I'm giving you a bump and moving you into the pinball events sub forum (this somewhat fits there) so you don't get buried again so quickly in the All Pinball forum. Good luck to you!

Taylor: FSPA rules may be the answer, or a variation thereof. Basically you play in groups every meeting, and if you win your group you move up one level and if you lose your group you move down one level.

Their website is fspazone.org, but appears to be down right now. A cached copy of the player's guide is at
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/searchq=cache:http://www.fspazone.org/players_guide.html

If you only have 12 players, consider whether you even need a B division. The advantage of letting everyone compete together is that everyone will get some IFPA points for their efforts.

Consider implementing a handicap system. Using a handicap, you can submit non-handicapped results to the IFPA and use handicapped results within your standings locally.

Something to consider:
Say your top player averages 300M
Your bottom player averages 140M

300M / 140M = 2.14

Take 2.14 and multiply it by a factor of about 0.85 (range probably 0.8 to 0.9 is reasonable) = 1.82.

When you bottom player plays, multiply their score by 1.82 to get their handicapped score for the league. Use their actual score for submission to IFPA.

That example is simplified for this post. You will have to consider all games played with varying scores, but it's not too hard - especially for a computer. Player handicaps would be adjusted after each league night.

Taylor - Kevin from VA here - take a look at FSPA again because it technically doesn't have separate divisions but ends up that way based on open play.

With 12 players, you can have 4 groups of 3. Initially setup the groups based on overall skill, so the best players in group 1. As players win they move up, lose they move down, otherwise stay in their own group. What happens over time is the groups balance out and players tend to play others with similar skill levels.

By the end of the season, you will have two divisions of 6 players, top 3 players of each are in the finals for each division. But everyone has the opportunity to play every other player. If someone goes on a winning streak from group 4, they may eventually make it to group 1 and get a wake up call. Or win and wake everyone else up : )

It is also configurable so you could change the number of weeks to 6 instead of 10 (or move to 2 times a month or once every 3 weeks if you can).

The end result is everyone gets WPPR points and you have two divisions that are naturally formed based on player performance. Also, players will occasionally play each other that end up in different divisions so you don't inadvertently have two separate leagues playing at the same time from the start. Newer players can learn a lot from the better players, so the format works very well.

Need any more info, IM me and we'll chat more.

I agree with the FSPA model. Two local leagues use a similar model. One seeds the league night based on the average of your last two nights. The other uses the previous league night's score.

That way within a few league meetings, the top four scorers will be in group 1, then the middle players in group 2 and the beginners in group 3, and everyone will be playing others they're roughly competitive with. The bubble players will move depending on how they did that week. But everyone still has a chance to win the whole thing.

An A and B division with only two groups seems like overkill, and likewise you might lock divisions and then get a player on B who advances far more quickly than the others and dominates, when really he should have been in A.

The first league night is basically random draw, or seeded based on performance last season. You could also use wppr or just your personal knowledge of a player's skill.

Playing against good players has made me much better. I learned a lot by watching them, and I went from the bottom of B division last year to near the top of A. It's one thing to see a bounce pass and a tap pass in a video; it's another to watch someone do it live and have them explain it.

I would not choose a handicapping system, it gets very confusing.

What we do locally is play everyone together for the season, then split into divisions for playoffs. Each division's playoff is worth the same amount of prize money.

I think it's important for everyone to play everyone, because a lot of learning takes place. If you don't want everyone to play everyone, the FSPA solution with its ladder-style format is probably best.

So I play or organize in two different leagues around atlanta.

One has 20 full members and 4 alternates. We play in random groups of four each night. You end up playing with 12 different people throughout the night all with differing skills.

In general the top 8 are in the A group and the bottom 12 are in the B group, but that changes throughout the season as it's in constant flux. This means that the generally better players bubble to the top, and the generally not as good players bubble to the bottom.

Since you can be playing the best player in a group, part way through the season we start awarding upset points if you beat someone that is in the A group for that meet.

At the end of the season we break into two different brackets for the final tournament, but then report the scores to the IFPA as a single group of 20 I believe.

The other group we don't have the concept of A/B and we have only 16 players. It's a little more straight forward, and it's the first year for the group, so who knows if we'll keep it that way.

Thanks for reminding me; upset points are great. We've started a new "award" called "This Pin Upsets Me!", for the pin that yields the most upset points. It can be thought of as "which pin was the best equalizer?" Last month, it was Paul's RFM.

You can also consider using the monthly masters software which mixes things up in-between games as well. So if you play 4 a night and have 3 groups of 4, people will balance out and also play many different players. Just another idea

Looks like you are already using the FSPA scoring model. Why not use the FSPA "ladder average" to determine group bubbling and Divisions? It works great for us in the MCPL.

Using the FSPA model, everyone still moves up and down every week , forcing them to play different players. It just designates divisions based on week 3 thru week 8, so the finals are the only thing played in actual divisions.

I would think if newbies or beginners were forced to play in our upper groups very often, they would never come back again. The skill level from top to bottom of our 20 player group is like 99-7!