the other night we had a player miss league night for a worthy reason and that player was allowed to make up the games they missed (which i think is fine as long as someone is playing with them and its still the same day) the tournament director offered to play the make up games with them. I was playing on the table next to them and as this player was about to plunge off and start rockin on ball three the TD stopped them and told them they should hard plunge. when the player asked why the TD told them "well because you only need one more k-i-s-s letter. you can hard plunge which will score you the k-i-s-s letter and score you the F in F-I-L-M. Then the ball save will give it back to you and you can soft plunge into the p-a-i-d lanes". Considering that this player is usually in the middle of the rankings (out of about 30 players) i found this behavior to be unfair to others who are ranked below them (and to a lesser degree everyone else in the league).

so my questions are: at what point is it no longer ok to coach along new players? how do you distinguish between a handicap and an unfair advantage? what would you have done in this situation? are higher ranked players less deserving of opportunities to bend the rules in their favor?

also, i think there should be a new sub forum in the playing section for league and tourney related topics (just tossin it out there).

thanks in advance for your time and consideration.

there is a big difference between explaining the rules of the game to a player and making a player privy to a strategy they were unaware of. This player was lining up a soft plunge when the TD interrupted them to tell them to hard plunge and why.

wow, alot of assumptions here.
first off, this did not cause me to lose the match (far from it).
second off, this isnt "basic advice" this is a strategy related to one particular table and its unique rules
third off, "you probably arent gonna do too well anyway" is incorrect. nothing about the scores was even mentioned in the original post, i perform very well on a consistent basis and this incident had no bearing on my overall standings. also is doing well the only reason one should play in a league? if you arent doing well should you care less about what happens during league? im confused as to how you could assume that this one incident is an indicator of overall performance???
fourth off, if you know so much about pinball you should know that the letters in film could be worth 8 million, be the last shot needed before multiball is ready, etc... whether this advice led to the only points the player scored or pushed them into the the grand champ spot is not the issue.
fifth off, get your own coach??? ummmm no thank you i am very pleased with my pinball abilities and do not need one. nice try though.

how can you assume im "bent out of shape" im not upset, thrilled, or even emotionally invested in this situation. it happened, i wanted to see what you guys thought. end of story. but hey, i guess it wouldnt be pinside without some assumed emotional roller coaster associated with every trivial thing.

pssssssssh acting as if a baby couldnt figure out the social dynamics of pinside within four seconds

law, the reason i didnt bring it up last night is because i genuinely dont care. you know i have no problem being vocal about everything so the fact that i didnt bring it up should show just how important this is to me. i thought it would be an interesting point of discussion online.i will now go hang myself with a belt because i am unable to stomach the atrocities committed against me personally during a pinball league.::sarcasm::