And most importantly, I will get a few years to just relax and enjoy pinball until this all shakes out and it becomes clear if Dallas is going to turn into a black hole of competition...which it will...because ain't nobody driving an hour and a half one way for .5 points. I fully expect as someone that can't travel much, the only events that may reach 25 points within 250 miles of me will be Texas Pinball Festival and HAAG, and I won't have to do anything for at least another year to maintain a respectable ranking because nobody aside from the guys in the top 100 that go to the 'majors' will be earning all that many points to knock off old results anyways.

Been way too tourney focused the last two years and I feel like I've missed out on just having fun sometimes just so I could get more points, because attending tourneys does cost my broke ----- a lot of time and money.. especially when I lose. Ugh.

Love the changes.

The first bullet of "Overview of Changes for 2015" says "league season", where the third bullet of "Basic Rules" says "league event". This is in regards to submission of results. Are both of those areas intended to say league event?

I don't really care about my world ranking. I know I can't travel as well as place high enough to make it very impressive. If I can get it to sub-1000 I'd be happy. What I am looking forward to is the credit monthly tournaments will now get compared to the annual events. This will do a lot for the dedicated players when it comes to their in state ranking.

My goal this year was to make it to every monthly my local place puts on. That's going well and my wife is perfectly fine with the 3rd Wednesday of the month being basically untouchable.

My goal next year is to be in the top 16 (or 20, depending on who shows up) in the state to qualify for that tournament.

I also want to travel more next year, but the big focus is hitting all of the state events I can.

I know it will take a few years for the past events to shake out so everything that is recorded was graded the same way. That's why I just want to get better and improve in the state while branching out for events just to do them.

If you are worried about local players, why not form a league? If you can find at least one place to play, get a group together and get some points that way. My league started with 9 players and an op location. Now we are at 19, just a few months in, and I'm about to start a waiting list. We have 2 homes that have opened to host as well. Nobody has the 8 games that we play at each event (except for the op location), but members bring machines to the host location so we do hit those numbers. Everyone has a good time, which is nice for me.

Thanks for the information. I will be trying to come up with a format for my Tournament next summer and will try make sure it is a "quality" format.

Small tourneys now earn peanuts.

Are you sure this is how you want to promote competitive play??

Make them bigger!

This is why I hate the 'point' system and don't play tourney\league anymore.

If you're a competitive person.. it sucks the life right out of the hobby.

Screw the points and just have fun!

How small is small and what is the value of peanuts? The way it is going to be is so much better than, for example, that event that had 3 players and was still worth 25 points. The monthlies I play in have anywhere from 18 to 30 players in them. We play 10 machines, so with only 18 players that event is 3.6 points plus TVA. Currently, those monthlies are worth 2 points.

Ok, gotcha. Just wanted to make sure I was remembering correctly.

I wouldn't go THAT far. I really love having a brutal showdown with a few people. It's awesome and there's really nothing in non-competitive play that can match it. But yes, when you want to be able to qualify for things like the SCS, at some point, it does become a knock down dragged out dogfight where you're looking for every kill shot possible to stay in the runnings. I know this is shocking for a large state, but we have a huge number of similarly-skilled players in Texas. It's *scary* how often games will come down to a fluke comeback or some other aspect that could be distilled down to "luck". This year, we only really have one guy that's really secured his position for the SCS. Everyone else is still subject to being kicked down the chain.

I've got my boots ready.

I'm gonna have to keep a spreasheet to match player names to Pinside names. Seriously, because I have no clue who half the TX people are that post on Pinside. I'm just horrible with making those mental links.

/shrug.

I hope there is some way to occasionally throw in some extra points for charity events like the Project Pinball, Python and Oursler events that were held? Seems like the best way to be fair would be to throw in an extra percentage of the total calculated points.

I think what's frustrating about the ranking system is that since many of the big tournaments are some form of a pump and dump format, meaning you can continue to pay for more entires to try and improve your score, those that are great players but can't afford to put $200 into entries at these type of tournaments don't show well in the rankings.

It'd be interesting to know what the average money that is spent to qualify in A's or B's at some of these bigger tournaments are, as I bet it's higher than most people think.

For instance, we have a guy here in Atlanta that is probably one of the best players in the area, but he doesn't play much in these bigger tourneys since the cost is so high to do so to stay competitive. And at least in the past, the bigger the tournament, the more points it's worth, etc.

I don't really have a solution to offer though. Wish I did. I understand that bigger pots attract bigger players, etc. So I see the draw of that. But I think the way most tournaments are structured some to alienate the more casual players, some of which are super skilled.

About the only idea I have is to make multiple entry tournaments worth less points than say a single entry tournament, but I'm sure that has plenty of pitfalls itself.

So to me, if one of the purposes of the IFPA is to help bring new people into pinball, which is a great goal BTW, the costs to be competitive in the rankings seems to work against that goal.

I think it was in a TPF thread, but somebody suggested that you don't get to buy unlimited tickets for events. Instead, you get a card and have 3 chances on each machine. Before you play a machine, the card gets punched, and then the scorekeeper submits your score. That would be more appealing to me since a friend of mine who did Zapcon's event last year said he spent close to $200 in tickets for him and his son. I was pretty shocked because I had no idea that you could pump and dump until you got a score you were happy with. Maybe up the overall price of a ticket (good for 3 plays on each machine) so that the pot doesn't go down too much. If you can't get there in 3 games, I don't think you should be able to keep chasing that magic game in the hopes of buying your way into contention.

*edit* Good.

Edited out prior comment until I can do more research for our state...

_{Post edited by Frax}

At the circuit event at SFGE in Atlanta the average spend to qualify for the top 16 was $146. The least amount spent was $83 and the most was $363.

I've attached a chart showing qualifying points vs number of entries. Players further to the right and lower scored more points and are more "efficient" than players to the left or higher.

I scraped the information from the results pages to get the information. I did not have any information about how many entries were comped for volunteers, so the dollar amounts are only approximate.

image.png

Pkiefert, when I started playing competitively, I had a lot of your same concerns about pump and dump and the overall expensive of the events I was able to attend. It's just not cost effective to flush a bunch of money into a tournament when you feel like you don't have a chance.

I think the only solution is to build something better. And by "better" I mean something that suits the wants and needs of local players like yourself. Obviously that will mean different things to different types of players and it's rare (impossible?) for an event to cater to every type of player out there.

In the Cleveland area, a few of us newer players have put our efforts together to run some smaller scale, flat fee (usually $20) tournaments. It's been a welcomed alternative option for a lot of the local casual players who don't see the benefit in dropping a ton of money into an event where they don't stand a chance. It's never a good thing for someone to walk away feeling like they lost because they were the better player, but didn't have the deepest pockets.

Also, league play is a great way to get competitive experience, earn significant WPPR points and help to build the social circle of local pinball fans without spending a ton of money. I've been playing in multiple leagues over the last two years and I'd definitely say that playing in a friendly, competitive group on a regular basis has helped my game more than anything else. It's also moved me up in the world rankings more than I would have expected.

So in short, I'm suggesting to join a league, start a league, run small events and try to grow them. If you don't like how the big events are operating, there are a lot of ways to be creative and do things differently! The IFPA is easy to work with and they leave things pretty open ended to allow tournament directors to run all types of different events that suit the needs of their local pinball community.

Anyone who's interested in what the Cleveland Pinball Collective is up to can stay informed here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HAPPYDOGPINBALL/

I'm actually part of two leagues here in Atlanta. I love them.

A benefit tournament this weekend is a pingolf single entry tourney, which I love too.

It's mainly the pump and dump tourneys, which nearly all of the big ones and circuit events seem to be, that leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall I think it's any tournament is a good thing.

At the pump and dump style tourney's, I go and drop $20-$60 bucks in play if i know the director just to be supportive, but that's the only reason I go to that style of tourney.

It would be nice to have a generic template formula where I can plug in a potential tournament to see points. Understandable that the player rank/rating would just be a generic average, but something where I can plug in X # players, X #games in qualifying, X # games in playoff, field cut by 50% or more Y/N, unlimited/limited qualifying and if unlimited X #hours of play.

Can this be done so people can get a live estimate for the number of points in general terms that an event may be worth?

I can see it as being very useful for on the fly decisions.
For example, hey guys today went really smooth for qualifying so we can add X # of games to playoffs and it will increase the value of this event by X IFPA points >>> by show of hands shoudl we add X games to increase the value?

IIRC, I spent around 70$ to qualify at TPF. I would've had to spend more had my EM scores initially not been absolutely ridiculous, as I did not re-qualify them all weekend and submit anything higher. My second place finish in A div EM also netted me "bonus points" to get into the big finals as part of the tournament format as well, which means my scores in the other three divisons didn't have to be quite as good, but they were still decent, I thought.

Main Tournament - Finished 10th - (19.37)
EM Division - Finished 2nd - (4.14)
Classics - Finished 13th - (1.19)
Shootout Division - Finished 16th - (1.63)
Texas Tilt - Finished 19th - (1.02)

I've recently been more excited at watching my rating move rather than my ranking as I still can't put up the money to travel out state tournaments with the big wigs. It seems like it more quickly assesses a player's abilities than having to wait for all 15-20 slots get filled - let alone most of them being tiny tournaments.

Will rating still be calculated under the new system, and will there be any more importance placed on it?

Best thing about new formula is classics tournaments have same importance as moderns!

Amen to that, and EM tournaments!

Hence why I can see the need to undershoot >> i.e. "At least 3 games will be played for playoffs, but if time allows this may be increased to 4"

I would also like the generic formula as a way to play with differnet ideas and see what grades out to what.

Both players and tournament directors will need to develop and make chioce on what sort of event to run and what events are worth their time to attend. As a director I will want to maximize attendance for many events and need to find out a good way to do that.

Wondering how many tournaments will change their finals format from PAPA-style to double elimination best-of-3 simply to get the grading value maxed out. PAPA style with 16 qualifiers uses 9 games max which calculates to 36% while 16 players double elimination longest path is 21 games, thus 84%! [80% max]

Anyone know the typical time needed for a 16 player double elimination best-of-3 tournament? For PAPA style I typically schedule between 1.5-2 hours per round, leaning towards 6 hours for 16 players.

That brings up a question. I see a lot of tournaments where there might be 40 or 50 people who entered but if you look closely only 25-30 actually played a significant amount of games. For instance a local tournament held at a large show gave a free three-game entry to VIP ticket buyers who paid for all three days in advance. That could potentially lead to a lot of players only playing three games and out. At a half a point per person, an extra ten or twenty people that are one and done will add up to a lot of bogus points. Hopefully there is some control factor in there for culling the players that did not at least post scores on the minimum number of games to qualify?

I was in a tourney this weekend in Abbotsford, Canada with an excellent format you paid $35 bucks got to play three rounds of 10 machines to qualify. Everyone got the same amount of entries and this was a PAPA circuit santioned event. One of the best and fairest I have seen format wise. Everyone is limited to three chances at each machine to qualify top 16, so you do not get the ole pump and dump. First prize was $5000 too just an awesome well run event, wish there were more that were this format. Pinburgh is the only other one that come to mind where you just pay your entry and everyone plays the same amount of times to achieve final ranking...

I really like the rule changes. For a smaller area like ours(Birmingham, Alabama) it will make our league seasons worth more points. With some changes to our launch party formats, those will likely be worth more points as well. I also like the idea that a single location will not be limited to one "annual tournament".

I have no problem with pump and dumps whatsoever. Do not forget that there is a certain amount of luck in pinball regardless of skill level. With a larger number of games played, the cream will always rise to the top. If you have a "one and done" format, a highly skilled player can easily finish near the bottom of the results. I know, I've done this many times at our launch parties!

The format used in Fraser Valley was excellent and will be appearing in more Circuit events in due time.

Can you explain in more detail?

Did you play through each game in succession 3 times? Did you play through game 1, then 2, then 3, ... and then start back over with 1 again?

We you ranked between each round of 10? Was this individual play or match play of some sort?

I would liek to hear more about exactly how it all worked.

This sort of format seems insane to me. $360 to compete in a pinball comp? Nuts.

Reminds me of the open class of motor racing I used to compete in. The guy with the most money *always* won. Because he just made his car faster and faster. The more games of pinball you play, the much better chance of cracking a good score.

If we ran a format like that here, nobody would show up.

I've got no issue paying to play. At Lyons Classic, you had to pay per each game in Pingolf. I think we played 10 games? So probably less than $10 total. Sweet as.

It will be interesting to see how the new rules affect our NZ comps. We run Brakelope double elimination, I think Auckland averages 20 players a month to the regular monthly comps. All free to play, btw.

rd.

And what is the cash prize for the winner?

Sorry, had to ask. I am not a fan of the buy your way in formats, but on the other hand I probably would not have made it into the finals at Southern Fried if I was the guy who spent $360. If somehow I did get there I would have ended up 16th. So your racing analogy is not really true because I have seen the top players hardly spend any money qualifying and still win the tournament along with the huge pot that the people trying to buy their way in dropped in entry fees.

To me I would prefer a much more controlled number of entries so we might actually see some of those tournament players out on the floor at shows enjoying the company of others and playing some friendly games of pinball. The serious players don't really get a chance to enjoy the show until they are eliminated. That's why I rarely play the tournaments at shows any more.

Initially, you got 1 book of tickets, 1 for each game. After completing that they gave me books 2 and 3 at the same time, and I chose to play each game 2x in a row instead of round robin twice.

I really enjoyed the format. I do think the randomness of EM's and limited to 3x tries is a questionable fit. If you look at the top 16 qualifiers, pretty much everyone did well on SS/DMD games, but there's a lot of randomness to the EM scores of qualifiers, with lots of 0pt entries, etc. Maybe EM's set to 3 ball but with 5 entries would be a better fit? Not sure.

Exactly $0. Nothing.

Just the adoration of others.

If you don't spend anything, there is no expectation to win anything.

rd.

Sounds fun! How long did this take? How many players and were games set up fast?

I think, for any tourney, you should maybe get 2 plays per game..max., Depending on how many people are there, you could get 1-2 games, PERIOD.!! and those should be included in the entrant fee.!

No way, should there be unlimited qualifying..., !!
Pinball should NOT be a war of attrition(marathon) and cash...I have been through some of these..
It's good for the purses, but no other sport runs like this.
You have one shot of posting a score in many sports, including the olympics..,
The top player's know, if they play X amount of games, they are in...
Sorry, should not be like that in pinball. (IMO)...

There was 2 full days of 10am-midnight for qualifying, and ~140 entries or so? (pretty sure a large number of people didn't do the full 3 booklets).

It took me about 3 hours per book to do qualifying, and that's with lines of 1-3 people usually for every entry.

Machines were not super tough, but fairly tough.

Curious what you think of PAPA style qualifying?

I'll go out on a limb and say he doesn't like that format.

It seems the same way, just keep paying until you qualify...., should not be like this.
I have seen top players, repeatedly playing machines that they have ALREADY qualified on,
continue to play, JUST to keep other player's off the table.!!

FYI, this was the format of this past weekend's Fraser Valley Flipout in Canada, which was a PAPA Circuit event. Looks like it was well run and fun for a lot of players.

This format has become popular in the US over the last 10 years because of the prize pools it builds. An event could double or triple its prize pool by moving to an unlimited-qualifying system. This format hides its true costs very well ... hey, it's only $10 to play 3 or 4 games!

There are big problems with unlimited qualifying, both on the high end of players pump-and-dumping to a qualifying position, to long lines for players who are required to play a large number of games to get through.

I think we're going to see more and more events built on match play and on limited qualifying. Ideally we can move to a situation where we're not relying solely on players' entry fees to build the prize pool.

Abbotsford, BC, home of Magnum Trailer & Equipment Co. One of the largest makers of Airport luggage jockey trailers in North America.