I'm not going to spend a thousand dollars to pay for hotel room and airfare to play in a pump-and-dump. Ever. The move to push away from consistency in favor of bigger pots from people that don't know when to stop and give up is just a fail in my eyes.

*Edit* Also, this is the exact problem with removing too much pressure from competition. It's one thing to say "This tournament is play all weekend through qualifying for one price." versus "This tournament is unlimited ATTEMPTS on single games." People need to learn when to stop, as well as when to play. If you're trying to compete leagues above your actual skill level, you're NOT going to have fun, and I don't know about everyone else, but the only thing worse than getting my ass kicked is getting my ass kicked and losing a ton of money in the process. Herb feeds off the same emotional responses that say, a slot machine does.... "Oh, if I can play just one more game, I might have that monster game and sneak in!" No....statistically...you WON'T. But that's what every tournament director that runs pump-and-dump wants you to think. And that irritates the hell out of me. If you want an inclusive, friendly tournament, don't put yourself in the position of trying to compete in a world-class high stakes thing like PAPA. Go play something like Pinburgh, where you are guaranteed X amount of play for your money, and if you lose? You still probably had a LOT of value and fun in it, versus just being pissed off that some other player walked out with all your money after you tanked 35 games on Creech.

So basically, you only opened the thread to make this comment and waste everyone else's time? Fantastic.

I was going to mention this but figured it was just overkill. I know that I have manipulated this to my own great benefit in many many tournaments. Like at TPF the last time I attended, the EM bank was just ridiculously difficult, so I only used one or two entries... the classics bank had two Stargazers in it....you bet I found the one that played easier and did all my entries on that one. The one DMD bank I focused on had easier games (No Medieval Madness where balls jump off the wireform right down the left outlane every time you make the left ramp... F___K THAT S___T...) and I ignored the one or two games that were tough or tilty until I absolutely HAD to...why would you do anything else in Herb, other than out of sheer desparation? At least with the 5 game ticket, you're FORCED to not hog machines you know you're already great at.

Unless you're Elwin, then you're great at everything, play one game on each, and quit for the day.

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.