Cumming, GA
I ranked 10th in GA so I'm in. I know I'm off where this thread is going, but I did answer the initial question.
(Topic ID: 74432)
Quoted from ifpapinball:It's scary how 50% of the feedback we get is this kind of opinion, and 50% of the feedback we get is that the system is only designed for serious players and is worthless to anyone out of the upper tier of players.
It's our way of trying to reinforce the phrase - jack of all trades, master of none
Yea, let me re-phrase that..I mis-spoke a bit... I think the format rewards players at the opposite ends of the spectrum: casual first-timers (who luck out and win) and serious players (who aggressively play as many tournaments as possible). The people in the middle, who enjoy playing and tend to do well, but don't always place in the top 3, don't seem to have their overall rankings reflect their true ability.
In any case, I recognize it's a lost cause trying to make everybody happy. We've decided when we run our tournaments to alter the point distribution a bit to offset IFPA results... so in our qualifications, there will be less points between the top x and the bottom x. Instead of 100-90-85, we've been using 100-95-92. Usually time puts limitations on running double-elimination, so we do single-elimination 2 of 3. I don't feel right giving first place so many more points when in some cases, a winning player didn't actually beat every strong player in the field (the nature of single-elimination play).
Quoted from awarner:I ranked 10th in GA so I'm in. I know I'm off where this thread is going, but I did answer the initial question.
Mostly on topic, though now talking about the Canadian PCS...
I'm 17th in Ontario (with only 3 events). It's my highest ranking by far.
I did some reconnaissance work and I know for sure that at least one player in the top 16 will play in a different event. Assuming all goes according to plan -- no blizzards, etc. -- I'm pretty sure I'll be taking the 14-hour round trip to compete as the bottom seeded token/sole American.
Quoted from ifpapinball:Assuming we take the 'quality' metric as # of games played to determine a winner
Thanks for floating one of the ideas out there on how to assess the "quality" of the event. I like the concept of what it's trying to accomplish -- I'll have to chew on this.
To clarify some questions/assumptions on how you would measure # of games being "X:"
- Is X how many games the eventual winner had to play to get there? If so, how would you assess a double-elim tourney given that the winner might be an undefeated march from the winner's bracket, or it could be a "lose 1st round, but slog through the entire loser's bracket and take down the winner's bracket victor" scenario? Or would the tourney director have to report the actual # of games played by the winner?
- If match play, and best 2 of 3 is used, for each round, is each round given credit for 2 games to count toward X?
Thanks again, and have a Merry Christmas!
Quoted from ifpapinball:Combine that with the bigger question as to whether this kind of WPPR system change staggers the enthusiasm for people to run events (the points Hilton brought up), especially if they don't have the time to invest in a format that allows for 10 games to be played, or if they don't have the player base locally to be able to get anywhere close to the player count we end up using.
All really good points, but the above is my biggest concern obviously.
My thoughts of what makes an improved system is one which deals with the 4 main constraint pools (could be subdivided more but trying to keep it roughly simple) and some built in assumptions for each constraint pool. I am not sure what this system would be but I typically try to tackle a problem form the opposite direction than many in order to look for possible changes.
Constraint pools as I see them:
1. Top 100? ranked players (around 300+ WPPR) are people that are going to need to travel and do well in the huge events. These people should have to perform well on the national and world stage if they want to remain top 100. People in the top 100 should not be able to simply play their way in to this tier and the current pts sytem seems to deal with this well.
2. Top 400? ranked players (around 100+ WPPR) are people that need to travel on the regional level and do well in big regional events. People do have the ability to play their way into this tier but it takes some effort.
3. Casual competitive players (around 30+ WPPR) are people that like competitive pinball but do not travel too much or are just not high performers. They get points here and there and eventually it adds up to to a top 1500 ranking but they rarely make huge efforts to acquire points.
4. Event organizers and those that run the events are people that need to not be forgotten in any equation as without them, the sport will never grow.
If anything I see a huge disparity in the points distribution at the high end of the current system. This tends to tell me that the focus on points distribution for events should be modified from the top end to create a better spread. You really need to decide what denotes as specific skill player and then modify the system to make it work for your main motivation.
Start dropping people into buckets of 100s based on WPPR points and do a count.
Just for fun...
Bucket count
900 2
800 0
700 3
600 5
500 8
400 24
300 43
200 86
100 237
10-100 2035
If you want to do bucket of 10 from 100 down
Bucket count
90 61
80 51
70 91
60 111
50 116
40 157
30 216
20 390
10 842
What are the expectations and constraints/ assumption for each sub category for player? I am not sure...
Work to modify the sytem to increasing competitve participation means you need to cater to the base without off putitng the top. To me at a very rough glance the data tends to show a large imbalance of WPPR points in the top 1% of players.
I am sure it is a huge dataset to mine and look for trends, but if I had input I would be looking to categorize behaviors of players (i.e. travels, plays well, regional plays well, travels lots plays decent, one big win lots of small, etc) and then modify the sytem of points to try and grow the sport where you think the biggest growth potential is. It does typically become a sticky wicket when you are trying to mix soft social science with real hard science but all you really need are some trends to get the ball rolling.
Quoted from Snailman:Thanks for floating one of the ideas out there on how to assess the "quality" of the event. I like the concept of what it's trying to accomplish -- I'll have to chew on this.
To clarify some questions/assumptions on how you would measure # of games being "X:"
- Is X how many games the eventual winner had to play to get there? If so, how would you assess a double-elim tourney given that the winner might be an undefeated march from the winner's bracket, or it could be a "lose 1st round, but slog through the entire loser's bracket and take down the winner's bracket victor" scenario? Or would the tourney director have to report the actual # of games played by the winner?- If match play, and best 2 of 3 is used, for each round, is each round given credit for 2 games to count toward X?
Thanks again, and have a Merry Christmas!
All great questions Colin 
I wouldn't want to leave it to the actual # of games played by the winner, because I would hate to see someone intentionally tank matches to 3 games (slam tilting game #2 for example in a final), just to make the tournament itself more valuable.
For double-elim bracketed tournaments I would take 'X' based on a player losing the first round, and playing all the way through for the win. My logic behind that is that as you advance through the winners side, you are earning 'byes' through the loser's bracket side rounds that you are skipping. For a 16 player double-elim, that would be 9 games played, based on a single-game match. It would be 18 games played based on a best 2-out-of-3 match.
The key being that we don't want the barrier to maxing your base value to be too hard to reach. It would be more about establishing a minimum baseline for tournaments to be set up to create enough 'play' for the skill-to-luck ratio of the tournament to result in a more meaningful result.
Using PAPA as a baseline, that's only 14 games played (5 qualifying, plus 9 finals games). I can't imagine any 'quality' metric that doesn't give PAPA 100% value.
The bigger issue as Josh pointed out was that making a system that's more FAIR (and I'll completely agree even the simple change I listed above is far more fair) . . . doesn't necessarily mean that it makes the system better, mainly because of the access to pinball (especially tournaments) that varies so greatly around the world. The highly developed countries/states/cities tend to be the areas that get the most players and run the highest quality tournaments.
It becomes almost a political type of issue where we're subsidizing the smaller/lesser developed areas with guaranteed minimum WPPR points (WPPoveRty points), with the goal of trying to build those areas up and keep them interested. If we make the most logical and fair decisions for the system, as Josh pointed out, for him . . . "it sucks", and even Josh's area is far more developed compared to other areas we see around the world.
Whether we go Trickle-down WPPR-nomics, or ObamaWPPR's . . . all I know is that we're treading extremely lightly with a ton of testing before we make any decisions.
Yeah I think the only thing with the games played is that if there's a tourney with single matches (you play head to head on one machine per round) then as the tourney progresses the #s will average out so it's not so bad to have single vs best 2-of-3. The reason I bring this up is that a 2-of-3 format can take forever if you have a certain # of people. I know at a lot of the tourneys I've been to at the end the only people left are the people in the finals and a few mega pinball nerds since no one wants to stay that late. I think that's unfortunate for a variety of reasons, and though I agree that best 2-of-3 is a better way to judge a player there's factors like time etc.
Some players might not be able to stay for 6+ hours for a tourney and just drop out if they take too long and that's not good for growing the pinball base. Since I would guess 95% of the folks ranked in the IFPA are more casual and play for fun, competitively, it's important to remember that as well as what applies at the top of the rankings.
Quoted from Frax:Good to know. It didn't affect our tourney...we had 16 players so nobody had a bye. AWESOME to know I paid for that and it's got a bug that bad and the coder isn't doing anything about it.
Thanks for the link to the other, I'll check it out.
I have not had this type of experience at all with Brackelope. I have been very impressed with its quality and ease of use.
Whysnow, please provide an example where this issue came up. Isaac Ruiz is the programmer and he has put a lot of work into the product. I'm sure he would fix something if there is a problem.
Quoted from bkerins:I have not had this type of experience at all with Brackelope. I have been very impressed with its quality and ease of use.
Whysnow, please provide an example where this issue came up. Isaac Ruiz is the programmer and he has put a lot of work into the product. I'm sure he would fix something if there is a problem.
If he's still committed to actively improving the program...I've got a ton of suggestions. I'd love for it to be more full featured. He had a name on Pinside at one point, but only posted a few times, and the last time was over a year ago. And there have been *zero* updates since we purchased it. That was almost 3 months ago....doesn't signal to me that he's very interested in the project. I would have to look and see when the last actual update was prior to that.. if it was something like 6-8 months ago, as far as iApps go, I consider that a dead project.
I make the cut for Missouri BUT I have to be out of town on the 8th and will miss it. I am super bummed. All that hard work for nothing!
Bkerins >> I brought it up with the tournament director that used the brackalope software when I noticed the discrepancy. The tournament brought it to the attention of brackalope guys.
I you want specifics PM me and I can give you info as I do not want anyone to feel slighted as that s not my intent.
My understanding is the way Brackelope determines final ranking is by which elimination bracket / final a player was eliminated in rather than based on an algorithm of B/W/L. As far as the Brackelope program is concerned, it follows its algorithm correctly and assigned ranks according which elimination group the player was eliminated in. However, this is not the correct or fair way to assign final position in an unbalanced double elim event with byes randomly assigned. Soren Worre (I think?) wrote a 9 page document on how to more appropriatley deal with non-standard double elimination tournaments. There are also other white papers on the subject matter that I could dig up if you need them.
Quoted from bkerins:Whysnow, please provide an example where this issue came up. Isaac Ruiz is the programmer and he has put a lot of work into the product. I'm sure he would fix something if there is a problem.
Hi bkerins - this was actually around a Brackelope double-elimination tournament I ran in November. Isaac / Brackelope support got back to me on the questions I had too.
I actually think Brackelope is fine, and the way it did final rankings was consistent with its ranking algorithm (no bugs), but a few of my players felt the results were unfair. The reason for this was the way byes were allocated and how the bracket had players match-up - we had some players that didn't win a single match (and received elimination round byes), that tied with a player who won his first match and lost his next two. The reason was that both were eliminated in the same elimination round, which is how you determine final rankings and split finishes in an elimination bracket.
I probably could have left it at that since the app was working properly, but I could see how the results were considered unfair (not something I want to have happen in a tournament I'm running), and I found something to do about it: another Pinsider, soren, wrote a paper with a way to adjust double-elim results to make them more fair (http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/double-elimination-with-byes-and-the-unfair-ranking), and I applied his technique to adjust the results to eliminate the impact of elimination-bracket byes.
The moral of this story is: pick your tournament format wisely! If the number of players in your tournament is not a power-of-two (2,4,8,16,32,64,128), an elimination bracket will have byes, which could generate a perception of unfairness for players who are trying to judge merit based on W/L record.
The Brackelope tool provides a different format, called Knockout (http://www.brackelope.com/app-support/), that actually gets around this problem fairly well. It will generate at maximum one bye per round, and checks to ensure that no player will receive a second bye before all other players in the tournament receive one. When we have an odd number of players that don't meet a power of two (I have no attendance guarantee each month), the Knockout format does a good job of meeting player expectations. We used this last month, and it went well.
Quoted from Frax:And there have been *zero* updates since we purchased it. That was almost 3 months ago....doesn't signal to me that he's very interested in the project. I would have to look and see when the last actual update was prior to that.. if it was something like 6-8 months ago, as far as iApps go, I consider that a dead project.
The @Brackelope twitter feed has indicated that a new tournament format is being developed for Brackelope. I don't think the project is dead, but rather the author is busy working. I am reminded of this quote from a Parisian chef: "If you are made to wait, it is to your benefit." I also doubt Brackelope is his only source of income, either, and that its more of a side-project, which means updates will be less frequent.
Just out of curiosity, why does the IFPA keep wppr points active for so long? Why not reset points to 0 every year? If the new rules changes don't end up working out, change them the next year. Right now Zach is narrowly beating Keith but, Zach has earned a lot more points towards his top 15 this year. Keith has results in his top 15 that go back to 2011. Why have a yearly championship based on points earned up to 3 years ago? Wouldn't there be more incentive to play if you had 0 and wanted to be in the top 64?
The scores do reduce a significant amount as one and two years pass. I believe it's 75 and 50 percents of the value.
And yes, I'm way into the state championship series and think it'll be a fun tournament! I'll be joining Ohio if somehow I don't get Belsito'd this weekend.
Quoted from jpolfer:The @Brackelope twitter feed has indicated that a new tournament format is being developed for Brackelope. I don't think the project is dead, but rather the author is busy working. I am reminded of this quote from a Parisian chef: "If you are made to wait, it is to your benefit." I also doubt Brackelope is his only source of income, either, and that its more of a side-project, which means updates will be less frequent.
Alright. I hate Twitter.
Don't really need MORE tournament formats, we need things like qualification tracking, second screen displays, etc. first. Do that, because that's what I consider architecture. With that squared away, then start adding the goofy stuff like Pingolf or whatever...
Quoted from Winball_Pizard:Just out of curiosity, why does the IFPA keep wppr points active for so long? Why not reset points to 0 every year? If the new rules changes don't end up working out, change them the next year. Right now Zach is narrowly beating Keith but, Zach has earned a lot more points towards his top 15 this year. Keith has results in his top 15 that go back to 2011. Why have a yearly championship based on points earned up to 3 years ago? Wouldn't there be more incentive to play if you had 0 and wanted to be in the top 64?
Like Evan mentions we weigh the value of tournaments less as time passes.
Ultimately it's a perpetual rankings system where we are tracking who the best player in the world is at any given point in time. Similar to other sports (golf, tennis, etc) the world rankings systems often encompass multiple years of data.
With how our formula works using the player Ranking and Rating metrics, for Zach or Keith to be adding the most to the WPPR pot on December 31st, and then suddenly on January 1st they aren't valued as the two best players in the world would mess up the values of tournaments held early in the year.
With the SCS, it's not designed to be a ranking system, so it's easy for us to hit the reset button every year.
If we applied the SCS rules to IFPA World Championship qualifying, here is what your standings would look like:
http://www.ifpapinball.com/ranking_view.php?id=71
Multi game unlimited entry format (or as some weirdos call it " P&D".)
..
it doesnt give an edge to better players.
no matter what the format, you will surely see many of the same names in the playoffs or at the top .
this is the same with other sports when you also have dominant players.
if anything, it gives an edge to less skilled players as they get to play many times if they choose and if they play a game 10 times they are bound to get a decent score at least once (if that makes sense).
so, scenario:
an extra skilled player plays a game 10 times, gets 7 out of 10 good/great games.
a less skilled player also plays a game 10 times, and gets a good/great score only 1 of 10....
each player can only use their BEST score...
so, even thow the better player had several good scores, they only get their best score to stand.
overall, tourneys that pay out higher draw more than locals.
tourneys that have small or fixed entries and small payouts, do not have anyone play except locals..
paying hotel, air travel and other associated travel fees while also taking off of work to go to a distant event knowing even if you won 1st place you would be well in the hole, really makes no sense.
so pends what you are trying to do.
If papa or pinburgh had little payouts, how many non locals or players from overseas would show up?
it takes money to make money, same is said for entries. the POT has to be built by the players.
doesn't the WPT do this? 10k a player?
pro bowling also does this...so does golf..
Quoted from ifpapinball:Like Evan mentions we weigh the value of tournaments less as time passes.
Ultimately it's a perpetual rankings system where we are tracking who the best player in the world is at any given point in time. Similar to other sports (golf, tennis, etc) the world rankings systems often encompass multiple years of data.
With how our formula works using the player Ranking and Rating metrics, for Zach or Keith to be adding the most to the WPPR pot on December 31st, and then suddenly on January 1st they aren't valued as the two best players in the world would mess up the values of tournaments held early in the year.
With the SCS, it's not designed to be a ranking system, so it's easy for us to hit the reset button every year.
If we applied the SCS rules to IFPA World Championship qualifying, here is what your standings would look like:
http://www.ifpapinball.com/ranking_view.php?id=71
I was thinking why not both? If Zach decided to take next year off wouldn't he qualify for the next IFPA automatically? I'm not saying that everyone's stats would be wiped completely only points that count towards that years finals would be reset.
Quoted from silver_spinner:tourneys that have small or fixed entries and small payouts, do not have anyone play except locals..
.
Just want to point out that the tournament I am running later this week in WI has a fixed entry and will have a payout of around $200 (split among top 4) and we have people coming from IL, MI, and even CO.
They must be coming for the chili and beer
I personally hope they are coming for the good times.
maybe they are rich then 
if players traveled around often adopting this practice, they would be broke even if they won every event.
maybe some are on the wppr border for ifpa 2014 and will travel for that purpose?
its not the norm. id be curious to know these answers thow.
there are plenty local events in all of those states that pay the same or more locally and plenty of good times, so good times can not be the answer alone 
""Just want to point out that the tournament I am running later this week in WI has a fixed entry and will have a payout of around $200 (split among top 4) and we have people coming from IL, MI, and even CO.
They must be coming for the chili and beer""
I personally hope they are coming for the good times.
Quoted from ifpapinball:It becomes almost a political type of issue where we're subsidizing the smaller/lesser developed areas with guaranteed minimum WPPR points (WPPoveRty points), with the goal of trying to build those areas up and keep them interested. If we make the most logical and fair decisions for the system, as Josh pointed out, for him . . . "it sucks", and even Josh's area is far more developed compared to other areas we see around the world.
Whether we go Trickle-down WPPR-nomics, or ObamaWPPR's . . . all I know is that we're treading extremely lightly with a ton of testing before we make any decisions.
Do we really need to give out WPPoveRty points to continue to grow interest in the sport? If someone lives in a lesser developed area from a pinball perspective, don't we want them to be motivated to get more players playing at larger venues with more machines and higher quality tournaments? The current system actually winds up rewarding small closed circles who make no effort to attract more talent in their local areas. Would the different between 8 vs 25 points for a small local tournament where only 8 people are interested enough to show up really stifle interest and participation?
I think your proposal for measuring the games is excellent. The idea of letting each event stand on it's own merits is also sorely needed.
-Jay
Quoted from Whysnow:Just want to point out that the tournament I am running later this week in WI has a fixed entry and will have a payout of around $200 (split among top 4) and we have people coming from IL, MI, and even CO.
They must be coming for the chili and beer
I personally hope they are coming for the good times.
All the tournaments here in NZ are free to enter.
And when you win, you get the grand sum of nothing.
If I said to people "come to our pinball evening and enter the comp. Only $20 to enter and 75% chance I'll probably end up winning all your money" then nobody would enter. Easy as that.
We are trying to grow the hobby, having entry fees would deter new people from playing.
Furthermore, when you host a pinball meeting, you put on a BBQ for the guests. So they come and play your machines and eat your food and drink all your beer! LOL! No, everyone brings some food and drinks and away we go. Good times had by all.
For my Pukekohe IFPA Classic Meet we had 70-80 show up and 44 in the comp. I went all out and bought 3 trophies for the comp, at the grand sum of $24 the lot, and filled them up with old pinballs ... the big one looks nice up on my mantlepiece 
rd.
Like I said, local tournies are fine. If the goal is to draw only local players, you can do whatever you want with no worries.
but.. i bet with zero entry and zero payout you don't have people driving and flying from hours away and you don't have 50+ players. it all pends in what you are trying to do.
I was only speaking in reference to "pump and dump" format (i still hate that phrase..) and why larger pots matter to draw players from afar.
The league i have is also free to play in, yet we give away prizes each league night and will have plaques and trophies and playoffs that we will provide at no charge. I was viewing our ALLEY PASS PINBALL LEAGUE from a local or close to local aspect.. so nothing need be offered or requested as far as fees/cash payouts.
Quoted from silver_spinner:Like I said, local tournies are fine. If the goal is to draw only local players, you can do whatever you want with no worries.
but.. i bet with zero entry and zero payout you don't have people driving and flying from hours away and you don't have 50+ players. it all pends in what you are trying to do
We didn't make 50 but we had 44 ...
5 people flew from Christchurch in the South Island (1000 miles away) and 6 from Wellington (600 miles away)
The lure of the silver ball is strong.
rd.
There are some places where doing tournament payouts is illegal.
I'm pretty sure Milwaukee, WI is still that way, but I haven't done a whole lot research on it, but that's what I've heard from an operator or two. We found local businesses and breweries to sponsor us with prizes and beer. In WI, if a bottle after bottling doesn't have the amount of beer stated on the label, the brewer is not allowed to sell it by law, so we get 'shorts' from local brewers that they can't sell, and they make great prizes.
Even though I don't drink, many of our players do, our tournaments happen at local bars and usually the bar runs specials concurrently, so pinball tournaments could be pitched as a money-making opportunity for a bar, especially on slow nights like a Monday or Sunday night.
For me, and the players who show up at my tournaments, it isn't about the money. It's about Arcade Culture (http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/).
Quoted from jpolfer:For me, and the players who show up at my tournaments, it isn't about the money. It's about Arcade Culture (http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/).
That's some reading right there! I have been to the big arcades in Japan and agree with the writer, the arcade culture exists. I'm old enough to remember the big arcades we used to have here in Auckland when I was a kid in the 80s.
Our meets here are very much arcade based as well. All the venues have arcade machines/air hockey/driving games. So it's not all about pinball. Very much a 80s/90s revivalist movement really.
I like your brewery sponsorship ideas. Music events in bars run on a similar basis. When I used to be in a band, the breweries would sponsor a big gig with free booze given to the bar. We'd run the gig as "Export Gold presents Slip of the Tongue!" and good times ensued.
The only issue with beer sponsored pinball events is kids would be excluded. Which would be a bummer. We get a lot of kids at our events.
rd.
Quoted from rotordave:The lure of the silver ball is strong.
Worth repeating.
Quoted from jrobinso99:Do we really need to give out WPPoveRty points to continue to grow interest in the sport? If someone lives in a lesser developed area from a pinball perspective, don't we want them to be motivated to get more players playing at larger venues with more machines and higher quality tournaments?
In many areas these large venues and higher quality tournaments don't exist -- but have some really good players. Ask Rotordave or anyone from say Poland or Hungary. If every country was like the States where there were 30 shows a year and just as many quality tournaments, then I would agree.
The current system actually winds up rewarding small closed circles who make no effort to attract more talent in their local areas. Would the different between 8 vs 25 points for a small local tournament where only 8 people are interested enough to show up really stifle interest and participation?
It only does to a certain degree, but it would be VERY hard to break the top 150 just playing in local events.
I think your proposal for measuring the games is excellent. The idea of letting each event stand on it's own merits is also sorely needed.
I've toyed around with this idea for a while, but one of the issues is that it might be easily gamed. I think it needs to account for something, but only as some sort of additional bonus.
For example, a "top score" competition on 20 games -- and the tournament has no finals, shouldn't be worth more than PAPA A division. But 20 games > 14, right? Or what if I have 8 qualifying games, top 2 qualify and it's a best of 7 between those two people.
Quoted from Zaxxis:For example, a "top score" competition on 20 games -- and the tournament has no finals, shouldn't be worth more than PAPA A division. But 20 games > 14, right?
For PAPA or other unlimited entry qualifying formats, instead of measuring just the # of qualifying pins as # of games needed to reach finals that count toward "X," there should be some interaction factor that accounts for attendance at the event, which would ratchet up the # of qualifying pins by some factor due to # of people you're qualifying against. As the # of people gets higher, there is extraordinarily little chance that one entry on each pin is going to be enough to get you into finals.
There are a lot of good thoughts on this topic, and as someone who plays regularly with my son, I am interested in providing an incentive for new players to enter the scene. As such, I think a couple of the following ideas might be worth considering when it comes to ranking:
1) Create two types of ranking - near term and longer term - that will more accurately reflect a player's overall skill. Even though the overall ranking system would be unified, it would be expressed in two forms - the near term (as in, let's say the last trailing twelve months) and the longer term (as in the last trailing three years). These two scores could be presented and a composite score could be calculated, if desired, but it would be interesting to me to see a player's performance from both perspectives. This type of change may also encourage more active participation.
2) Events would be weighted based on three factors - player pool, player skill level, and frequency. In other words, events which have highly ranked players, contain large player pools, and which are periodic in nature (versus adhoc events created simply for the purpose of padding scores for hardcore players) would be weighted more heavily in the overall ranking. While you do not want to discourage organizers from creating events, it is important to provide venues which are sustainable. I believe any incentive which can be created to encourage periodic events is a good thing for the health of pinball overall.
Quoted from Pinder:There are a lot of good thoughts on this topic, and as someone who plays regularly with my son, I am interested in providing an incentive for new players to enter the scene. As such, I think a couple of the following ideas might be worth considering when it comes to ranking:
1) Create two types of ranking - near term and longer term - that will more accurately reflect a player's overall skill. Even though the overall ranking system would be unified, it would be expressed in two forms - the near term (as in, let's say the last trailing twelve months) and the longer term (as in the last trailing three years). These two scores could be presented and a composite score could be calculated, if desired, but it would be interesting to me to see a player's performance from both perspectives. This type of change may also encourage more active participation.
2) Events would be weighted based on three factors - player pool, player skill level, and frequency. In other words, events which have highly ranked players, contain large player pools, and which are periodic in nature (versus adhoc events created simply for the purpose of padding scores for hardcore players) would be weighted more heavily in the overall ranking. While you do not want to discourage organizers from creating events, it is important to provide venues which are sustainable. I believe any incentive which can be created to encourage periodic events is a good thing for the health of pinball overall.
I like where you are going but how does #2 help any place that does not have readily accessible games to play. Any city with a poor colection of route games is hurt with that idea.
Quoted from Zaxxis:It only does to a certain degree, but it would be VERY hard to break the top 150 just playing in local events.
Not just hard, it's impossible. Last year we had 3 different monthly tournaments locally, plus a spring and fall league, a couple one off events and 3 launch parties. I played in most of them and did well, winning about 1 out of 4 events I played in. I had a similar year in 2012. Highest I have ever been ranked is about 400. Right now I am 607 but I have a 90 eff percentage. Even Paul Madison, a former national champion, who plays in local events here, but doesn't get out to the big events anymore besides Expo is only 153 right now. The only outstate event he played in this year was Expo and he got 33 points from it...which is half the points he got in MN for the 22 local events last year and he won half the local tournaments he played in. You get more points for finishing 80th at Expo than you do winning a local tournament here against 25 people and with some very good and/or highly ranked competition. 
Back to original topic.
Josh >> When are emails slated to go out for each SCS and what is the plan of action for allowing people to decide which state they will play in? Is there a time limit for each decision?
For example, some people are likely going to get the invite for multiple states and their decision to play is likely dependant on who else commits to each state. In conjunction, others may decide to play or not depending on who else commits before them.
I am now 18th in WI and if I even get the email then my decision to play will largely be based on who from the top 16 has previous commited to WI. After the top 16 commit/decline will those that commit be identified on the IFPA website?
Also, concerning each SCS being worth IFPA points, will the point value be based off of only the 16 people playing or based off the total conglomerate # of people that played in the state for the year? In other words, since every event in the state technically acted as qualifying for the SCS does that mean that the total value for WI is based off the 195 state competitiors?
Quoted from Snailman:For PAPA or other unlimited entry qualifying formats, instead of measuring just the # of qualifying pins as # of games needed to reach finals that count toward "X," there should be some interaction factor that accounts for attendance at the event, which would ratchet up the # of qualifying pins by some factor due to # of people you're qualifying against. As the # of people gets higher, there is extraordinarily little chance that one entry on each pin is going to be enough to get you into finals.
Maybe if the info is there, take the number of entries on all machines in qualifying divided by the number of players =
avg. # of games to qualify.
Quoted from Newsom:You would be surprised. I'm pretty sure that WPPRs are enough for some players.
I'm not a fan of the pump and dump/donate all day style tournament.
Yes, they make for the largest pots, but there are some disadvantages:
If any games break down and are unfixable, there is a major issue. Do you just keep the scores that you have and use them? Do you void all of the scores on the game (I have seen this done)?
The format is labor intensive as many (or all) scores have to be written down. This adds to the wait time.
Most players will only play one player games as they try (unsuccessfully) to qualify and will never play against another opponent in a multi-player game. This can get frustrating as players play the same games, by themselves, over and over again.
The wait time can get huge at these events.
The games play differently as they get dirty, kickouts change from day to day, tilts can get looser, etc. Over the course of hundreds of plays, the game will not necessarily play exactly the same, but the scores are compared against each other as though the game does play the same.
Most of the tournaments that I have run lately have been bracketed or "Pinburgh-style" tournaments where people get to play each other in 2, 3 or 4 player games. There are always optional sidepot buyins for those that wish to play for higher stakes. True, nobody wins a huge amount of money at these events, but then nobody spends too much either.
And I usually do have a pump and dump side tournament on one game.
Agree on all points.
The main reason for the Herb format is to build the pot. The only other way is to charge a big up-front entry, and that will cause a lot of newbies to not enter due to sticker shock.
The Herb style has a gambling-type appeal. Anyone who has played in one and been on the bubble knows what I'm talking about. You've already dumped in $50, but you're on the bubble, so you think, "I should just play a few more..." but everyone else thinks the same thing! So you jockey around the bubble for the next day and $150 later...
There's nothing wrong with it. It's quite a rush, actually. But like gambling, you do need self-discipline. You need to decide what you'll spend in advance and be able to walk away. Very tough to do if you're in 17th and the cutoff is 16 and there's still five hours of qualifying left.
When I did PPE 2011, it was PAPA format, but still unlimited entry. I decided to separate out the novice tournament entirely. For one because I knew the newbies would have trouble understanding the PAPA format. For two because I think novice tournaments are best as one-day affairs for most novices (and serious novices could still also enter the main tournament as well). For three, it would mean the serious players had a far shorter wait to play in the main tournament. And finally, because I think getting sucked into Herb-mania and spending a bunch of money to not qualify is just counter-productive for new players' enjoyment of the game.
Whys:
Depends on your state coordinator to a certain degree. Xerico, who is the contact for TX, has already been sending out messages and confirming, which is awesome. I think we have one person from out of state that hasn't verified if they're coming or not....guess he's trying to cherry pick the easiest target. News for him....it's not here.
Quoted from Whysnow:Also, concerning each SCS being worth IFPA points, will the point value be based off of only the 16 people playing or based off the total conglomerate # of people that played in the state for the year? In other words, since every event in the state technically acted as qualifying for the SCS does that mean that the total value for WI is based off the 195 state competitiors?
25 base points + the modifier for who actually attends the tournament. I don't see how they'd do it as you're describing it, since 179 of those people wouldn't get to play in the actual tournament.
Quoted from jonnyo:I think getting sucked into Herb-mania and spending a bunch of money to not qualify is just counter-productive for new players' enjoyment of the game.
The one thing I really dislike about the Pump and Dump format!
Quoted from Frax:Whys:
25 base points + the modifier for who actually attends the tournament. I don't see how they'd do it as you're describing it, since 179 of those people wouldn't get to play in the actual tournament.
I was hoping it would just be the 25 base plus modifier for those in attendance, but I was under the impression that for things like PAPA that even though the B and C divisions are not eligible for IFPA points the people in atterndance are all used for the modifier calculation?
Just trying to figure out what the overall potential value of the SCS will be.
Quoted from Whysnow:I was hoping it would just be the 25 base plus modifier for those in attendance, but I was under the impression that for things like PAPA that even though the B and C divisions are not eligible for IFPA points the people in atterndance are all used for the modifier calculation?
Just trying to figure out what the overall potential value of the SCS will be.
Really? If those people aren't getting IFPA points, I don't see why their ranks would factor into the modifier...
Quoted from jpolfer:Hi bkerins - this was actually around a Brackelope double-elimination tournament I ran in November. Isaac / Brackelope support got back to me on the questions I had too.
I actually think Brackelope is fine, and the way it did final rankings was consistent with its ranking algorithm (no bugs), but a few of my players felt the results were unfair. The reason for this was the way byes were allocated and how the bracket had players match-up - we had some players that didn't win a single match (and received elimination round byes), that tied with a player who won his first match and lost his next two. The reason was that both were eliminated in the same elimination round, which is how you determine final rankings and split finishes in an elimination bracket.
I probably could have left it at that since the app was working properly, but I could see how the results were considered unfair (not something I want to have happen in a tournament I'm running), and I found something to do about it: another Pinsider, soren, wrote a paper with a way to adjust double-elim results to make them more fair (http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/double-elimination-with-byes-and-the-unfair-ranking), and I applied his technique to adjust the results to eliminate the impact of elimination-bracket byes.
The moral of this story is: pick your tournament format wisely! If the number of players in your tournament is not a power-of-two (2,4,8,16,32,64,128), an elimination bracket will have byes, which could generate a perception of unfairness for players who are trying to judge merit based on W/L record.
The Brackelope tool provides a different format, called Knockout (http://www.brackelope.com/app-support/), that actually gets around this problem fairly well. It will generate at maximum one bye per round, and checks to ensure that no player will receive a second bye before all other players in the tournament receive one. When we have an odd number of players that don't meet a power of two (I have no attendance guarantee each month), the Knockout format does a good job of meeting player expectations. We used this last month, and it went well.
Yes, this is the case in double-elim tournaments. Soren's technique will certainly work.
Frankly, I'm not terribly concerned about it. Most of these issues work themselves out by the 3rd round of Loser's bracket. Personally, if I went out in the first couple rounds, I don't care much whether I was 16th out of 20 or 17th. I wiped out either way! Oh for that .00015 wppr point difference (or whatever it is).
The other way to deal with it is to use seeding. I think the good players should be seeded such that they earn the byes. This seems counter-intuitive to some, but the fact is if you match a weak player vs a strong player in the first round, who is likely to win? The strong player. Now the weak player immediately goes to Loser's. Pitting a weak player vs a weak player at least gives them a chance to advance in Winner's "legitimately". Whereas, if a weak player gets a bye into Round 2 of Winner's, that is the more "unlikely" result. You can look at a bye given to a strong player as "helping the rich get richer" or you can look at it as it being the most likely outcome if they actually did play a first round match, based on their competitive history (i.e. not totally arbitrary).
I guess my tourney I ran with Brakelope was kinda brutal. It was completely random seeding...but short of using people's IFPA ranks, we didn't have time for a qualifier of any kind and we had people that had *no* IFPA rank as well.
Quoted from Frax:Whys:
Depends on your state coordinator to a certain degree. Xerico, who is the contact for TX, has already been sending out messages and confirming, which is awesome. I think we have one person from out of state that hasn't verified if they're coming or not....guess he's trying to cherry pick the easiest target. News for him....it's not here.
I am trying to get an idea for who is coming to WI because if a few of the top guys come then I will likely not attend since I don't care for playing in events where I feel like I am donating to the cause with potentially 3hrs of drive time to play 4 games.
Our SCS director has said that he does not plan to say who has accepted till ALL 16 slots have been filled. I think it makes more sense to go down the line 1 at a time and get a commitment/ decline from each person and update as you go. This provides an option to lower ranked players to make an educated decision on their own personal risk/reward.
Assuming it gets to me, I would likely decline if Josh H, Jason W, Art D. etc (all top 100 IFPA guys) are committed to WI since there are other opportunities to go play pinball that day. On the other hand, if it is guys I would actually have a fun competition against then I would likely accept the invite and forego the other pinball gathering.
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