I'm in for ticket reservations....

I have to figure out how on earth I can possibly justify the OTHER 1100 dollars it will cost me to go by march though, and that's pretty ridiculous. 800 for just the hotel alone for 5 nights is....yeah... SMH...

Easily debatable for me...considering I skipped an invitation to IFPA12 that would have cost me the same, and I personally put a lot more stock in that or PAPA Circuit Finals over an open entry tournament. That's just my opinion as a competitive player that busted his butt to crack the top 100 and hasn't made any effort at all this year to maintain ranking. Given 20/20 hindsight, I would have gone even with no chance at all to win, because I likely will not get that invite a second time. Pinburgh will always be around though. It kind of feels like a consolation prize to me right now. #firstworldproblems

I'm all ears... I've never been there. I don't intend to have a car, unless I can check my Civic.

Can't believe so many of the people I play against semi-regularly and feel competitive with do so well at these massive events. Makes me really proud of my few victories and not feel quite as bad to lose to them fully-regularly. =P

Crap. Both people I wanted to cheer for (Colin MacAlpine and Bob Matthews) are out. Drat.

Yeah, and his "unh, unf uhhhhh unh" commentary KILLED me earlier, so funny.

I want to go after my rating drops low enough that I can play in B Div.. *checks* oh wait, I've apparently never been A restricted for Pinburgh? /facepalm

I can't believe only the top 50 IFPA are restricted to A? That's crazysauce to me. That's like saying that 80 percent of the players that are restricted to A division could theoretically qualify and play....leaving a whopping 10 people out.

Still kind of baffled that even when I was in the top 100 I would not have been restricted to A. The divide of skill between a top 10 to 50th is massively larger than from 50th to 100th, but 50th still restricted...100th not. Whatever. Sounds like it's time for me to sandbag my way to 4000 bucks!

Love how two people who don't know the first thing about me downvote me for saying I'd sandbag into B. Even more funny considering I've never attended Pinburgh, PAPA, or IFPA. Lawls. If you knew jack squat about me, you'd know that losing, in any manner, pisses me off to an extreme degree.

So what...I shouldn't have confidence in my abilities just because it will be hard and unlikely? Screw that noise. If you go into something like this with the mentality that everyone else is better than you to an impossible degree, then you're going to make that loss happen even if they aren't. I'm pretty sure I *CAN* do anything that I truly *want* to. It's a matter of time, effort, and priorities. Clearly, my priorities have not been in the realm of accumulating another 2k of debt to try to go to Pinburgh as of yet. =P At any rate, I'm never going to subscribe to the idea that just because something is hard, even EXTREMELY hard, that taking a defeatist attitude up front is a fantastic way to go. If you want to be a realist, go ahead. I'd rather eternally struggle to improve than assume that I've peaked out though.

If I had to guess...my odds of winning B div versus making A finals? 5-to-1 is probably a good guess. I think it would take me 5 times the number of attempts to make A finals as it would to straight up win B division. Hence the "sandbagging" comment and the rest. Frankly, I don't *WANT* to play B. My desire to play against top ranked players is way too high to want to ever play in anything but A. But...again....4 grand potentially, or getting to play 4 games with a top ranked player and likely getting pounded into the ground...hm.... not really a hard decision to make.

I don't have to assume anything. You know what I see when I look at the names of the B Div qualifiers? 99% people I don't know and haven't ever played against. But.....I've played against Preston a bunch of times. He's a more consistent player than I am, but is he out of my reach? I don't think so....he might have a different opinion, especially on Twilight Zone, haha. It's not hard to extrapolate that if he can win B division, and I feel like we're fairly closely matched, then logic presents that I would have a decent shot at winning B division if I can improve my consistency. I love playing against the Austin and Houston guys. I wish I had more time and more opportunities to do so. If it wasn't for the competiton from them, I very much doubt I'd ever have had a lasting interest in competitive pinball, or much reason to try to do better. Glad to see one of them bring something major home... I'm just kind of shocked that as good as he is, he's not A restricted, but again....looked it up...restrictions on Pinburgh are waaaaaay looser than I figured they would be, that was my mistake for not having checked that. I wish I had skipped Nationals and gone to Pinburgh...I chose the wrong one. Grats to him, I just feel like his potential is much higher than 1st place B. He does usually better than I do against the other ATX/HOU guys that went into A div chasing nearly impossible money.