argh!

From the other poll thread...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/are-you-in-favor-of-the-ifpa-changes-for-2018-poll

"We're going to move forward with it. Even Pinside is polling 40% favorable which actually BLOWS MY MIND. I figured we would be at best 10-15% favorable.

What is yet to be determined is the implementation of a "Professional" and "Amateur" rankings system that can run concurrently to capture the lack of support for this "Pro only" version (should there be a lack of support after things take off in 2018).

We'll review Q1 2018 and see how it's going. If we feel we're losing too much of the audience that we've built up, we'll begin the process of working towards launching the "AMATEUR" rankings for the 2019 season, no fees, but still allowing players many of the perks of what they have today under our Pro-only system."

What John said . . .

Here's what I posted on TF or Facebook or somewhere (probably here already):

We don't plan on screwing it up. We plan on making it better.

There's a path here where I see 3000 "AMATEUR" events per year, along with 500 "PRO" events per year feeding those systems concurrently.

Having an SCS at the "PRO" level for all the cash and glory, but also having an "AMATEUR" State Championship for recognition but without the issues of the cash at play. Inviting some players out to an "AMATEUR" National Championship isn't against the realm of possibility as well if we're already out there and setup for the "PRO" event to also take place.

The 'have your cake and eat it too' is my mission on this. Those that strictly want to play for fun can earn AMATEUR WPPR's and avoid all the fee nonsense. Those that want to take it more seriously can participate in "PRO" events at their choosing for PRO WPPR's.

Figuring out how to piece it all together will be the challenge once 2018 hits and we see how the 'market' reacts.

I'm more than willing to get started on the feedback for the 2019 plan.

Would you be interested in being ranked on our "Amateur" rankings for the events that don't pay the endorsement fee to count towards the "Professional" rankings?

Where do you see this heading for Wisconsin? There were 39 'unique' events held in the state in 2016. Do all 39 apply to be part of the "Amateur" rankings? Do some percentage apply to the "Professional" rankings?

I think without the option to have an amateur rankings in 2018, the player base will be forced to take on the task themselves as they like the state based rankings system/ state championship idea and dont want to loose momentum on what we have worked together to build (a state comraderie and competition which has challenged us to play better and compete more; while being welcoming to new people and making the barrier to entry as low as possible).

I have no way to predict what will happen but I hope the main TDs can get together and figure out a unified plan.

I am guessing there is even a way to work together and have our own WIFPA or Wexit state rankings each year and then leverage those to send a player to nationals by meeting the minimum requiremnets of your new rules (2 events played in a calendar year). We could of course do the minimum of having an end of year event to determine our State Champ and then use that event as a sanctioned event with only 1 person paying the $1 (the winner). I guess in reality that would mean they also get .75 of that back when they go on to win the WI SCS by default. Do we just mail you the .25?

If you try this ridiculous garbage I'll just submit enough Ballers For Dollars results and pay out of my own pocket to wreck your plan, because it's silly.

go right ahead. That is your option to do so. I dont think it will have much impact and enjoy going to nationals. Expensive trip to get dominated in.

It seems from the feedback I have gotten across the state the concensus is that the majority of competitive players have zero interest in paying in to seed a pot for the top 1% of the state and top 1% of national players.

They like the state championship and tracking/competiing with each other throughout the year.

You mail me the $1, I send you back the $.75 along with the State Championship trophy

FWIW, I don't care one bit about the fee as a player. Only as a potential TD do I care about the possible administrative issues, plus having to subsidize an Ohio SCS I don't participate in. Neither of those issues are really a big deal, and as a player, I assume I can still go to KY and earn their SCS points even in 2018. So, at this point I'm going to go back to not really caring either way. I know what Josh is trying to accomplish, and he's blowing a lot of his 'political capital' on this science experiment, so I'm going to just step aside and it it roll...

No stamps please.

I had political capital!?!? Woot!

Not gonna read through this whole thing that's on fire here.

But I will give you my feedback from last event I went to. Buffalo Turdament. It had two division s A and B and anyone higher than a certain ranking could not be in B. I was going to be allowed into B as only my third or fourth event and I am not all that good. Plus I finally got my son's interest peeked and told him you'll be a world ranked player, so I got him to come and try it.

Well it looks to me like it wasnt even thing. I see no history of event for my profile and my son didn't get one created like I did my first tournament event. And it was the first event that was a match play type not that pump and dump crap.

So still on the fence about the tournament scene. I know my son can't show his friends anything. You know like the Xbox achievements they love that stuff.

I can remember I liked the occasional game of bowling, then got talked into a league once. Weekly fees plus game fees plus yearly membership fee. To get your offical bowlers union card.
Is this the same thing for pinball?

are your names on this :

https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=17701

might want to contact the tournament director if not

ifpapinball , in a hypothetical world where a state earns $4,000 in $1/person fees, The state get $3,000 and Nationals get $1,000.

Does the IFPA require the entire $3,000 be allocated to the top 16, or can a state distribute that money to a "B" division (17-32) as it sees fit?

Marcus

Top 16 based on the percentages we prefer, which are "Seattle payouts".

I could use some help with setting up a website and system for a new FPA system if anyone else is possibly going down this road.

Basically I would like something that functions identical to the current IFPA system for valuation, scoring of events, degradation.
I would like to be able to set up a calendar on the site for listing events and allow admins/TDs to put up events and also submit the event results. We would then use peer based review for TGP calcuations. In essence IFPA light since I am just looking for something to deal with the approximately 50-60 events run in the state of WI.

I am happy to pay for anyone that can help make this user friendly and easy for TDs to both submit events and results.

Assuming we come up with something scalable, I am happy to host for other states that may be interested in doing something similar and peer hosting their own state based FPA.

$1!

Would be a lot less effort, hassle, cost, etc to just pay the damn dollar.

It's a fucking dollar!

actually it wouldn't in my case.

I run ~30 events in a year between monthly, launch, home, and MRP charity event. The logistics of me dealing with collecting money is one of my least favorite things to do and I only put forward that effort once per year for the charity event. I cant imagine having to do it or ask for players to pay it and I certainly cant afford to pay it myself. I also wont ever do it as it is unwelcoming to new players and that is a big part of why I do this. Some of my best friends I have met through playing pinball and running events. i dont consider it a good way to start a friendship or welcome someone into the hobby.

It would actually save me time if I can get a good new system worked out and dont have to worry about any $1 colleciton approximately 600 separate times, then deal with the possible legal implications, then deal with the selling of my values by filtering that money to the elite player base at nationals.

Did I miss where this suddenly became legal in WI?