Under 6 months left of 25+12.5 ... Enjoy it while you still can!

Less points for smaller tournaments. Less points for lower quality tournament formats. No guaranteed base value of anything anymore.

No events will be combined/shared/split with any other event. Organizers can run as many events as they would like, at any location, anytime. Each will be judged on the format of the event and the players that participate.

The new max base value is 32 points, which is hit if a tournament has 64 or more players. (current proposal being evaluated)

The grading percentage for Pinburgh will be 100% . . . because it's awesome, so it will keep 100% of those base points in the calculation.

Here is as good a place as any to discuss. We are still testing things and plan on making an EPIC announcement on 10/1 as to what the changes officially include.

Leagues and tournaments will be graded in the same fashion. We don't currently have any templates available, as there are so many formats to choose from, and then variables within those formats that also have to be decided. The quality metric for grading is going to be based on the number of games played in order to win the tournament. We'll be working with the tournament organizers to make sure it's counted properly for the event, so it gets graded appropriately.

Anyone that has an established event is welcome to either post here, or email us and we can give you an estimate of what that tournament would be worth under the WPPRv5.0 rules.

New rules will NOT be retroactive for anything pre 1/1/15. There's nearly 4000 active tournament results that would have to be individually graded . . . and the time and effort involved in collecting that information would be next to impossible.

If you want to post the details of one of the formats of you're event I can certainly churn it through the formula and see what spits out the other end.

I will add that we will no longer be including subjective point reductions for weekday events, events classified as "Launch Parties", etc.

There will also no longer be anything classified as an "annual" or "periodic" tournament, or "main"/"side" tournament.

Every tournament/league submission will graded on its own objective merits, and every one will be listed separately on a player's resume.

Consequences are fuzzy to us as well. It's the first time we've overhauled the system this big since 2009, and the first time we're not able to test all of our historical data using the new formula. Can't say I'm excited about that part of it, but we're coming out guns blazing with the best of intentions for the system.

Changes will go into effect starting 1/1/15. The announcement on 10/1/14 is to hopefully give us 3 months of being able to answer questions, and help tournament directors get familiar with the information we're going to need to officially endorse the tournament and evaluate it properly.

Consider this the announcement, before the epic announcement, before the implementation of that epic announcement (Pinside moderators told me it has to be done this way now)

Yes, most 'good leagues' that include a ton of playing during their season should grade out to 100% for that season.

However, depending on the number of players in your league you may see the overall value actually decrease compared to the current rules.

Those would be graded at 100%.

Looks like we got April results from Mighty Mikes, Town Hall, and VBH.

Here's some quick old value vs. new value comparisons:

Mighty Mikes (20.95 new way, 10.32 old way)
Town Hall (8.85 new way, 9.11 old way)
VBH (19.26 new way, 10.26 old way)

A reminder that this would be for EACH SEASON the new way. The old way you combined the seasons into one listing on your player resume for your ranking.

The one caveat to the new change, because we're allowing people to run as many events as they would like, as often as they would like.

Residences will only be allowed to host ONE endorsed tournament per year.

This is to stop someone from running a tournament at their house every single night of the year, and actually be able to count all 365 events. Even at fractions of a WPPR point per event, they could seriously impact the SCS of that state.

This change will definitely shift the SCS standings to be based on local events, as all of those monthly/weekly events no longer have to split value with themselves during the year.

It's actually going to expand from the top 15, most likely to the top 20 (to accommodate all of those Main+Side events that will now count as two events on a player's resume).

For a while we will have some 'old formula' data, mixed with 'new formula' data on a player's resume, but that will work itself out over time as more new results come in, and the other results continue to decay.

I'm equally interested to see when things will start to shift and include more 'new results' for players.

With the monthly tournaments being combined into one cumulative resume event under the old system, it's going to be tough to crack a monthly tournaments on your top 20 the new way until things decay a bit.

If you did well in PAPA Classics in the past, since those 3 tournaments no longer have to share 'side tournament' value with eachother, players are likely to see a boost for each of those individual Classics tournaments.

With the base value calculated by the number of players that participate, any house tournaments with limited participant numbers won't be able to compete with the likes of a substantial full weekend event.

If you have an example house tournament by you that is currently getting the full 25 base points because it's by default, I can certainly run the new formula on that tournament and let you know how it changes.

The big shift is that the World Rankings and the State Rankings will now have a shift in motivation. If I run 500 small tournaments in a state, worth 1 point each . . . those won't have any impact on a player's top 20 resume, which is what their World Ranking is based on. For the SCS, it will definitely have a HUGE impact on the state standings. This makes the opportunity for out-of-state players who come into town to play one weekend event, no longer able to qualify for that state based on just that result, solving possibly the biggest issue we've heard about the SCS after the first year. SCS is about growing the local tournament scene, and rewarding those players that get out and play the most, and play the best. It is NOT a State "ranking" in the same respect as a player's World Ranking.

Besides pinball's Grand Slam (PAPA/IFPA/EPC/Pinburgh), there are no 'major' distinctions. Nationals will be graded the same way any PAPA circuit event would be graded . . . it gets even worse under the new system.

The big thing that kills the Nationals is that there were only 25 players, versus SPF last year that had 81 players.

Here's the breakdown of value under the new system for both of those:

Nationals --> 12.5 base points, 17.94 TVA, 100% grade = 30.44 points (down from 42.94)
SPF --> 32 base points, 21.67 TVA, 87% grade = 46.69 points (up from 46.68)

This impacts the State Championship tournaments themselves greatly under the new system as well:
Florida SCS --> 8 base points, 5.75 TVA, 100% grade = 13.75 points (down from 30.76)

Kevin - You are missing what the impact WOULD be under the new system for SCS.

If I run a tournament in my house, every night, with my family of 4, I can earn up to 2 points per night assuming I run a 'quality' format with my wife, 2 year old son and 3 month old daughter.

Multiply that by 365 and I can earn 730 WPPR points for the Illinois SCS, which has a HUGE impact on the SCS . . . especially if I win all of them (which I better or else I have bigger problems).

The only potential way around this that I'm interested in is whether hosts agree to make their address public on our site, without a cap to the number of players that can show up. At that point you're pretty much acting as a "public venue" out of your own house.

On the bright side your house tournament wouldn't be worth 1/4 WPPR's, so you could in theory still run 1 a year per points, and 3 per year 'for fun', and end up with the same amount of WPPR points awarded in either case.

What MHS said is pretty much spot on . . . unleashing the beast on allowing people to run as many tournaments as they would like is supposed to help grow location pinball and get new players interested. The idea of giving the same group of people the opportunity to run as many events as they would like privately wasn't a motivating factor behind the switch to WPPR v5.0.

That thread will be coming October 1st . . . remember this is just the announcement before the actual EPIC announcement

Leagues will be able to submit at the end of the season just as before. The grading of that season will encompass the data from all of the events within the season, which should help make it grade out to a much higher percentage.

If you play 8 games per event, and have 12 players, you have room to grow in both areas.

Here's the difference between submitting each session, versus submitting at the end of the season (assuming 5 sessions):

Each session would have a base value of 1.92 WPPR points. In total this would be 9.60 WPPR points, but be listed as 5 separate entries on a player's resume.

If you submit at the end of the season, it would have a base value of 6.00 WPPR points. This would only be listed as 1 entry on a player's resume.

So for the SCS you would be up about 3.60 points submitting them individually, but would limit the ability for players to move up the world rankings by filling their resume up with low value events (sort of the balancing act of what the new system is all about).

Base value is no longer guaranteed at 25 points. It will now be earned based on the number of players that play.

The entire value of the tournament will now be impacted based on a grading system. The max for the grading is 100%, and thus a tournament gets to keep their entire value earned.

Adding more games played for the night is a better test of skill for those tournament players, and will increase your grade for that event.

A quick example would be:

If you play 8 games per event, and have 12 players, your value is 1.92 WPPR points for that event.

If you increase that to 10 games per event, and still have 12 players, your value would increase to 2.40 WPPR points for that event.

You can definitely continue to increase the value of that event by playing more meaningful games of pinball, which of course takes more time investment from the organizers to run . . . so the system is meant to reward those that put more time into running their events.

There will be additional information needing for the submissions to help grade the tournament properly, but we also plan on trying to get a ton of information up front in the calendar submission process.

The most popular question we get is what kind of estimate we have on what an upcoming tournament will be worth.

Since this will highly depend on the format of the event, it's important we have that information early.

The results submission process we be more about confirming the format that was submitted was actually executed, and handling any cases where this was ambiguous (for example a double elimination bracket can significantly vary how many games were played based on how many participants show up).

Echa - Right now you're getting a base value of 6.25 for each event (guaranteed), plus some TVA points based on who played. This added up to the 7.11 WPPR points for the June tournament you ran.

The new way doesn't care that it's a "periodic" tournament. It only cares about the format you ran, and will be worth as much or as little based on that grading percentage and the number of players that play.

Here's a breakdown of that same exact tournament under the new system:
Base value of 10.5 points
TVA of 3.43 points
Total value = 13.93 WPPR points

Then we grade your tournament format, which you said is a double elimination bracket for 21 players. Assuming each match is a single game that would grade out to 44%. If you ran a tournament that graded out to 100%, you would get the entire 13.93 WPPR points awarded.

Your total value for that event after grading would be 6.13 WPPR points.

The difference is, you can run that same event as many times as you would like under the new system. Under the old system we would just continue to split the points over however many you ended up running for the calendar year.

You got it

8 games per month for 12 players = 1.92 WPPR points

If it ends up only being 6 games, it would be reduced to 1.44 WPPR points for that session.

If you wait until the end of the season you get to count the games played across all sessions, grading out to 100%. You would then get to keep your base value of 6 WPPR points for the season.

1. With you posting your full address and making it public, we're likely to allow you to run as many events as you would like at your place.

2. A Pin golf tournament where 20 people play 19 games would result in a net base value of 7.60 WPPR points for that tournament.

3. 24 players, playing 4 games in an evening, for 8 months would be worth a net base value of 1.92 WPPR points for each session, or 12.00 WPPR points if submitted at the end of the season.

One per month would allow myself and 10 of my closest friends to be able to run a total of 120 tournaments per year, and if we took the time to make sure our format graded out to 100%, it would result in 5+ WPPR points per meeting.

120 tournaments at 5+ WPPR points per meeting, means that my group of buddies just accumulated 600 WPPR points within that state's SCS without really doing anything to promote growing the player besides hanging out with eachother.

Even with 1 per residence, most communities have a group of players with multiple hosts available. Here in Chicago we have at least a 15 available hosts from our pinball league. If everyone took to hosting one endorsed event per year at their residence, the WPPR points start to accumulate quickly. Allowing 2 for each host doubles that . . . 4 for each host quadruples that, etc.

I would much rather focus that energy for organizers to run events in public venues with the hope that it helps earnings on location and grows the player base.

The proposed rules would actually have no impact compared to what Kevin awards now for his Pinaholics events.

Currently --> We force him to run a periodic, so he gets 25 base points for the year split in 1/4ths
New Rules --> He can still run one 'private' event that would yield him the same, if not more points than the current system

Ultimately he also has the power to not list event as 'private' on our calendar, and can continue to run as many events as he would like out of his house with no limit.

Houses that may host a league event are not included in these 'private' endorsed tournaments. I host as part of the Chicagoland Pinball League season, and that has no impact on my ability to run a separate event at my place under the new system.

Currently the proposal is that I can list my place publicly on the IFPA calendar, still require pre-registration, and have as many events as I would like at my house (365 if I want to run one every day). My other option is to click the 'private' checkbox on the IFPA calendar which I could do once for the year.

For split flipper you can fairly judge those results because it involves multiple players on the machine. It is completely unfair for someone to pair themselves with Keith Elwin as their split flipper partner, and get to bank personal WPPR points based on Keith's skill.

There is no 'special treatment' of events where there's any max base available. Every event will grade out the exact same way, with the ability for every single event to grade out at 100%. Run a split-flipper for fun, and follow it up with a singles tournament for points afterwards. Players will still find a way to get interested.

We're feeling pretty good with the metrics at the moment. Of course no system will ever be perfect, and we've only made changes in the past when we feel like those changes have created a 'net positive' result.

Organizers will always look for ways to exploit the WPPR system. The good news is that this isn't something new, so we're dealing with it all the time already. With the old system every single tournament was guaranteed to grade out at 100%, so really this new system can only hurt a tournament that doesn't grade out fully.

Number of matches played will be a huge factor in the grading system . . . and any 1-ball games will not be endorsed by the IFPA as part of that game count.

This is correct Colin . . .think of 12 months of league as one really long tournament.

The # of players if you are keeping track of cumulative standings for the year would include anyone that has played at least one session during the year.

Leagues like the PPL in Pittsburgh have this. You'll see Bowen Kerins ranked like 80th because he was in town for one session of the league during that season.

It will be up to the league if they want to fill player's resumes with low scoring individual meets, or submit one aggregate submission for a higher scoring event that takes up one line on the resume.

Player Count sets the base value (somewhere between 0-32)

Number of games played in the season is used for the grading percentage.

For an entire league season you get to count ALL the games from each session, so you are more likely to grade out at 100%. If you only count the games played from an individual night, that's where you will grade out to <100% based on whatever total were played.

If Kevin wants to rename his event the "Pinaholics League" . . . then we're all good

No matter what we roll with people with game the system in some way. Ultimately if we smell something that isn't kosher we'll deal with it accordingly.

As always, we plan on working with organizers directly (especially GOOD organizers), the find ways to make things work for them. This work has already started with Kevin for his events, so rest assured we will take care of things.

Hilton - at some point for your world ranking the monthly events will no longer help you.

The SCS should keep players coming back month after month. If your monthly grades out to 4 points per month, that's now 48 points up for grabs in the Wisconsin SCS. (Up from 25 under the old system)

I would need to know the formats in as much detail as possible.

If you can send that to me I can grade them out.

This is something we're in the middle of cleaning up. The term "leagues" versus "tournament" has to not give benefits strictly based on name alone, or else everyone will call their event whatever yields better ways to score WPPR's.

The facts about most leagues are that there is some sort of session to session cumulative standings that are kept, making the individually meetings linked in some way. Compare this to a monthly tournament where each session really is an independent event.

This may end up making some "Leagues" that exist today, not qualify as an IFPA endorsed league if it's simply a random gathering of players that meet month to month, with nothing connecting those meetings between one another.

The connectivity of the individual events makes it possible for the League to submit a collective result at the end of the season comprised of all the individual sessions held.

One can do the same for a monthly tournament, if that data is based on the cumulative play of those previous meetings.

At that point it's the "same thing" and the term league vs. tournament is simply semantics.

No . . . 100% is the max grade possible.

Unless the tournament you run is already a quality event, in which case you will be rewarded for the work you're already doing. If you can tell me the details of your tournament I can tell you exactly how it will be impacted.

Ultimately if people are no longer going to host tournaments because of the implications of what WPPR v5.0 will be, then that's something we'll see in the # of tournaments that get played all around the world.

Right now here's the baseline we're working with:

2009 - 487 events
2010 - 619 events
2011 - 772 events
2012 - 977 events
2013 - 1604 events
2014 - 1089 events (so far)

If this turns off too many organizers we'll have to re-evaluate the system, and go back to guaranteeing some sort of minimum points for everyone to keep them happy.

Here's the breakdown for MRP 2013:
Base value = 24 points based on 48 players having played
TVA = 5.87 points
---------------------
Subtotal = 29.87 points
Grading percentage = 48% based on 12 games played
---------------------
TOTAL = 14.34 points (compared to 30.87 under the old system)

Here's the breakdown for Last Chance 2013:
Not quite sure I understand what an inverted bracket means, so I'll use a standard double elim bracket for 16 players which is 9 rounds.

Base value = 11 points based on 22 players having played
TVA = 6.56 points
---------------------
Subtotal = 17.56 points
Grading percentage = 36% based on 9 games played (the 6 qualifying games do not count, because it didn't reduce the field by at least 50% - you only went from 22 players to 16 - we consider this a 'seeding' process when the field isn't reduced by at least half)
*had your qualifying process reduced the field by half, grading percentage would have been 60%
---------------------
TOTAL = 6.32 points (compared to 31.56 under the old system)
*10.54 points if you had reduced the qualifying field by half

Easiest way is to play more games, as this will increase the grading percentage of the event.

If you allowed people to play TWO rounds instead of just one, and took their combined scores for both rounds, you would increase your grading percentage to 96%.

This would net out 28.68 WPPR points for the winner instead of 14.34.

Nothing is flawed about the algorithm, we're simply making it a challenge for organizers to grade out to 100% value, especially when compared to the bigger tournaments out there that last 3-4 days, and include dozens of volunteers to make them run.

Well there will no longer be any distinctions for "MAIN" and "SIDE" tournaments, so let's focus on your Main tournament which was 25 base points the current way.

32 players = Base value of 16 points

Let me make some assumptions:
- Assuming you go 16 players down to 8 down to 4, is 3 rounds of 3 games for finals
- Assuming you will simply use the 7th game for the Main tournament side Side tournaments will no longer exist
- Assume you get 32 players, as this would reduce your field by 50% and allow us to count the qualifying portion of the tournament, or simply take 13 finalists instead of 16

Grading percentage would be based on 6 hours of qualifying + 7 games played in qualifying + 9 games played in finals . . . 88% grade

Total value would be 14.08 WPPR points base value for this tournament

By saying you want further events to get more base points (more than full value), I guess I don't see the difference. If I make MRP grade out to exactly 100%, and keep our formula the same and allow the Max Grading % to simply be 150% . . . does that make you feel better knowing you're in exactly the same position when comparing your tournament value to others?

We aren't interested in a unique game multiplier, because that instantly favors people/areas that have bigger collections. If we play 10 games on 10 different machines, it's the same test of skill as counting 10 games on the same machine. It's about the # of times we have played a meaningful game of pinball that matters . . . not the titles it's on.

Your example of taking 3 games, and playing them each 10 times is EXACTLY what will grade you out to 100%. Compared to your Pingolf example where 12 games of data are used, you are talking about 30 games of data being used. While it's 'more boring', it is a more true test of skill to have over double the amount of games played being evaluated. Like I mentioned, you could do Pingolf and simply double or triple the rounds played to allow your tournament to grade out higher. This of course increases the time you need to run your tournament (which is the basic idea of the formula - put in more effort to have more play for the players - be rewarded for it).

Any format can grade out to 100% . . . it's just a question of allowing the players to more games to build more data being evaluated to determine the ultimate result.

Here's the basic formula in a nutshell:
Base value = 1/2 point per player up to 64 players (32 point max)
Grading percentage = 4% for every game played in determining your winner (100% grade max)
*if your tournament includes unlimited qualifying, then we also look at the number of hours of open qualifying you have as a component in the grading*

Like Soren mentioned, it's all relative to other events, and if you don't keep that perspective then I can't help you.

If I simply took our exact same plans, and multiplied all points by 1000, would you feel better about it?

Instead of going from 25 points to 14.08 points . . . you would go from 25 points to 14,080! Talk about a HUGE INCREASE!

I will tell you that the median number of players for a tournament over the last 4000 events held is 20 players per tournament. At 26 players this actually puts you 'better than average' by comparison, which means the flat guaranteed base of 25 points per event was actually hurting you relative to all the other tournaments out there.

If a change to the WPPR system is the reason for you to stop running a tournament you are losing money on . . . I guess . . . you're welcome?

Everything is graded exactly the same way . . . period.

Time is ABSOLUTELY a road block to value, because it takes more time to play more games to increase you grade. This is help keep the balance of the weeknight events that are designed to last a couple of hours. There's only so many games you can play in a couple of hours, so they will organically grade out lower.

The metric for unlimited qualifying is only for UNLIMITED attempts (your example of playing 3 on each game is LIMITED attempts) so there would be no time metric evaluated. This would grade out to 100% (40 games X 4% each would eclipse the max).

Let's assume you have 40 games, and you simply tell everyone, play as much as you would like for 8 hours! We'll take your best score on each one.

Here's how the time component factors in:
The grading is broke up to 20% time based, 80% games played based
Every hour of open qualifying adds 1%, and every game played still adds 4%

So for this example you would have:
8 hours of unlimited qualifying - 8%
40 games played - 80% max
Total grade = 88%

The unlimited actually grades out less because it's basically impossible to get players to play 3 attempts on 40 games (120 games played) in less than 8 hours. You would need something along the lines of 30+ hours to make that happen, especially with games in multiple locations.

TVA numbers are not changing, and the distribution of WPPR points aren't changing.

We only like changing one major variable at a time, just in case things go to complete chaos and we have to revert back to v4.0.

This v5.0 change strictly deals with base value, and the grading of that value.

Anytime I can help get a business to stop losing money, I think that's a good thing

I would absolutely let the players figure it out. We do that with all of our tournaments in Chicago, and have had some of the locations offer to give us free games, and I've said NO WAY. Make us pay to play, because that's what we're there to do . . . help increase the earnings of the machines through competitive play.

TVA is a positive-only thing. Adding more players to a tournament doesn't make it easier to win . . . it may not make it 'much more difficult', but it will never make it easier.

That information is available here (already in the current formula):

http://www.ifpapinball.com/ranking-info

Here is the verbiage from the section on the Tournament Value Adjustment (TVA):

Tournament Value Adjustment

As we mentioned earlier there are two strength indicators that we use to determine the TVA for an event. This includes a TVA based on player RATING, and a TVA based on player RANKING. These values are added to the base value of an event to determine the 1st place WPPR point value for that tournament. The TVA takes into account the best 64 players participating in a tournament for each strength indicator. For the RATING strength indicator, the top 64 RATED players are taken into account. For the RANKING strength indicator, the top 64 RANKED players are taken into account.

RATING FORMULA

The TVA based on RATING can be worth up to 50 additional WPPR points for a tournament. The formula used to determine the WPPR value that each player adds to the pot is:

(RATING * .00109375) – 1.40625

We consider a 'perfect' player to be rated 2000, so based on the formula that player would add .78 WPPR points to the value of the tournament. 64 players with a rating of 2000 would amount to a 50 WPPR point increase for that tournament. Any player with a rating of 1285.71 or less will have no impact on the strength of the tournament.

RANKING FORMULA

The TVA based on RANKING can be worth up to 25 additional WPPR points for a tournament. The formula used to determine the WPPR value that each player adds to the pot is:

[ln(RANKING) * -.105837527) + .729913984

We consider a 'perfect' tournament to include the top 64 ranked players in the world participating. Based on the formula the #1 ranked player in the world would add .73 WPPR points to the pot, the #2 ranked player in the world would add .66 WPPR points to the pot, etc. In total the top 64 ranked players would equal an additional 25 WPPR points in value for the tournament.

Nope. A tournament still can't restrict players from competing based on age/skill/gender/etc. and expect to be endorsed by the IFPA.

All the rules being implemented for WPPR v5.0 are only for IFPA endorsed tournaments/leagues.

Phil - We look at 'longest path' when it comes to the games played count, so there's no opportunities for a player to intentionally lose and prolong a match in order to increase the value of the tournament.

Here is how the value would breakdown for that 403 Club monthly:

18 players = 9 point base value
TVA = 3.20 points (from the current IFPA results page)
Total Gross Value = 12.20

Grading percentage = 30 games played [longest path for an 18 player, 2 out of 3, double elim tournament is 10 rounds at 3 games played per round]. This grades out to 100%.

Monthly winner would get 12.20 WPPR points (compared to 4.02 awarded based on the current system).

The only difference is every month would be listed separately on your resume, compared to this year where you have earned 19.74 points based on the cumulative total of all the months you've played in.

Bingo! The days of any 3-person event being worth anything of substance will long be over.

No problem Chris . . .

25 players = 12.5 base points
TVA = 3.10 points
Total Gross Value = 15.40 points
As with most leagues a total of 45 games played over the 10 weeks + finals is awesome, and will definitely grade out to 100%.

This puts the winner of the league season at 15.40 WPPR points per season, no matter how many seasons you guys run in a year. This is compared to 9.37 WPPR points won under the current system, a 64% increase.

Rather than this simply being a shift towards trying to get things more accurate, we have run into problems with motivating people to run more tournaments under the current system.

Due to the way that we combine tournaments and split values during the course of a calendar year, organizers have started becoming motivated to NOT run additional events, for fear of having to split points with an event they ran prior. This had a huge impact on me, and ultimately pushed me in the direction of needing to create a system that always motivated organizers to run as many tournaments as they wanted without fear of reducing the points awarded at any prior event.

The data collection process for organizers isn't nearly as complicated as you may fear. Back in the 2009 release of WPPR v3.0, which I know you were around for, that's when we started distributing WPPR points for all players. The biggest problem was that many tournaments only kept track of the top 16 standings (by paper), and when results were submitted we were forced to give 16th place "last place", even though we knew 100+ players participated (I'm looking at you Pinball Expo). That was by far the hardest task of making sure organizers kept FULL results of all participants, and over time they adjusted (or faced the WPPR consequences, and heat from the players that suffered from it).

Most recently the biggest changes to the WPPR system that have required an increased workload has nothing to do with the system, and everything to do with calendar/result submissions. Since baby #2 has arrived in the Sharpe household, I've simply had no time to put in the ~20 hours required per week to upload the 40 new results we get, 40 new calendar submissions we get, update player profiles, and answer all the questions in the IFPA inbox, etc. We just released our online interface where tournament directors are now responsible for submitting their calendar entry, and then submitting their results directly through our website. I can now approve 40 results in a couple of hours, rather than taking 10+ hours to do it.

The additional workload required for a tournament director to share their format with us is all that will be requested. Since many of the formats have a known amount of games played, I don't anticipate too much trouble. For example an 8 person single elimination bracket, single game matches is 3 rounds of 1 game each . . . so game count = 3, done.

Hope to see you back on the battlefield at some point

Time spent from beginning to end isn't really the issue.

Time is only a metric for a tournament that uses a format that involves UNLIMITED qualifying attempts. Every other style of tournament and length of time is irrelevant. If we do need the time metric, it's simply the number of hours of open qualifying that is used. We hope that most tournaments have a pre-set schedule of the hours of qualifying, so it should be a super easy metric to count.

For example, I can jump on the PAPA site right now, and check out the PAPA 17 schedule:
A division - 12 hours Thursday, 15 hours Friday, and I can stop counting because we're already over 20 hours
Classics divisions - 8 hours worth of qualifying, so this will add 8% to the eventual grading percentage of the event

As for keeping track of games played, it's equally easy because we always use 'longest path' through any tournament format. This allows us to predetermine many of the game counts simply based on the number of participants involved in the playoffs. Tournament organizers won't have to individually track how many games each player played, and then make sure the eventual winner's count is the number that is submitted. Every bracket will assume the lowest seed advancing through the tournament, using the maximum number of games played in every round they could possibly play.

Is there a chance for tournament directors to submit results that aren't accurate? Of course, and they will see their value reflected in that. Similar to the issues with WPPR v3.0 we hope that over time organizers will get used to the changes. If they are consistently running the same format, it should also become easier to know exactly what the game count will be long before the tournament even takes place (PAPA = 5 qualifying games + 9 finals games for example . . . plus the 20+ hours of qualifying, and I can already tell you PAPA will grade out to 76% for A division).

Definitely still big points . . . here's how last year would grade out for PAPA A, and Classics:

PAPA 16 A
81 players = 32 base points
TVA = 50.65 points
Gross Total Value = 82.65 points
Grading percentage = 76%
Net Total Value = 62.81 points
Major Championship multiplier (1.5X) = 94.22

PAPA 16 Classics 1
145 players = 32 base points
TVA = 53.89 points
Gross Total Value = 85.69
Grading percentage = 59%
Net Total Value = 50.68 points

Yes Classics for PAPA 17 would grade out higher because of the extra round played due to the increase in the number of qualifiers to 24 players.

8 hours + 4 qualifying games + 12 finals games = 72%

This is the biggest shift with WPPR v5.0, and puts all the power in the hands of the tournament directors to grade out to whatever they want (knowing full well that it will take more effort on their part to increase that grading).

Before there was no additional value benefit given to those tournament directors that worked harder to make their tournament a better test of skill for the competitors involved . . . now there is.

We're likely to not limit residential tournaments, but instead require a minimum player count of 16 players for it to be endorsed by the IFPA.

This would allow us to mitigate the risk of nightly family & friends tournaments having a huge impact on the SCS for various states, while still giving a larger group of dedicated players (16 being 'larger') a chance to be rewarded for their efforts of organizing and playing in an event, even if that event happens to be at a residence.

This will of course be closely monitored during the year, and like most things, if we see an area of exploitation start to develop, we may have to re-evaluate our plans.

We don't assume tiebreakers, because you would have to then assume that there could be a tie for the last qualifying spot, along with the chance (albeit a small one) that there is a tied score at some point in the tournament that would require additional data to clarify that previous result.

We simply look at tiebreakers in that manner . . . it's helping to clarify a previous result.

The thing about shortest path is that some tournaments require all games to be played, regardless of whether they are 'important' or not. Group play tournaments come to mind.

When Bowen ran and grabbed the PAPA 16 champion trophy after two games played in the finals last year, he was still forced to play in a meaningless game #3. In any head-to-head situation, shortest path would only count 2 games played. We chose longest path to help balance out these formats so they are weighted equally, assuming that players COULD play a meaningless game #3 in a head-to-head match if they wanted to, it just wouldn't have an impact on the outcome of the match (like Bowen's game #3 last year at PAPA). Same can be said for Pingolf when players are forced to play their full round. Depending on the max stroke count it would be possible for a player to clinch a victory well before the last hole is played.

As for trying to manufacture byes in a way that adds rounds to the tournament artificially, you can't do it better than a ladder match, which of course is allowed. The issue with that is simply putting in the time to run it. Circuit Final may be a 'cheap way' to get the game count way up since you are eliminating one player at a time, but they also spend 12+hours for the final doing it.

The longest path is also designed to keep things as simple as possible, and give benefit of the doubt to organizers that are running a quality event. I would consider any 3-strike event to be a 'quality' event that does provide a solid test of skill for the participants involved.

WPPR v5.0 was more designed to nuke the inflation of single game high score tournaments, or single elimination 1-game match brackets, etc.

With some math help from Mr. Kerins, here is what we show for max rounds played for a 3-strike tournament depending on the number of players:

2 players: 5 rounds
3-4 players: 8 rounds
5-8 players: 11 rounds
9-16 players: 14 rounds
17-32 players: 17 rounds
etc

The problem becomes enforcing arbitrary limits. The calendar approval process is literally me going through and making sure the website that was submitted actually has details of the event. At what will surely be 2000+ tournaments played this year, I want no part of keeping a master list of residential tournaments, and logging how many have been played.

Furthermore with a group of local players, this rule is easily worked around by simply moving around to different collections. If we do a limit of 3, I can instantly make that 9 between my brother's collection and my dad's collection. Toss is a couple of buddies and we're already in the 15, 20, 30 residential tournaments per year here in the Chicagoland area EASILY.

I'd rather just let those 15, 20, 30 be at the same place if people are going to run the tournaments anyway and work around the limitation.

Again we'll see how it goes for 2015, but the goal with WPPR v5.0 was for everything to be as unleashed as possible. Only if we see problems will we start applying our band-aids to the situation.

We'll leave this for the players to work out amongst themselves. Continuing on the theme of my available workload with baby #2, I have no time to handle emails from 5200 players declaring which state they would want to play should they qualify in multiple states.

If you want to know if Werdrick is playing in Wisconsin for the 2014-15 season . . . just ask him

For those on the bubble they will need to be prepared up until the end anyway, as there are often other reasons besides multiple-state qualifying leading to reasons why a player can't attend the State Championship. Looks like last year Wisconsin went down to 28th place in the standings to fill 16 spots, and I see a bunch of names above that where Wisconsin was the only state that player qualified in . . . and they still didn't attend.

Play hard until 12/31/14, and let the chips fall where they may.

Good to hear! That means our evil plan is working [insert evil laugh]

There's no particular format that is considered "quality". A Pingolf format where players play one hole wouldn't be graded highly. It's more about the details of the format. A Pingolf round with 9 holes played grades out at 36%. A Pingolf round with 18 holes played grades out at 72%.

As long as the field is reduced by at least 50% from the Pingolf qualifying round, you get to include the number of games played in the Pingolf round, plus the number of games played in the finals in the game count put towards the grading percentage.

By requiring a minimum of 16 players for a residential event, we're hoping that cities with residential hosts that like to open their collections up to large groups of players will be able to continue to run as many events as they want. JR up in Maine comes to mind at the top of that list.

A two-strike tournament with 50 players would include 13 rounds maximum, so that would be the count we would use for grading purposes.

That would put the value of the tournament at:

33 * 52% = 17.16 points . . . every single Wednesday. At 52 weeks a year, that would have Whopper Wednesdays distributing 892.32 WPPR points during a calendar year under the new system
(compared to the current system where Whopper Wednesdays gets 25 points to award for the entire year)

The TVA from the last D&D Monthly (July) was actually 1.54 points. The total event value was 2.21 points for the month, this included 2.08 base points (25 divided by 12) + the TVA 1.54 points divided by 12.

WPPR v5.0 doesn't divide anything out, so if you assume this same monthly graded out at 32-40% under the new system, this past July tournament would have been worth:

18 players = 9 base points
TVA = 1.54 points
Gross Total Value = 10.54
Grading percentage = 32-40%
Net Total Value = 3.37 - 4.22 points for the month

The decision for leagues will be whether they want to focus on state points for the SCS, or rankings points for the WPPR global rank of the players. Personally in Chicago, if our league switched to submitting monthly results, no single month would have a chance at being included in my top-20 resume, so they would become worthless to play (for me).

Is it better to have 1 event worth 25 points, or 12 events worth 3-4 points each?

That's the question many local player bases will have to answer under the new system, and that answer will differ greatly depending on who is interested in racking up SCS points, and who is interested in moving up the world ranking chart.

SCS standings are uncapped. All events within the state count, regardless of whether they are on your top-20 active list that determines your world ranking.

Eff% is the WPPR points you've earned, divided by the WPPR points available at the events you've played in.

Yup yup . . . if you look at some of the states, many players already have more than 15 events included in their SCS standings . . . and it's only August

That will most likely be the change.

This is mostly due to the fact that periodic events were grouped together under 1 resume entry under the current system (so 12 monthlies only take up one spot this year, they will take up 12 spots next year). Side tournaments are also grouped together with Main tournaments currently, and that will change as well.

Looking at your 'top 15' resume currently, breaking out those events under WPPR v5.0, and it would count as 26 events. Most players have a similar breakdown, so expanding to a 'top 20' will allow us to capture more of that data and put it to good use to help calculate your world ranking.

People have gamed the WPPR system with every iteration, and I expect it to continue. The one thing we're hoping is that to game v5.0, it's going to involve running a 'better quality event'. Past exploits involved adding side tournaments whenever possible, made up of the shortest formats an organizer could come up with.

As far as ensuring the opportunity remains equivalent, that is personally something I feel is a negative about the current system. One of the IFPA's main objectives is to motivate organizers to run as many events as possible to help spread the word about competitive pinball. By limiting those opportunities to one annual event, and the charity events, we're designed a system that went against that mission of getting more events created.

If Springfield runs an avalanche of events, should they not be rewarded for that additional time and effort? If it 'forces' you guys in St. Louis to do the same, that's exactly what we're hoping for.

Considering the system doesn't distinguish between what a 'league' or 'tournament' is, ultimately I don't think it's going to matter. If I run a league that meets once a month, or a I run a monthly tournament . . . it's still 12 times I'm getting out and playing. With respect to the WPPR points available, it's up to the organizers to submit those 12 meetings as ONE BIG EVENT, or twelve little events. There are pros and cons for submitting it either way.

There has never been a cap on the SCS qualifying process, so I expect things to not really change from where they are now. Those that got out and played in the most events definitely put themselves in an advantageous position to qualify for the State Championship, and that will still be the case under v5.0.

I've been through that same thing everywhere I've started up events. Nearly 100% of the time I get offered to have them set all the games to free play for the evening since we're bringing a bunch of people in.

It's like NOOOOOO GUY, the idea is this is going to be the best night of the week FOR YOU.

All six players would have qualified for state champs anyway, even if this tournament didn't count for points, so I don't think anyone is arguing that tournaments like this are the only reason you guys made the cut.

In fact I think it goes in the opposite direction and proves that the house restriction won't impact 'good players' from making the cut, but it will certainly help 'bad players' from being able to accumulate points easily from their house with a small group of friends. If you want to play in tournaments with <16 players for points, we simply ask you do it at a public venue. If you want to play in a tournament at your house, do it for fun, because you won't need those points to qualify for state.

Yes. These two tournaments wouldn't be considered linked together, or shared together whatsoever even if they were at the same venue, same day, same players. As organizer of a show could offer 5, 10, 15, or 20+ tournaments as part of their show weekend, and each one would grade out separately.

The only current proposed limitation is that a residential location must have 16 players or more to be IFPA endorsed. Everything else regarding IFPA endorsement still stands from the current system (open to anyone to participate - so no restrictions based on skill/gender/age/etc, and must be on the IFPA calendar a minimum of 30 days prior to the tournament.

Tournaments must still be announced with at least 30 days notice. In fact, the new IFPA calendar submission process on our site will not allow users a chance to pick a date that is prior to 30 days into the future. If you have to postpone an event that was already on the IFPA calendar, this is something that is perfectly acceptable. We've seen this happen due to bad weather, or the host had another commitment pop up, etc.

The 30 day rule is still important, because we want to continue to encourage people finding out about tournaments, and having enough time to make travel arrangements to attend. We don't want to run into large local groups planning events just for themselves, without giving everyone else in the world a chance to participate should they happen to be in the area at that future time.

The Garage Gauntlet host may not have any desire to host tourneys on a high frequency basis, but I've already received emails from multiple people that absolutely plan on hosting 100+ events if they can. The idea of telling them, go ahead, but you better find 15 friends just as committed as you are to show up that often makes it an easier WPPR exploit for me to stomach.

The WPPR v5.0 formula will certainly nuke the values of these home events, but in aggregate if left unleashed, small group of people could rack up hundreds of SCS points from the privacy of their own home. If I play a best-of-25 match against my son every night after I come home from work, I can collect .5 WPPR points X 365 days a year. That would certainly be enough for me to qualify for Illinois.

We always have to prepare for a rule to be exploited to this kind of level, because people will push those limits, especially in the late part of the year when the SCS qualifying heats up.

Every single tournament will be its own listing on a players resume. No events of any kind will be combined together and listed as one entry on a resume.

Any previous tournaments that included and Main + Side will now count as 2 separate tournaments.

An 'event' needs to be on the IFPA calendar. They can then run an unlimited number of tournaments at the event.

PAPA for example would submit the event and then run their 4 tournaments at that event no problem.

It will be important for the comments within the calendar entry to list out the details of each tournament to be held at the event. This will allow us to pre-grade the tournaments as best as possible to give players an idea of the value.

The entire new system is based on there no longer being terms called "Annual" or "Side" tournaments . . . there are only "Tournaments".

The 'guaranteed minimum base' has been the biggest thing stopping me from having supported a move like this in the past . . . for exactly the reasons you mentioned. Without a way for the organizers to promote that they are awarding at least "X" WPPR's, will someone choose to no longer participate in the tournament?

With the growth of not only the number of events we're seeing submitted on an annual basis, but also the average player count at these events continuing to reach all-time highs every time we run the calculation, I've been convinced to give this 'no minimum base' a try.

There's no doubt this is going to make for a more accurate ranking system, and we will have to wait and see what the impact is on the participation in established and new tournaments.

IMO the confidence in the value of an event will now have to come from the organizers themselves. Rather than saying "No matter who shows up, or how crappy of a tournament we run, you're gonna get 25+12.5 base points" . . . organizers will have to move to new ways to promote.

If I was promoting an event under WPPR v5.0, I would focus on the things I can control:

"Our format is designed to grade out at 100% according to the IFPA's grading system of tournament quality"
"Based on last year's player count, we estimate a base value of X"

Pre-registering is also a great strategy to use in promoting the number of players that have signed up, which will only continue to grow the base value you can advertise. I know that we often give slight discounts for tournaments we run to have players pre-register, mostly just to know logistically how big of a field we'll need to handle, but the WPPR v5.0 benefit of this shouldn't be overlooked either.

The biggest hurdle for players to understand is that 25 points isn't going to be the new 'average' by a long shot. Looking at the median value of player counts over the last 3 years of events, and if you have an event of over 20 players, you are above average with respect to that count. That puts 10 base points as the new average value if you're getting a typical average number of participants. It's then up to the organizer to maximize that grading percentage based on their format.

I've been playing competitive pinball since 1993, which gave me 13 years of competing with no WPPR's. Somehow players found a way to justify the travel and hotel costs for simply the competition. I'm hoping players will continue to play in the events they want to play in, knowing that the value of that tournament will be based on factors that will grade their performance at the event more appropriately than before.

The player fatigue is going to happen regardless, and if our purpose is to help create as many events as possible (again, to help promote the sport) . . . the limited model we currently have has really started to hurt this cause.

The unlimited model puts it into the hands of the organizers and players to simply do whatever the want. The idea is that there will be groups that focus on running very few events, but at a really high quality to hopefully draw in locals and out of town players for big WPPR values. There will be other smaller groups of players that will see this as an opportunity to run 100+ events a year at the local bar, for 1-2 WPPR points each meeting . . . and that's fine too.

I know we have a few monthly tournaments around here in Chicago, and the owners I've talked with have begged for them to become weekly tournaments because of the increased earnings and traffic those locations get on 'pinball night'.

IMO having more events available only gives those moderately-competitive players more opportunities to choose when they would like to play. The only tangible thing at play here is SCS qualifying, where the unlimited number of tournaments will absolutely have an impact on the qualifying for each state. I will argue that anyone who is interested in pursuing one of those 16 SCS spots is past someone that is beyond moderately-competitive. It will be up to them to earn their SCS points through playing well in the bigger events and socking away WPPR points, or getting out there a ton and accumulating points 1-2 at a time in the hopes of earning one of those spots.

For Illinois I'm not exactly sure if our 'big events' will be enough for me to even qualify in the top 16. Personally I hope that I won't have to make the weekly circuit to try and rack up enough Illinois SCS points to qualify, but as the IFPA President that's something I absolutely want to see happen. If we end up making even the smallest local events important to even the best players in the state, I think it's a great way to motivate players to compete in more events.

I get the fatigue and I get the potentially de-motivating aspect for certain players, but I would rather have a system that leaves that choice up to the players to decide, rather than designing a system that really limits the WPPR points available and using that as a crutch to try and keep the dedicated players happy in not worrying about the explosion of potential local events on the horizon.

I actually think the elite players are in the most trouble with respect to the SCS (not their World ranking).

If a small group of players want to go hang out at a bar every night of the week for fun, they can now submit that tournament to count every single night. Over the course of the year I think these casual players that are interested in simply playing a ton 'for fun', but now having it counted, will have a huge impact on the SCS standings.

I'm with you that I only focus on big tournaments right now. The thought of actually being 'forced' to play in some of the smaller local events in order to stay relevant in the Illinois SCS worries me quite a bit. It doesn't scare me that I have to get out and play more . . . but it does scare me to potentially have to explain to my wife why I really need to go to some random Tuesday night tournament instead of helping with the kids

I'm interested to see how it all plays out. I think it's very easy for people to SAY they plan on organizing hundreds of tournaments all over the place, but when it comes time to actually putting in the the time and effort to do so, I don't think the competitive pinball landscape will change that drastically compared to how it sits today.

IMO this hinders the potential growth for more local events, which is something the SCS was specifically designed for. I want the grinding of events locally because I think that's great for the locations where these events are being held.

My biggest issues with abuse or exploitation of the WPPR system in the past have been from people finding cheap ways to get more points with little to no additional effort. I'm pleased that any exploitation under the new system won't be accomplished without a ton of effort from organizers, and that's something I'm perfectly fine with.

This also helps the WPPR Rank and SCS help serve different purposes, and cater differently to various skill levels. I don't mind the SCS being about point accumulation and having the ability for that player's World ranking to not be inflated in the process.

The feedback I got from last year from lower ranked players was that the SCS finally gave them a motivation to compete for something. While it required them to get out and play more (IMO a good thing) . . . it gave them an opportunity the WPPR system simply didn't give them to help compete with players more skilled compared to themselves. Knowing they could always just 'play more' to move themselves up the SCS standings is a nice thing to have when trying to promote increased turnout.

Forgot to mention that the 'unlimited local event' decision also helps us solve the biggest complaint of the SCS during the first year . . . which was out-of-staters dropping in for one tournament, and earning enough WPPR points at that one event to qualify themselves for the whole year.

With the focus being on in-state players, and the idea of tracking/verifying mailing address for players being a logistical nightmare, the idea of unleashing and unlimiting the opportunities for local players to create and play in more events helps to minimize the impact that a big regional/national event has on the SCS standings for that particular state.

The difference with this analogy was that Activision was a company pushing Guitar Hero brands down to the consumer. They didn't require the consumers themselves to do the work.

If people won't find "more" to be "better" . . . those are the people that the IFPA relies on for events to even exist in the first place. If people find it too exhausting to organize and play in so many events . . . then those events won't exist in the first place, or the turnout will be so low that the WPPR impact for each event will be minimal. You can't simply create 100+ events out of thin air, without the local group of organizers and players to support it.

The IFPA isn't creating these unlimited number of tournaments by pressing some easy button like skinning Guitar Hero to now be the "Aerosmith" edition. We are empowering organizers to do more, and if they do, they will be rewarded for that effort.

We'll of course have to see what happens. We already have organizers running weekly tournaments at their locations (Full Tilt Ballard comes to mind in Seattle). Rather then them needing to split their 25 base points over the year in 1/2 point increments, under the new system they are being rewarded for having a tournament that is consistently available for players to participate in. I can't imagine the turnout of their events being any worse under the new system, but I guess it is possible should it change the tenor of their weekly event.

TOPS tournaments would be fine if they are on the calendar. Assuming open qualifying for more than 20 hours, along with the one game of data used to determine the standings, it would grade out to 24%.

Depending on the number of players documented, a 40 player tournament would have a base value of roughly 5 points.

Trent #2 has been on a roll lately. He would be ranked 23rd with 501.03 WPPR points.

The sleepers are really Trent #3, #4 and #5 all of which are moving up the rankings at a record clip:

Trent #3 - 298.19 WPPR points (ranked 109th)
Trent #4 - 216.71 WPPR points (ranked 178th)
Trent #5 - 129.40 WPPR points (ranked 379th)

As for the one ball tournaments, all 700 Pinburgh players could play a 1-ball tournament on Aquarius, and it would grade out to 0% [only full games of pinball count 3/5 ball play, only exception being Pin-Golf]

See you in the morning . . . flight lands at like 9am.

The formula we use for the distribution of WPPR points will not be changing from 2014. The value of 1st place is the only thing being changed with respect to the new formula being introduced.

As for the mechanics of the formula and trying to pre-calculate what the value and distribution is going to be . . . that's beyond my comprehension of how that all works.

When we used to do a flat 25-15-10-5 for the top 4 finishing positions, I was all over pre-calculating the value for events. Now that we're in crazy dynamic math formula land, I don't even try

Hilton - Nothing is available yet, but I can break it down for you pretty quick:

Base value = 1/2 point per player
Number of meaningful games played = 4% added to the Tournament Grading Percentage (TGP) for each game played

There's the time component for tournaments that have unlimited qualifying opportunities, but it doesn't sound like you're interested in those kind of formats.

With respect to cutting the field in half, this is what constitutes a 'qualifying round' versus a 'seeding round'.

For example, if you have 24 people, you can play a qualifying round of 6 games, but unless the field is reduced to 12 finalists or less, those games aren't included in the TGP total.

So assuming the 24 people in your example. That's 12 base points. The TGP would then be 6 games played for qualifying, and then assuming that reduces the field by half, playing another 2 games in a playoff would make it 8 games total, or 32% TGP.

This would be a Net Base Value of 3.84 WPPR points for the winner of the event.

If you allowed all 24 players to advance to the 'finals', then the qualifying process would not count, make the Net Base Value 0.96 WPPR points for just the 2 playoff games played.

Josh

We would include these in the TGP count. You eliminated more than 50% of the players from their ability to win the tournament (assuming you have more than 4 players that show up).

So the Pooley's TGP would be 24% (6 games total).

Looking at the September 10th results, it would break down like this:

- 22 players --> 11 base WPPR points
- TVA --> 2.37 WPPR points
- Gross Base Value = 13.37
- TGP --> 24%
- Net Base Value = 3.21 WPPR points (compared to the 2.28 WPPR points you got for winning under the current system)

Sure can! (Assuming I have the formats correct)

MRP Main event - 18 hole pingolf?
- 62 players --> 31 base WPPR points
- TVA --> 8.66 WPPR points
- Gross Base Value = 39.66
- TGP --> 72% (18 holes @ 4% per hole)
- Net Base Value = 28.56 WPPR points

MRP Side event - 1 qualifying game + 3 playoff games? Unlimited qualifying from 10am-6pm?
- 62 players --> 31 base WPPR points
- TVA --> 8.66 WPPR points
- Gross Base Value = 39.66
- TGP --> 24% (4 games @ 4% per game + 8 hours of unlimited qualifying attempts @ 1% per hour)
- Net Base Value = 9.52 WPPR points

Additional top 4 playoff, assuming single-game matches would add 2 games to the TGP. Additional top 8 playoff, assuming single-game matches would add 3 games to the TGP.

TGP would be increased from 72% to either 80% or 84%, so the value would increase from 28.56 WPPR points to either 31.73 or 33.31 WPPR points.

The Side tournament format sounds like you took the top 8 from either machine for the finals? This would only require one score from a player to advance, so it would be considered 1 meaningful game played for the TGP calculation. If you did a sum of game scores from both games to qualify, then you would be requiring both pieces of data to be used in the qualifying portion.

If you did unlimited qualifying from 5-11pm on Friday and 9:30-6:30 on Saturday, that would be 15 hours. This would increase the previous calculation I did by 7%, up to 31% TGP. Net Base Value would increase from 9.52 WPPR points to 12.29 WPPR points.

Gotcha . . . bump TGP up by 4% and you'll have your new totals. It's just that easy!

I have been in touch with Harry. 3 months left to make sure everything is communicated as clearly as possible . . . and I may need most of that time to get him used to all the changes (calendar and results submission process as well).

The only way I could see grading this is actually tracking all the games played by each player, and going with the player that played the most games as the TGP count.

The unlimited qualifying all month definitely helps. That adds 20% to TGP just for that (>20 hours). Using all 6 games would add 24% to the TGP, so the total would grade out to 44% TGP.

I'm insanely confused by this one

I would say the qualifying round does not count, since it sounds like all the players are simply getting seeded for the actual tournament. From there, it would most likely come down to counting the actual number of matches played by the players (including the bye as a game played), and taking the player with the most games played as the count for TGP.

Josh