Sounds like a win for me lol

How will the effectiveness of this plan be measured? Number of active players in IFPA?

What do you think is more prohibitive from a new/casual player perspective, asking (or in most cases not even having to ask) for $1 at an event or asking every new player to fork over $20, $30 or more for an IFPA account up front? No new/casual player is going to front that larger cost when they don't know if they will play more events or even care about rankings in the future. And then months down the road if one of those newbies decides they now want to get points and be ranked, then they will have missed out on months of points for all their finishes where they hadn't chose to have an IFPA account.

Josh already brought up the asking the SCS players to fund their own pot...which they currently do already right now. The fear was that multiple states thought that they wouldn't be able to field a top 16 if this was the case and they were required to kick in a large amount of money per player. For instance, how many players who finish 16th in state are going to line up to spend $100, $200+, on top of all the money they spent throughout the year at events just to make the top 16, to buy into the SCS and get the reward of facing the #1 ranked player in the state first round? With the new plan, when you are taking the dollar entry fee from the prize pool like most events will do...the top 16 will basically be funding the SCS again under this new plan because those players are giving up their prize money in the short term (individual event cash payouts) to play for it again in the long term (SCS championship). For states that have large events where the better players come from out of town and win those events in that state, it's even better because those out of towners are now taking home less prize money and more is staying in state for the SCS. This plan also makes it so that all 16 players in the SCS for each state will get prize money instead of only the top 4, which gives borderline players who think they can't win the State Championship anyway more to shoot for when playing throughout the year because now just making the top 16 will put you in the money.

It will be considered a success if we're able to generate more than $18,800 in funds for the year.

If we don't hit at least that amount, it's likely that we kill this campaign from continuing past the first year.

Gotcha. How did you guys come to that number? Just curious.

It's a function of the money we're generating through our current system for Nationals.

The current process is that each of the 16 finalists fund $6.25 of their SCS entry fee to the Nationals pot.

I feel the new process has to beat that level as the benchmark. The number to hit for the Nationals pot across all the States and Provinces is $4700.

The new process pulls 25% of the funds generated and allocates it to the Nationals pot. This puts us at $18,800 needing to be generated in order for the Nationals pot to be built to that $4700 level.

what is the actual equation for determining point value for each position and the curve of decay for an event?

For example an event with 20 people has a slower decay of points awarded as you go from 1st to 2nd to 3rd to etc...
than an event with only 8 people.

I am assuming there is some sort of equation to calcuate this where I can just set the parameters for base value for the event and # of players and then it auto calcualtes what each point value a player gets based on position.

Here's the breakdown after you determine what the 1st place value is worth:

Two WPPR point distribution values are calculated for the rest of the field of participants.

One is a linear distribution value based on the number of players in the tournament.

(PlayerCnt + 1 – Finishing Position) * 10/100 * (1st place value / playerCnt)

The second value is a dynamic distribution value using the top half of the players in the field players of a tournament. For any tournament with more than 128 players, only 64 players will be included in the dynamic distribution of WPPR points.

(power(( 1 – power((( Finishing Position -1) / RatedPlayerCnt),.7)),3)) * 90 /100 * (1st place value)

These two values are what a player earns for a given tournament.

If assuming only linear distribution and no additional value for dynamic player strength...

So for an example of 20 people in an event with a base value of 10 points

(PlayerCnt + 1 – Finishing Position) * 10/100 * (1st place value / playerCnt)
1st place is (20 +1 -1) *.1 * (10/20) = (20) *.1 * (.5) = 1
2nd place is (20 +1 -2) *.1 * (10/20) = (19) *.1 * (.5) = .95
3rd place is (20 +1 -3) *.1 * (10/20) = (18) *.1 * (.5) = .90

This is not making any sense to me. 1st place normally gets the full base value of the event (assuming 100% TGP value) plus the additional dynamic amount for strength of field.

what am I missing?

Thanks for the explanation, Josh.

So it's all based on how much money is generated for the top players in the US. Doesn't matter if the number of active players is cut in half, as long as the elite players are making a little more cash then this was a success.

Still can't see how this is going to help bring in new people to pinball. I don't think larger pots are going to draw in a ton of new people who think they can compete with the big dogs for the $$, or more media coverage. That's like me seeing huge prize pools in golf so I decide to learn the sport in hopes of competing with the pros and winning. But I can't see the future, and am bad with analogies.

Just my opinion of course, but (at least for small 16 person events) I always felt the point disbursement was a little over weighted to the first place finisher of events.

You missed my comment about the formula being used for the players AFTER 1st place.

First place simply gets whatever the full value is calculated out to be (Base Value + TVA) * (TGP%).

In your example let's just say the 10 points is the TOTAL.

Per our distribution formula, 1 POINT is distributed in a linear fashion, while the other 9 POINTS are distributed in a dynamic fashion.

So for 2nd place on down you're exactly right with respect to how the LINEAR points are distributed.

Just to help you more, here's a real world example from one of the tournaments you played in:

https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=18370

1  Hilton Jones 7.4
2  Maya Nigrosh 3.57
3  Sean Spindler 2.11
4  Thomas LaTendresse 1.31
5  Bryon Schmitz 0.85
6  Karl Luhrs 0.61
7  Luke Dillon 0.48
8  Nick Stanton 0.42
9  Brodde Peterson 0.37
10  Shane Kloppenburg 0.32
11  Garrett Peterson 0.28
12  Zach Starr 0.23
13  Jason LaTendresse 0.18
14  Mike Williams 0.14
15  Mark Hagen 0.09
16  Steven P Jones 0.05

Here's the Linear + Dynamic breakdown of that result from our database:

1 0.74 6.66 7.4
2 0.69 2.88 3.57
3 0.65 1.46 2.11
4 0.6 0.71 1.31
5 0.55 0.3 0.85
6 0.51 0.1 0.61
7 0.46 0.02 0.48
8 0.42 0 0.42
9 0.37 0 0.37
10 0.32 0 0.32
11 0.28 0 0.28
12 0.23 0 0.23
13 0.18 0 0.18
14 0.14 0 0.14
15 0.09 0 0.09
16 0.05 0 0.05

that helps. thanks

It's a little more complicated than that with respect to catering to the "top players". I think the current system is far more "top player" favoring, and I'll explain why.

Currently only the top 3 finalists in each state are receiving anything positive financially from the entire SCS process. That's 141 different players this past season.

This new process expands those that see a positive financial benefit from 141 different players to 752 different players. That represents over 5X the number of "top players" that we're able to pull through the SCS system in a financially successful way.

To me that expands the base of players that can see a path towards being one of the best 752 players in the US, rather than being one of the best 141 players in the US.

A majority of the TD's that I've talked to will be funding the entire endorsement fee through the payouts of the winners. This means that there is no impact on new players, unless those new players are immediately winning these IFPA events. Someone like my mom for example won't see any additional charges thrown her way to continue to enjoy the perks of being an IFPA member. That gets funded by the winners of the monthly tournament that she plays in.

"Free events" are the sacrificial lamb here for getting new players involved. You can't have the winners subsidize the participation of those new players because there's no winnings to pull from. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to give this campaign a shot.

IMG_2821 (resized).JPG

It only takes 1 afternoon at work to build the WPPRizer, once you plug the formulas into your spreadsheet calculating results is easy!

wpprizer_build (resized).PNG

Edit: I'm going to make a sharable link to the WPPRizer with some instructions on how to use it. I'll post in this thread when it's done.

about about the small monthly events that put in more cash over time with less IFPA points vs an big even that puts in less cash but more ifpa points. vs Or an monthly league that only reports 1 or 2 a year that puts in less cash but way more points even with the same number of players.

I can see giving up free events but making charity events pay just LOOKS REAL BAD.

The idea seems good but can use some small changes. Also there are more legal issues moving from today's system to this.

The last thing that we need is the FBI butting in may be a bit extreme but they went after the NCAA. Also anything with the IRS can get ugly.

The pooling of money issue does lead to some questions under the law. Like say group A has 6 events that reports 6 times paying each time and group B has 6 events that reports 1 time and only pays 1 time. Both have the same number of players and both events have about the same over all total ranking points to an tournament of champions. How does fit in as they did not pool money equally? or say group B gives out more ranking points just due to how the ranking system is set up.

Don't report six times.

Simple way around those problems is to include charity events in the SCS qualifying if choose to contribute to the pot. Make it the event organizers choice to participate or not, problem solved.

I would like to see the change to all home leagues being forced into 1 x year reporting.

I think that would be a good shift. If we are honest, these leagues are essentially private events and a random cant just walk in any month and play (we added a sub list to our local collector league to make this more of an option and make it more fair, but we still require and understandable vetting and randoms cant just show up). The current rules have incentivized IFPA hungy leagues to kind of bastardized their formats from the traditional idea of a year long league and instead run mini-seasons to maximize points. I know a few route only players that get screwed by this and have rightfully taken offense to it. I have had an internal debate about this for a while. Leagues will of course follow the incentives, so only natural to have them running the mini-seasons under the current system.

I would like to see this compromise and just make it a rule that events held in private locations as part of an ongoing league must either report individually (i.e. each house reports as their own event; which will prevent the point maximizing) or must report as a single annual league/ 1 x per year; preference is that a league report as a 1x per year event.

At the next tournament I'm taking an Elbow in protest!

Disclaimer: This is not a political post just a joke!

Doesn't the Madison League allow Subs? Doesn't the Madison League run mini seasons?

Get out there, make friends, join/start a league. When I helped co-found CPM almost 15 years ago, I owned zero working pinball machines. No pinside, no facebook. Made friends via expo & route play, tricked those suckers into hosting league so I could play their collections.

This was the early 2000's, when location pinball was all but dead. And WPPRs were only available at Burger King. Route players today don't know how good they have it.

I want that joust.

Actually I just wanted to say please keep up the efforts to get it right.

I feel tournaments are where it's at in pinball promotion. I think today's future pinball player is in many cases a guy or girl who casually plays in a tournament today. Or attends a show. Or both.

I didn't like tourneys so much, then I played in lake Alice tourney a few years ago before my brain surgeries. I liked it.
I was on the bubble for b. I lost. It was a thrill though.
I'm going back to lake Alice on Saturday this week. I hope I can get into b.

That would fun.

That is awesome! Would you consider creating a google sheet and sharing?

Marcus

I second and third and fourth this. It is just awesome.

Yeah, Madison League allows subs which was a nice compromise to make it more open and has worked out nicely for that effect.

Yes, they also run the mini-season format which I have realized is kind of silly. It was done to maximize WPPRs throughout the year as that si hwo the current system works.

I assume Fox valley does the same thing? Basically run 2 months combined in order to maximize WPPRs and then report 6 times a year. Do you still crown an end of year champ based off the combined mini-seasons?

After being part of a colelctors league for a few years, I think it si more appropriate to report 1x per year. However, unless the IFPA puts it in the rules then the leagues will just gravitate towards the outcome we currently have (assuming points are their goal)

Are you talking about private leagues or just at home leagues?

I don't understand the issue either way, as location leagues can schedule and optimize the points in exactly the same way as a private or home leagues.

There is no location pinball in ATL and the only place to play is at home. I run the Head-2-Head league that has 4 sessions a year. Each session winner plays 50+ meaningful games. This is many more games than a regular tournament.

That would be 200+ games if submitted annually, without any additional value. that sounds more silly than organizing events to optimize the rules.

I'm curious to see how the endorsement fee impacts the organizers are on the end of the spectrum where it's all about WPPR maximizing. I know for our Chicago league, we report results annually even though our TGP is like 400% because we don't particular care about WPPR's.

For next year it means our fee for the whole year will only be $36, rather than $150-200 if we went the mini-season route.

The Wisconsin situation I'm guessing won't matter anymore if none of these leagues are applying for IFPA sanctioning next year over the fees. You can certainly put into your WI-IFPA system limitations on submissions per leagues. I know for the first 3 years of the WPPR system we didn't even include any league play in the rankings (based on the 'private group' aspect you mentioned which totally happens).

talking about private home leages which are effectively private unless you know someone or get in at the start of a season.

I have no issue with completely public locations where anyone can join at any time doing whatever they want.

I have always struggled with the desire to maximize WPPRs vs being really public for the 'private' collector leagues.

Still don't understand your hangup here. Do you think people are cheating, or is it unfair that people have collections, or should they have to pay to play on location to count?

How would there be any competitive pinball in GA if we had to play in public?

I do prefer the mini seasons. If someone gets ahead during the year early in a season that is a year long, attendance drops off because it is nearly impossible to catch anyone. Having a fresh start is nice.

I think running a league quarterly makes more sense to me.

I believe we do ours differently in that we play MatchPlay in groups of 3/4 where you guys do a best game tournament format and then have a playoff.
We use MatchPlay.com which has been great because we use to draw games every round.
One thing we did differently this year is do the matches in a Swiss format by there overall score. If you are scoring higher you are going to be playing people that are also scoring higher which makes it pretty competitive. It reminds me more of the Pinburgh format.

Unfortunately in our area there are no locations with more than one pin so meeting up at a bar with one pin with 24 people is a little tough.

I don't think anyone should be penalized for not playing at a public location as long as the IFPA standards are maintained.

So in 2018 you won't mind me heading to Madison and running an IFPA event at one of your locations?

I dont have any problem with that and welcome players to feel free to do so. Please just let us know in advance so we can coordinate with the location owners and maintain that relationship/ ensure they are OK with timing and dont have other conflicting events planned.

Sweet!

none of the above.

I have always taken full advantage of the currnet system. I have also realized that this is unfair to some people that dont really have the ability to gather those IFPA WPPR points since the leagues are not really available to the general public.

I guess it is possible that the new fee will help provide a new constraint and some league may shift to a compromise, for example...

this also helps to allow people to join a quarterly 4 different times in the year rather than possibly be excluded from the league and points for the entire year.

Guess it's just a matter of perspective.

Leagues are available to everyone since anyone can start a league.

^ Yup, that.

very true. Assuming that have a space to run them/games and money to own them.

The barrier to entry can be high if you are not invited into a collector league.

Noob question here that relates to the previous comments of private vs public events. I was under the impression (maybe incorrectly) that an IFPA tournament (for WPPR's) had to be posted 30 days ahead of time and open to the public. I would like to have tournaments (hopefully for a few IFPA points) in the future with my collection and want to know how to do so. I'll explore around the IFPA site when I have more time, but any quick and dirty cliff notes here would be nice, including an answer as to whether I can exclude the general public and keep Hilton out of my basement.

While we need your address for the calendar submission into us, we do allow an organizer to not publicly list that address on the website. It instead lists just the CITY on the calendar submission, with 'contact TD for more details'.

It's understandable to not want to advertise publicly an address where you can find potentially $100,000 worth of equipment in some basements.

Our rules for TD's that go this "private" route:

- You still have to allow anyone to be able to participate (players simply have to reach out to you to get the detailed address)
- We only allow a location to host 4 events per year that are listed as "private" on our website
- You must have at least 16 players participate for the event to be endorsed by us
- Player caps are okay (you can't hold 400 people in your basement), however the signup list must be on a first come, first served basis. You can't "invite" a group privately and fill all the spots without the public being aware that the event exists

Thanks Josh... I now realize that Hilton used the term "league" and not "tournament" in his post

Does your statements regarding having a private group apply to leagues as well? I'm going to assume so, but would rather clarify than assume. I'm guessing there is no difference in leagues vs tournaments, other than leagues have multiple events to assemble into one point submission.

It's one in the same. Leagues have to have a 'wait list' that's available for anyone to participate in, and as players drop from the league it should be filled on a first come-first served basis.

By the way is tiltforums.com down?

I heard moderators just closed all the threads

502 error site seems 100% dead

Thanks Joe. It's been down since yesterday.

Shoot, I really don't care about the $1. Everyone is talking about driving competitive pinball and yet we allow things like the below to be "acceptable". Do you really think this represents the best players in a state? It's all about how many events some people play. Some type of average needs to be implemented to truly represent the best in a state.

I removed the names to not call out people specifically since nobody is breaking any rules (and most of them are really nice stand up guys) but can you really pose a good argument that the green accompanied by the yellow boxes shows that these players are the better players than what you see in the blue boxes? I stopped at 16 as that is the cut off.

Yeah yeah yeah - I know the responses already. Why don't you just create more events or play in more. That's not the spirit of what is trying to be accomplished. Those who play in 50+ events in a year shouldn't be rewarded nor should those that can only do 15 or so events a year. Seriously, some people have families and forcing them to leave them to play pinball multiple times a week so that they can compete is putting priority on the wrong things in life.

This doesn't drive competitive play, it pushes it out. I know several players that have given up even trying because of exploits like this occurring.

I've seen the "numbers" of what it would look like if you limit entries right now which only impacts 2-3 people (which I argue is substantial in a max 16 person field) but the flaw in those numbers right now is we still have 3.5 months left of entries that will make it even more lopsided.

ifpa (resized).jpg