you could say you were from out of the US and complain about the exchange rate no being in your favor anymore.

I seem to remember you talking about not traveling to the big shows in the last. Has that recently changed?

My wife's been pushing me to go to Pinburgh or PAPA for years. I feel guilty spending like 1500 bucks and all the vacation days just for my dumbass to go to a pinball tournament. Doesn't make my opinion of why I would or wouldn't attend one or the other any less valid, or potentially useful feedback for someone. I've been VEHEMENTLY against herb-style qualifying for as long as I have been in competitive pinball. I ran my own league in Dallas for a short while just to get AWAY from it, because nobody else was running events where I didn't have to dump in 50-100 bucks towards some stupid prize pool I probably wasn't going to win just to have some fun, and because nobody was having any fun losing money to the same 4 people month after month.

I'm not afraid of attending a competition because of the COMPETITION, it's always the cost for me, and Herb style is far easier, IMO, to waste a lot more money in short order, and a lot harder to manage timewise. It's only good for two things....raising big pots and creating bottlenecks once players figure out which games "play nice". PAPA *might* not have as much a problem with it because I expect all their games are brutal anyways, but my personal preference is for limited qualifying....whether that's "X rounds of match play" or "x number of entries" I don't really care much, but I'm personally *really bad* at self-limiting because I KNOW the potential is there to have that blowout game instead of consistency, and I've benefited from it in Herb tournaments waaaaay too many times to not try if I really want to get into those finals...

So....short version: If I have choice to go to Pinburgh or PAPA, even though I'd really love the chance and notoriety of making a PAPA A finals, I'm not going to PAPA as long as they're using Herb. Period. My money will go to Pinburgh. I'll play in *free* Herb tournaments, or ones that are local, but that's not something I'm ever..ever...ever...going to travel for.

*Edit* I do think there's a valid point that consistency doesn't matter as much when they're letting more people in the finals anyways, so arguably, you could say I'm against a larger finals group as well!

I guess part of my point I'm trying to get across is that my lack of attendance at other large tournaments or shows isn't for lack of desire or disgust with their tournament formats in most cases....I'm just broke and I work for the corporate overlords that don't allow us the freedom to just leave 5 times a year to go play pinball.....but the Herb format is a dealbreaker in and of itself for me.

I love Herb style. And when you really think about it, the PAPA format that is going away was just another form of Herb style. You still bought tickets, you still tried as many times as you wanted, you still could qualify on one entry or spend several hundred dollars trying to qualify. You just had to do five different games at a time.

People keep missing the big difference with the 5 ticket system which created a sense of urgency to do well on 5 games on a single ticket.

any that was the beuty of the old format. Made every game really count.

Dave, you coming to MGC this year instead?

Also made it sadistic and sometimes infuriating. I'll be there either way!

I am definitely strongly considering it! I want to hit up a few bigger events this year and will probably go back to TPF again as well.

well it certainly changes the game now that games are all on free play (and awesome vids too) and its only $20 to enter a day with long open to close hours.
with all of those games there, that's more than most shows so i guess its a super show and super tourney?
best of both worlds!

its not a sense of urgency for me, its getting exhausted and out of rhythm having to play a game, sit down in line, play another game, sit down in line, all to complete 1 TICKET across 5 games.
us older guys have issues with that...lol.

you also didn't have to do well on 5 games, that is a misconception. I did superb on 2 games (#1 score, #2 score), medium on 1 game, and horrible on the last 2 (both got zeros).
still qualified in top 10.

also, with herb style, you can play an hour before qualifying is done and know you don't have to play all 5 games again and be in rush mode in an hour like before. maybe you just need 1 game.

that style to me was nothing but nerve racking. glad they changed it.

Feedback from Papa 2017 will be interesting. Especially Classics. I'll be watching from afar as my Papa attendance string is cut.