i am not saying forcing anyone to A division...not looking to amend that rule

Should a "casual player" expect to be competitive at a national tournament? At any level? The only thing even close to a problem I see here is a couple of sentences on the website. When we're talking national event the definition of casual is completely different than at an open tourney at a bowling alley.

Maybe they should just eliminate B and C divisions all-together and just have one giant "A" division. It's a competition... If you can't cut it with the big dogs practice more and play better

Honestly, I think it works pretty well as-is and I don't really think it is necessary at this time to add a D division. The vast majority of people seem to pick the division that most matches their play level. I just think it would be smart to put some very simple rules in place to help prevent a small number of people from playing in a division that is far below their skill level. I don't think people in "B" would be very happy if guys ranked in the top 20 dropped down to B just because they are eligible to do so under current PAPA rules.

the problem is, those sentences ARE on the website...

no skin in the game here... i wouldn't even be a "e" player... but it seems like some are trying to have it both ways here...

I think you'll look back in a year or two and get a laugh about the fact that you felt C was way too tough because there was one top-200 player in it (who happens to be a grade-schooler). D won't happen. Farther restrictions in C sound like a reality but that would probably have only changed a few players this season. In other words, if you didn't finish 20th or higher in C this year, it wouldn't have mattered as you would not have qualified if the tighter restrictions were there.

At the end of the day, it's an international competition and it is tough to qualify.

You don't get into the top 20 without winning events such that you are ineligible for B under current PAPA rules. It's not the A/B split that is at issue here. It's the expectation that someone can come in without knowing pinball all that well and still be competitive in C.

Competition is not like playing in the home. League play is hard. Tournament play is harder. Major tournament play is harder still. PAPA is the world championship. Expect it to be the highest level of C division play the sport has to offer. Expect that even if you won the B division of your local league you're going to get slapped in the face with cold water at the level of C play at PAPA.

+1

I finished 18 in "C" and was right where I belonged. I don't have a problem with the way its run at all.
If you get beat by a kid, you congratulate him and move on. Dont begrudge it. He's a freakin Kid.
I think the top 4 have to go up next year so it doesn't matter much.

For me it was about pin selection too. If the A bank of pins had been in the B bank i would have moved up as I own MET and I500. I even thought about moving to "A" on the good chance i can score 1 Bil on I500 and 100mil on Met.

Again sometimes you can qualify better in C and B on your comfort with the pins.

In A theyre so good it doesn't really matter as much

Also Big thanks to the "PAPA" crew and volunteers. Very smooth event. I appreciate all the hard work.

DR. Joe >> just want to point out that for me it has nothing to do with how I finished. It has everything to do with competing against a cohort of similarly skilled people is simply more fun. I have zero expectation to qualify.

There is a good chance that even in D I would not qualify, but that is no difference to me so long as I am playing against similarly matched people. I will note that if you toss out the handful of people that IMHO should have been in B (based on skill, tournament experience, IFPA rank, and previous event placement), then guys in 17, 18, 19, and 20 would have made it and those guys would likely feel pretty happy

I think either the addition of D division or the proposed C qualifying bracket and consolidation D bracket pulling from the C division 16-32 qualifiers would be great when combined with more clearly outline restrictions which use some of the tools already available.

From the email I got back from MHS and PAPA they are definatley interested in hearing feedback and that is very refeshing to hear!

I think this is now a dead horse, but am still always interested to hear any other novel ways to improve the event/ any pinball event.

Amazing how many people continue to reference the guidelines in Section 1 of the rules rather than the actual restrictions in Section 2 of the rules.

Here is an actual restriction:

•Any player who has placed in the top four (or three, if only three players are ranked as winners) in any skill division of any other major pinball competition (e.g. Pinball Expo, IFPA, California Extreme, etc) may not enter the C division at PAPA.

Doesn't say any player who has played in a major pinball competition. The current restriction is based on performance. Section 1 appears to be guidelines of what players should play in each division but it is not a rule.

Guys. I get what you're all saying. It's not sour grapes on my part and I understand that the level of competition is higher at PAPA than smaller tournaments. I finished 25 in C and am overall pretty happy with that considering that there were 175 or so participants. I was not playing at my highest capable level and need to work on my consistency as well as practice more. I should have played better clear and simple and I have know one to blame but myself! Even if there was a restriction where top 500 IFPA rated guys were forced into B chances are that I wouldn't have qualified.-Although I might have tried to better my ticket on Saturday vs. playing games on the floor all day if I was that close.

The point I'm trying to make is that it would be nice if there were more clear boundaries established to determine where a particular player should play. As of right now nearly everyone that enters in B is also eligible to enter in C. I also think that a handful of the C qualifiers would have also qualified for B if they had tried. In any case, it sounds like MHS and PAPA are listening to some of these suggestions and will possibly make changes in the future to more clearly define these boundaries to try to make the skill levels more consistent across the 3 divisions.

MHS / PAPA have always been open to suggestions and they are the utmost professionals at hosting pinball tournaments. It is great that you guys are e-mailing them with your input and I'm sure they consider it valuable.

This thread has turned into a bit of a debate discussing pros/cons of tighter restrictions and/or another division at PAPA which is fine (and it comes up most years to some extent from memory). At the end of the day, the PAPA folks will do what they feel is best for everyone and the tournament will continue to improve as it always has.

There just seemed to be a theme of "if this one guy or these few guys hadn't been allowed to play in C, it would have been much different". I just disagree with this. Maybe one or two different folks would have qualified out of 16. Would they have been happier? Sure. But that means two other people are bumped out in B.

You need one good card to qualify no matter who the competition is. There were a number of players that "should have" qualified in their respective divisions that didn't and vice versa. You never know with pinball!

Next year we should have a time and place for a Pinside meet and greet at PAPA!

Could be that overall attendance was lower. It seemed that way to me.

For what it's worth, I played for the first time last year and had and similar feeling, that there were people in C that should probably move up. Nothing about that opinion changed this year. Also, I talked to plenty of people in B that have said it's not much harder to win B than it is C because there are so many highly skilled players in C. I'll continue to enter though because I know that playing against guys who could potenially win B will make me a better player.

This type of thing happens in every competition. Some people want to compete against people of their own skill level and some people just want to win. It's hard to force out the sandbaggers without affecting people who just happen to get lucky and really should be in C.

I can definitely see casual players not wanting to compete again after playing in C. Not only does a truly casual player have very little chance of qualifying, they have very little chance of even getting in the top 100 of the C division. If PAPA really wants to focus on bringing more people into competition then I would think the C division is turning away as many competitors as it's drawing in.

The question as I see it is does PAPA really desire to cater to truly casual players? My feeling is that PAPA isn't the place for those folks to compete. People that go to the trouble of traveling to the World Championships are likely to be more than casual players on average. I learned the painful way that if you are going to be competitive at PAPA, you need to wearing your big boy britches regardless of which division you are in. So I will definitely have more knowing appreciation when Steve chastises me to "Play better!"

I understood from posts in this thread is that bringing in more novice players is one of their primary goals.

Look, if you are a "casual player," maybe you should not compete in the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS?!?!
Of course you are going to get spanked.

Go play the hundreds of games in the practice area and have a jolly good time.

Funny....This was my first trip to PAPA, and I thought I would try my luck at "Classics". I mistakenly thought it was the division for all the rest of us, since I did not think I was good enough for A,B,or C. Then as I was standing in line someone pointed out that Keith Elwin, Josh Sharpe, and Daniel Aquieri were next to me....lol....."Yeah I guess I will sit this one out"...Oh well, at least I got to put my initials on Star Trek in the back.

"Sandbagging 10 year old".....Wow!!!....easy there..... are we the same crowd that wants the younger generation to take the pinball torch into the future and preserve the hobby we all love so much. This reminds me of how I could not wait for my 10 yr old son to play Madden football with me, and then was mad when he proceeded to kick my a$$.

On topic now.....Congratulations Bowen!!...and thank you for all you give back to the hobby.

People should also note that you're *lucky* if you get grouped with a truly world class player. Yeah, you'll get spanked hard, but you'll learn more watching them play one game than you would in a year of playing in your own basement. I have had the privilege of playing with (getting destroyed by) some of the truly best in the world and the things I have learned in those games are priceless.

Great point.
I think the takeaway from this thread should be a positive:

Absorb all you can from the pros, work hard, and constantly push yourself to improve.

I could have played in C, but would rather force myself to face the tougher competition in B.
So what I got spanked? It only motivates me to come back stronger and harder next year.
Play more, play better, and move up the ranks ... no excuses!

IMO there should be more people in B division instead of taking the easy way out and sandbagging by playing in the C. This would make the C more suitable and enjoyable for novices. Looking at some of their scores and watching them play also confirms they should be playing in B. However once you get a bunch of people in C who are sandbagging then it just raises the standard for C and makes it look like they all belong there. Some people just need to win regardless of at what level, even if it means beating up novices. There doesn't need to be a D division or 32 people taken from C because next year the sample people would be complaining we need a E division or 48 people taken from C.

If that is truly the case as applied to the PAPA tournament, then the format needs to be changed considerably. I don't consider myself a novice at all and I felt like I was in over my head much of the time in C.

How about this new proposal?

We have 26 divisions for every level of player out there...I am going to enter in the new Z Division, but no one else could join me because i want to win a ribbon!

Z is too hard. I want a double-zed division. I want to go straight to the ZZ Top.

The post I was quoting was coming directly from the folks at PAPA, not me. It's earlier in this thread. Sounds like they are going to make some revisions . . .

Yep, I know exactly what you mean. It adds some extra pressure knowing that if you finish second your point total might still drop. It's a penalty for playing well in January-April. It also shows the importance of playing in annual tournaments if you actually want to improve your ranking.

I hope whatever PAPA does to adjust the division requirements, they put in a NO WHINERS clause. Jeez.

I think it's worth noting that only one player that qualified in C last year was able to qualify in B this year, Aaron Suhr. Aaron was a finalist last year. A number of players that finished in the top 16 that didn't have to move up did and all of them failed, myself included. I guess it's because all those A players sandbagged B and ruined my chances.

The only problem I see is that the website mentions C as being for novices and casual players. It's not. These are the current divisions at PAPA:

A - world-class players
B - skilled to highly-skilled players
C - experienced players

Either PAPA should edit the description of C division, or create a true novice division for that description. I'm in B so it doesn't affect me either way, but true novices are in for an unpleasant surprise if they take the website's portrayal of C at face value.

It is the same story in A (or at least it used to be a few years ago when I played).
There weren't many players moving up from B to A that qualified in A, whether they were forced to move up to A or not.

I used to play disc golf quite a bit. Got hooked, and entered a tournament. I played for about a year before entering. Read up on the rules a bit, and entered in the lowest class since it was my first tournament.

I played very well that day. Beat everyone in my foursome by a good margin. I didn't win it, but I was called out as a sand bagger from folks that have played longer than me in that class. They were pissed at me.

I had a good day, and I'm the asshole that should have known how to pick my class in my first tournament. They were the ones telling me which discs I should have thrown, and how to follow through the first few holes.

That soured me towards the sport big time. Competitive disc golf is full of jerks who want to win instead of have fun. Which, was all I wanted... Fun.

My discs have sat in my bag for over 2 seasons, and I have no desire to play after that.

I will never enter any competition for anything with a small niche of enthusiasts. They seem to be more worried about other people than just to have fun.

That's just me though. Maybe it is really important to beat that kid that is having a good day.

Edit: I'm pretty drunk right now. I may regret this in the morning. I apologize ahead of time. And, God bless spellcheck.

Disc golf ...,,hmmm I think regret starts there

Ouch.

Does that make me some kind of weird hippy nerd for liking Disc golf?

F#$% me for my terrible past playing disc golf.

I have seen the light, and am now hooked on the non-nerd hobby of Pinball.

I am now saved because people who play pinball are way better than those dirty smelly folks that throw those plastic discs around.

People who have hobbies are bad. There, I said it.

God forbid you are one of those RC types.......

Pinball is the elite hobby, and anyone doing anything else should be ashamed.

ASHAMED I TELL YOU!!

Even more drunk. Even more sorry tomorrow....

Lol

What's even more funny is that i got a thumbs down from Hilton the guy who called a 10 year old a sandbagger.

I won't make any more jokes about the serious sport of disc golf , I apologize to all hipsters

I would write you a really nasty anonymous style letter about this, but I am too busy going to a secret pop up restaurant where the guest chef only cooks with locally grown, pollutant free soy beans.

I just realized that I played a few games of Tales from the Arabian Nights with Escher last year at PAPA 15. What a cool kid he was. Very polite about asking to join us, good natured, laid back. He already had skills then but he must have gotten leaps and bounds better! I hope he wins A at age 15 or something. That would be really cool. In any event I hope he moves up out of the C division soon because it sucks losing to kids!!!!

You think someone is being a sandbagger? Colluder? Hustler? Jerk? Are they 10 years old? 100 years old? Female? Male? Bowen? Anti-Bowen? Lizard? Clown? Dinosaur?!? There's an easy trick to fixing that solution that doesn't require lawyering up the rule sheet and twisting the definition of divisions around: beat them.

Play, compete, win and accept your defeat if/when it comes -- cause it's going to come to 99% of the participants of any tournament. The moment you start blaming something else, you're only sparing your ego for the short term, in the long term you're fooling yourselves*.

It's also highly...HIGHLY insulting to rob your competition of their achievements. "It was the rules", "I wasn't lucky", "He/She was lucky", "They were up to something...". Those are cues that your foot is being slowly inserted into your mouth. I've been guilty of doing this same thing during competition, to some pretty good friends as well and I've learned to squash it. It's just really bad form and makes you look delusional.

As for divisions, the only division anyone should be worried about in a tournament is A...and how to get into it.

Two cents PLONK!!!!!

*=Unless you were beaten because your match was run on Fireball...F Fireball! Blame Fireball all day long.

Some of you guys keep focusing on "being beaten" when this whole derailment had absolutely nothing to do with that. I apologized for saying a Escher was sand bagging when he was just playing in the division he was told to.

I did not qualify because I suck at competitive pinball. I freely admit that, but that does not change that this discussion has been mainly about potential changes to the format to make it more welcoming to novice players and better align players into appropriately skill matched play/divisions.

That sounds a lot like complaining about "being beaten."

Congrats to a 10 year old kid who can make an adult whine.

"Play Better!"

Local Pinball Hero that Doesn't Travel Syndrome, thanks josh just kidding, someday I will experience papa

Sometimes you don't have to travel to be made humble old country style. Can't tell you how many times locally I've been in a foursome that consisted of two high level A players going back and forth while I stand off to the side wondering if I have enough time before my next ball to rebuild the transmission on my truck. I'm okay with that. In fact, I'm happy about it when it happens, because I have the opportunity to watch world class players do their thing up close and personal. I learn things and go home to practice them and become better myself. And it WORKS. That's the best part.

Yes, THAT post, this is it, this is why!

You kind of get out of a event what you put in to it. I had way more fun playing with my friends on the hundreds of machines at PAPA and for a few hours on Saturday, forgot I was even at a pinball tournament.

The PAPA tournament itself doesn't really make you a better player unless you qualify. I think that is my biggest complaint about the event and also why I much prefer MATCH STYLE TOURNAMENTS like Pinburgh. I really almost didn't go to PAPA this year and put up 2 mediocre entries at best. Can't wait for Pinburgh, it is the "entry level tournament" you can learn the most from for sure and for certain.

I played in my first Pinburgh earlier this year, and Papa 16 was my first time too. I consider myself to be better than a C player and felt I should start in B. But I was told the format was tougher than I thought, and being my first event of this type I should go C. I qualified 2nd in C, but pooched the first round finishing 13th

Regardless, I will enter into B division next year. In the end, I am not a 'casual' or 'novice' player, although I only started competitive play last year. My first instincts were right. Be honest with yourself and play to your level.

wow...i just read that Andreas Wesik should've advanced to the quarterfinals but due to a miscalculation in points he lost in a tiebreaker that we shouldn't have even done. I thought he was a cool cat too, came here all the way from Sweden to play in it. Dems da breaks I guess...I'm glad papa did the best they could to rectify the situation.

Thank you. Looking forward to next year.

I noticed that as well...tough break for Andreas.

Correct. It's one thing to say "they ought to do x" but at the end of the day these are totally separate organizations. Basing player ranking decisions on someone else' system is a very big deal. It is a dramatic and sweeping change to the tournament. And what happens if at some point these organizations don't see eye to eye?

In my tournaments I use a combination approach to prevent sandbagging. A novice can't have a wppr rank better than 500, can't have finished 1st, 2nd or 3rd in one of our local leagues, can't have won a local wppr tourney, can't have won novice in a previous tournament and can't have finished 1st - 3rd in a major or regional tournament, such as California Extreme, Rose City, etc.

This works very well but would be unwieldy for PAPA-sized events. For one thing, who won novice at tournaments is often not tracked consistently. I know who has at my local events because I ran most of them.

IFPA cutoffs are not perfect, but if the two orgs could come to an agreement, I think it could be a step in the right direction.

I feel like the qualifying rounds I put in made me a better player. Just talking to people there about the rules and learning different things definitely helped. I haven't been to a Pinburgh ever, but I do agree that in that situation you're learning even more and becoming an even better player.

Those PAPA games were set more difficult than I knew a game could be set up. It's very awkward walking up to a game that you own and thinking to yourself "i got this!" and then it turns out the machine is a drain monster.

They are definitely set up so that if you are a better overall pinball player then you'll have more success.

I purposely made all my games harder at home. Tighter tilts. Slid the posts up opening the gaps on the left and right drains. No rubber on that tiny post separating the inlane/outlane. Super bouncy rubber. 3 balls with no extra balls.

Sure makes you play a whole lot differently. Very much like the PAPA tournament games.