Quoted from Law:Did you let them know up front that there was no cash prize for the women's division?
Every tournament on the TPF main website had a section describing the event. Every event that had a cash payout was clearly labeled. The Ladies Tournament did not have a cash prize award listed. In our eyes, we made an assumption that people would read the website before attending the TPF, especially tournament players. Since there was confusion, I'm sure the TPF Team will improve communication regarding the formats and prizes of all tournament events in the future.
Quoted from Law:From what I heard there were a number of women that were not "seriously" competing in the wizards but were participating because they were obligated to to enter the womens tourney.
While their focus may have been on the Ladies Tournament, the rules were set in place well before the actual event. The 2015 TPF Ladies Event was a free event that used Wizard Tournament entries to determine the top 8 ladies. Ladies that wanted to qualify for the Top 8 Ladies Tournament had to play the Wizards event. While some ladies may not have enjoyed that stipulation, it was the rules of that particular event. These rules were clearly defined before the event and reinforced during the event.
Quoted from Law: In fact, it seemed more like a way for you to get more participants in the wizards tourney than it did a way to allow the women two-for-one entry.
If that is the perception of a few, then I cannot change their minds. All I can do is shed light on the true reason the decision was made. We could have charged money for the event, and if past TPFs were any indication, then we would have had a much smaller participant pool. Instead of having 23 ladies competing, we would have had 8-12 competing. So a decision was made to make the ladies event as attractive as possible. Maybe the 2 for 1 entry was a mistake. It's definitely something that will be discussed before TPF 2016.
As for increasing our wizards tourney participants, the ladies bolstered a strong field. However, their participation was not necessary in order to reach the 100% threshold established by the IFPA as we had well over 64 players in the event. In fact, we chose the Wizards event over the other events as we believed it offered the best distribution of games across many eras, thus enforcing the belief that the Ladies Champion should be able to play well on every era of machines.
The 2015 participation was a terrific surprise. Increasing participation by close to 100% is a fantastic step forward. I'm sure the 2016 TPF will do a better job of recognizing competitive pinball for Ladies.
Marcus