Bump for CO

Why isn't Ryan running it again? He ran a successful tournament last year which the community liked way better than previous versions of the RMPS.

I noticed you do not have an IFPA profile page, just curious if you are familiar with running a large tournament. What format are you going to use? If you are changing it up it would be wise to talk to some of the more successful competitive pinball players in the area (thinking DNO, Adam Lefkoff, Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Kevin Ryan, those guys ). Definitely see if you can use the Never Drains site again to track the standings and queues, super helpful. As far as I know, Ryan wasn't even asked to run it again O_o but I get that he has some other things going on.

Best of luck, I hope it turns out great, especially how it is in a bit of a spotlight being 1 of 20 PAPA Circuit Events this year.

Last I spoke with him about it he had not been asked. He is en route to the Cactus Jacks Silverball Showdown right now so i doubt he will chime in. I'll bug him about it when I arrive at our hotel room tonight. You should join the Colorado Pinball Tournament Information facebook group to get direct access to the player base. I can PM you a link to it if you'd like.

I plan of flying in for the first time for this event. Can you give an outline on what to expect. I enjoyed the unlimited pump and dump of Louisville. keeps you wired until the last entry.

Thanks for running this.

Ed Z

Last year it was limited HERB qualifying with PAPA group finals, much like TPF has ran the last 2 years.

I don't mind a limit, just hoping that the limit gives you enough time to spend a majority of the time trying to qualify. I might be in the minority , but that is what i enjoy. There's always the dispensaries.

I really enjoyed the format last year. I got to play my qualifying games and still go enjoy the show.

In previous unlimited-Herb years, I was pretty much in the tournament area non-stop.

Lots of ways to do it, I definitely agree about asking the opinion of those CO folks that have run a ton of events.

Bwheels...have you ever played in a pinball tournament? Don't see you on ifpa...?

I'm genuinely not trying to be rude or disrespectful. It just struck me as odd.

I am happy to help however I can.

As Always we are willing to help provide a couple of games for the Tournament Room

JJ

hardbody!

I'll be there and drunk about 2/3rds of the time and am not much help the other 1/3 of the time.

I'm gonna do more tournaments this year tho, I'm probably like the Rainman of the pinball community, I just haven't tapped my potential quite yet but it's coming!

I might need ya for the next team league full time if you can swing it!

Ya probably, I'll need subs here and there but should be able to do more, Fort C represent!

If you are not familiar with how to make rulings and judgments in competitive pinball id suggest you look into it and surround yourself with some knowledgeable assistance TDs for such a big event as a PAPA Circuit.

Will be extremely interesting to see if they go back to not paying out 100% of the entry fees back to the winners.

That was a huge chasm between this event and the locals that Ryan rectified last year.

Colorado waits with bated breath at this reveal

See ya in the finals, man.

After taking about 4 years off from major tournaments due to dissatisfaction of unlimited Herb qualifier tournaments, Ryan's implementation of the limited Herb format is THE reason I participated in last year's RMPS tournaments. It is highly successful at TPF and proved to work very well last year. If it goes back to an unlimited qualifier format there's a high probability I will not participate. Unless restrictions are used, it is the most uneven and unfair qualifying system in any sport or skill tournament I am aware of.

Yes, this is another great thing Ryan did last year, got a lot of locals to look at the tournaments more favorably than years past.

Glad to see you getting feedback from the right people. Being a PAPA circuit event it's even more critical to do this tournament in a manner that circuit participants are happy... they are a very seasoned and very opinionated group of players that will make or break this as a future circuit event.

So normal joes off the street cannot enter this tournament or do you have to be ranked?

Anyone is welcome to join. We're still waiting to find out the format, so entry cost, etc. remains unclear. The RMPS always has some very low entry cost tournaments. If you want to play, come find me in the tournament area, and I'll help you get involved.

Sounds good. So the tournament usually starts on Friday and into Sunday if your that good?

For the main tournament, yes. They have lots of fun, quick, casual tournaments, too.

Any progress on the basic format of the tournament? Not having been to RMPS before , i'm kind of in the dark on what was run before.

Thanks

Not yet, and after going to the latest PAPA Circuit event at Cactus Jacks this past weekend, a lot of those top players are going to Atlanta the same weekend since it is established and they know what they are getting into.

Why on earth would there be two Circuit Events the same weekend in two different states? I believe this defeats part of the purpose of circuit events in general.

Maybe the Lyons Spring Classic should have continued to be a Circuit event. Looking at the circuit schedule, there would have been no other conflict.

I'm probably just beating a dead horse here.... And off topic

Lyons Spring Classic did not make it because someone rated it poorly last year so it got dropped. I believe they chose not to be added to the ballet for the voting by the general public. But yes, pretty silly to have 2 Circuit events on the same weekend but only your 10 best circuit events out of 20 count towards your standings so I guess its not that big of a deal.

As I said, it's a fickle bunch of competitors (understatement of the year?), as I thought it went well last year.

Also it is unfortunate to have 2 circuit events on the same weekend, but it's actually more of an issue that two major shows are scheduled on the same weekend... forcing vendors, tournament players, and travelers to choose one or the other. There are 52 weekends in the year and about 20 major shows, so there are bound to be conflicts, but this is the second year in a row these two were scheduled on the same weekend, so some thought should be put into rescheduling for 2018 to maximize attendance.

Yeah, it really sucks this year (again) as the NW show locked down all the big names.

3 Big shows on the same weekend. Really sucks for the Vendors too

JJ

I'm bugged that the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show moved their date back a week to coincide with RMPS. SFGE is on the other side of the country, so that's not a big deal, but the Northwest show is relatively close. The Northwest show also managed to gobble up the top guests, which kind of stinks, because their game lineup is usually inferior to RMPS for pinball.

Oh, well.

Interesting, so in 2015 RMPS moved from April to a safe weekend in June, then in 2016 SFGE moved theirs to the RMPS weekend, and in 2017 the NW show also decided to pile on the same weekend? There are lots of other weekends in the summer to spread these out.

It is when you only have so many vendors and speakers willing to participate.

When I find out my show schedule, I'll find a shift to help out on.

I don't know what the normal entry fees are for tournaments like this, but isn't $60 pretty high? As a local casual player that has no chance in hell of doing well in this, I would probably donate $10-$20 to participate, but at $60 I'll pass. I assume many others are in the same boat. I wonder if you'd get a bigger overall prize pool with a lower entry fee.

Multi-day tournaments like this commonly charge $5/play or 3 plays for $10, so $60 would get you between 12 and 20 qualifying attempts, in this case $60 gets you 20, which is where this cost comes from.

This is actually a great benefit to local casual players who, in an unlimited qualifier, may be inclined to plop down a $20, which won't get you a single attempt on each of the 8 game bank, while other players are putting down $120 and getting 4-5 attempts at each of the 8 games. How often do you think you'll best someone if they had 4-5 tries and you got 1 in a match? Yup, you may as well burn that $20 in the parking lot before you come in and stick to the free play area.

With everyone getting 20 tries on the same games, things start to even out nicely, and casual players are inclined to use up all their 20 plays and actually be competitive.