I love your commitment! Few people would go the extra mile!

I joke, I joke. I appreciate all the work Mr. Shepherd puts into keeping that database responding to queries (and the IFPA API is awesome). I really like both the wppr 5.0 and 5.1 changes. Anecdotal evidence locally suggest more players showing up and more and better tournaments (no more two strikes tournaments! More match play! So happy!)

Just as an FYI, last year your JAN 29th win (~5 points) would have been worth 25/# of events that year. It looks like the H2H event is every 2 weeks, so 26 events a year. Would have been less than a point last year. Now weeklies, bi-weeklies, and monthlies are rated the same as annual events. 25-30 player monthlies at my local place used to be worth ~2.11 for a win. The current method is much better. It still favors locations that have a large following, but many of those places have a long history of organized events.

Locally (Tucson area), we can't compete with Phoenix, and between those bodies, we make up the SCS list. I started the Tucson league (one event a month) because the Phoenix one was at capacity and locals wanted a place to play with friends. I also started a bi-weekly head to head event for two reasons. To try and get a trickle of new players interested with low (and now no) entry fee. Also it gave anyone who wanted it a way to work on playing head to head. Everything else available locally is a linear format and that doesn't give you the same nerves as when it's just you and another player and you have to show up or you will have a short day.

7th in the state isn't bad at all, and that is what I would focus on for now. Many of the top 100-200 players get in a huge regional event or two a year, which is where a lot of points happen. If you want to travel for those, that will help your world ranking quite a bit. But, if you want to bring up the point values locally, do a few events yourself and try to bring in new players. I think that you will find that over the course of putting on a few events, you will evolve how you approach things. I know I have seen this personally, and I imagine IFPA is having to go through this on a larger scale as well.

I'm currently 11th in AZ and my short term goal is to get in to SCS finals this year. After that I will maybe play less in the PHX events, but try to travel to some of the larger events to do those.

Like Frax said though, I wish my ranking was the same in the few different places you can look. I don't know what I'm ranked in the world right now, but can get a pretty good range to guess at.

Barring some other massive shift with a possible WPPR 6 or whatever, I would expect under current conditions that the gap between the top 50 and the rest of the world is going to SUBSTANTIALLY widen, because the vast majority of players are not winning 20 events a year, much less 10, and even fewer are only displaying "full value or more" tournament results. We also don't get the benefit of "good player bonus" that the traveling pros do.

I want this to soak in for a second:

The number 1 player in the world does not have a "full slate" of tournament wins for his ranking. He has two 6th place finishes that are worth more than any other tournament value I have being in the near-top-100 except my 2nd place TPF finish this year. The value given to playing with high ranked players, and the "compound interest" effect of events like PAPA and Pinburgh are *massive*. There is simply no way for a "Local hero" to overcome the built in defecit you've been given. If you intend to fart in the direction of the top 100, you *have* to live near a convention-sized tournament and win consistently, or travel. If I took out my TPF results, I would be much lower in the standings. And that's not to say that competition at TPF isn't tough....the bank I placed 2nd in had EIGHT out of the top 12 that consisted of guys that are or have recently been in the top 100. =\

The IFPA Rankings are great and I do look at my ranking but if you just play pinball for IFPA points you will not have a good time. I think the best part about tournaments is talking to players, interacting with them, talk pinball strategy and just plain trying to do your best to win.
Worrying about the points will lead to depression, and the dark side of the force.

Now granted if I was in the top 50 maybe I would be a little more concerned about the IFPA points.

You left out crushing uppity children that are far better than they have any right to be, too. That might be part of the dark side as well, I dunno...and frankly, I don't care because it felt *so right* when I stomped the tournament life right out of them after they beat the crap out of proven players..

......what?

Well, this might explain how I suddenly moved up about 15 places without actually adding in any meaningful results to my top 20.

Oh and Josh, they accidentally sent your Magic Girl to Alabama. I'll be sending it your way soon!

They have done this to protect the top players and that's it. Anyone that thinks otherwise is very delusional Hence the main reason why I have severely cut back on leagues and tourneys altogether.

Please PM me the address of where to send the check. I can't afford the bug bucks for a top 50 rank. Please include payment schedule for a top 250 ranking. No, I don't want to play pinball to get there.

Of course. My point was that under the new scoring format, it's almost impossible for someone to do what I did: go from unranked to top 100 with only one convention-type tournament a year. I've given up trying to figure out what's going on with PAST results. I don't even look anymore. I just look at my ranking doing the weekly yo-yo and have a good laugh that at one point the site said I was like 94th but my "highest rank" ever is listed as 97th because things changed so fast it didn't even register it.

I'm mostly enjoying my local league, and cherry picking the other events I go to based on format and where they are. I don't feel obligated to chase points into formats that I despise this year...like pingolf. I don't care if I make SCS or not, I've done pretty bad both years at the finals...so whatever. Once you stop chasing every available point, it's a whole different game, and frankly, it's a hell of a lot less stressful, and I think I'm playing better overall as a result. I still love the competition, but I made my goal at TPF...I got into the top 100, however briefly. Now I'm just out there to steal everyone's trophies.

Are you offering pre-orders for these spots? Do you accept direct bank transfer, personal check, or other forms of completely unprotected payment?

We can trust Josh, everyone. His dad invented pinball.

*raises hand* I have an actual question about base value. Or is this conversation just for adults whining about losing points?

What was the decision about how players add to the base value of an event?

Are players with less than 5 events counted as zero and players who have five or more events contributing 0.5 WPPR to the base value? Or is it a sliding scale for players who have between 1-4 events?

Example: Kidforce Pinball League - 105 players - Base value 23. Just curious how that base value was calculated. It seems like there would be more than 46 of those players with 5 or more events in their history, but didn't click through them all to be sure of that.
http://www.ifpapinball.com/view_tournament.php?t=9043#results

Hey, whatever man. I get it, and I'm actually not nearly as bitter about it now as I was a year and a half ago. Everyone in the top 50 lives near each other or otherwise has ridiculous amounts of money and time to travel. I'm sorry I couldn't drop 1500 bucks and get a passport at the last minute's notice to go to IFPA world champs. If there was any way I could have made it work without screwing over my family, I would have. I'll be more prepared next year, financially and passportive..ly..... for the remote possibility that I might end up high enough and enough people pass on going that I can sneak in with the under-the-table invite again. Totally my fault for not having a passport...that was just STUPID on my part....didn't really think I had any chance in hell of that happening..

It's not my fault you guys don't travel to Texas, and I can't afford to run all over the damn planet chasing the green jacket club. I'm going to try to make it to Pinburg one year, PAPA one year, and if the rankings allow IFPA World one year..that's the limit of my dedication to competition pinball at this point, and I'm okay with that. Besides, apparently if I just keep winning TPF tournaments, I'm good, right?

FWIW, I don't think there's a vast ocean of skill difference between say 25th IFPA and 100th IFPA. At some point there is a bell curve where one axis is "skill" and the other "axis is money/time to attend tournaments/givng a crap" where the guys from ~25-75 are on varying parts of that curve on either side, I'm on the flat part of the "money" side, and the top 25 guys are the 1 pixel at the top. I guess my point is that people that enjoy competition should watch you guys for the fun of it, but trying to get into that club deliberately is just a waste of time and money.

Trent will make more money than anyone off this.

Worked for me! 63 spots in a day, kick ass

I would have to bet Trent is the biggest pinball money maker every year bar none.

Which one?

Was awesome getting to play with him in OKC. I nearly got him on Gottlieb Atlantis....both him and one of the other guys in my group got miracle saves where the ball went down in the left drain then bounced off the little teeny mini post all the way back out....in back to back games. I've only ever seen that happen once before. I think he was just as shocked as I was when it happened. Unreal.

Josh, is there any plan to deal with multi-state super leagues going forward? Members of my league aren't sure how players that never play in our state are being awarded such high WPPRs within our state. If our league decided to hold a league event in a neighboring state could we then be awarded WPPRs for that state?

Yes, any goal of a ranking system is to have the top players (aka, good/better/quality players) at the top.

Instead of cutting back leagues and tournaments, every thought about just becoming a "top player"?

If instead of points, you look at efficiency percentage, the difference between 100th and Keith Elwin is almost exactly the same as the difference between me, some guy you've never heard of, and Zach Sharpe. That's pretty big, if you ask me.

Edit: Oops, I was comparing 1st to 100th. The people around 25th, have roughly double the Eff% of people around 100th.

Okay.

If you go by that metric, I'm about 20 spaces below where I should be, since I'm 82nd effeciency wise.

As I made the point in my other post, the top 25 guys basically don't even register on a scale because they're so far off-kilter compared to the rest of us it's like trying to describe the taste of a zucchini as the color taupe...it's not even the same thing.

To be compeltely honest I don't know how that metric is calculated...but it's not the whole story of a player by far with Bowen at 60% in 8th and Trent at 44% at 9th. I mean....by effeciency only Trent and I are separated by a lot less... we both move more towards the middle of the top 100, but we both know that ain't a correct view of our performances!

Frax man, you were starting to even stress me out until this post. I just don't see the point in competitive Pinball anymore. It feels more like you have to buy points than earn them at some point, if I'm being honest. Yes, you always have to "earn" points by playing and winning but even if you are a rock star at Pinball and win nearly every even you go to if you miss a big tournament you or SOL.

Honestly, I don't have a clue how to make it more inviting thus why I stay out of these threads for the most part. All I know now is that I feel what we have today alienates more people than it invites which is not good for long term competitive pinball. I've also noticed that with my drop in desire to chase the points I'm also losing the desire to play my games at home for practice.

I'd love to see something more along the lines of having a couple tournaments a year in a region that count for your state standings. For instance:
- Each state has up to 3 tournaments that allow you to "qualify" for the state tournament
- top four players (not already seeded) advance to the state tournament.
- if one of the top 4 players has already qualified then you go to the 5th place person, then 6th, etc to get 4 people total
- those 12 people now play in the state tournament.

While this doesn't reward those that go to every event it does allow for someone to be a Cinderella story player.

Kind of like TPF this year. If you didn't get there on Friday and post scores there wasn't much sense in playing on Sat unless you thought you could post a top 5 score. It's kind of that same philosophy here in that you don't want to penalize people if they can't attend 10 events a year, if you are truly looking to truly identify the most skilled players.

Before anyone post... I know this wouldn't work all that well and would really screw up how the pinball world is done for the "A" level players. Why I don't envy those having to try and run this stuff. It just seems like the "fun" aspect of tournaments and league play is getting lost.

I actually think it's MORE possible under the current system, as local tournaments periodic tournaments can be worth alot more than they ever could be in the past. I went to a local tournament here in WI last week and the winner got 8.9 points. If that same tournament is held every month this year and gets the same winner, that person would get 106 points! In the past, the most they could get is 25 points.

Throw in a few larger (but local) events and one convention-type tournament and you'll be close to the top 100.

Of course, we're not combining events (aka periodics) so that person can't amass 20 combo-events for their card, but this is a good thing IMHO as each event is judged pretty much the same.

Also consider that it could be harder to reach the top 100 by just playing local tournaments because the competition is usually getting better. More people start attending, players are improving, etc. So a new player entering your local ecosystem has a tougher time reaching the top 100 because you and other players are taking away points they might earn and the same exists for you.

See, and that was my question, because if you look at these guys that have millions of results...how "effecient" can that possibly be? In my mind anytime someone is not gaining actual ranked points above what they have, that should be hurting their effeciency, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case, and what you said sounds like what it is.

This is only true if you have 32 players come to every single tournament. That's not going to happen in the VAST majority of places.

In most cases I see the WPPR 5.1 corrections as a good thing, as they addressed some imbalances that were gaming the system. Event values shifted down a bit to reflect the actual level of competition present, which is a good thing for the integrity of a WPPR point.

The main flaw I see is concerning new players trying to get something going in a pinball desert. Say someone starts a new league somewhere in North Dakota and they recruit 20 players with no experience, that event is essentially valueless until they've done five of them. In reality, those players would probably just be stoked to be playing an organized pinball league and wouldn't care much about WPPRs, but I could see it being frustrating for organizers in general who pull in a lot of new players only to see a minimal bump in their event value.

Excellent point as to which one. Kudo's

I noticed this in the AZ SCS and AZ players' world rankings since Tucson has gotten involved with IFPA events. Local monthlies started late 2013 and IFPA was a part of that shortly after. In 2013 there were a handful of Tucson players in IFPA's records and zero in the state's top 16. In 2014 Tucson had 5 players in the top 16. Currently there are 5 Tucson players in the top 16 and 1 in there who is from PHX, but heavily active in Tucson events.

We are also seeing top local players work their ways up the intl rankings too. We had 2 crack the top 1000 this year and a few of us aren't far behind. The top 3 spots in the state are still in a pretty firm grasp, but 2 of those 3 travel as well and have been doing this for a little while.

The best part: There isn't a single person I see at events that I hope doesn't come to future events. That's the best part about this hobby is the competitive participants may be really good, but are typically also really cool/good people.

I surveyed the players in my league on the last meet on the season and among things like league fees and length of the league, I asked them to choose 2 reasons why they joined between: meet/socialize, IFPA points, cash prizes, trophies, quality of the machines, location is a good setup for league, and get better at pinball.
meet/socialize was picked the most, followed by a tie between machine quality and location, and after that, IFPA points was tied with 'get better'.

nobody picked cash prizes and everyone voted to increase the league fee.

If you want to be considered one of the top players in the world, then you absolutely have to play against (and occasionally beat) the other top players in the world. Unfortunately, it costs money to do that. If you're unwilling, or unable, then you just have to settle for "Best Player in Wherever-You-Live".

This is literally how every other amateur sport works. It's also how every professional sport works, but those people get paid enough that they can't complain about it.

How much was your league fee?

Edit: And for how many games/weeks? And did all of the money go to the prizepool?

$5, considering $10 now due to survey responses.
and it's 4 games over 8 weeks.
some of it went to trophies and basically the cash prize was giving A & B division finalists their fee back, if there were more players the prize pool increases, of course.
the location is going to add more pins and maybe that will bring a larger turnout.

Josh, since you're reading the thread, any comments on my previous post? I have a guy who is interested in doing some video stuff and I think a live stream of an event like this would be super fun.

Any stats on players that played 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, etc... events in a year.

I am curious how many of those new players are just a single event or actually becoming more active or less active?

Just to play devil's advocate...

Would it count towards TGP if the games were scored as points/time = rank, and whoever has the higher rank is the winner of the round? They'd still be allowed to play 3 balls but be punished for excessive cradling, etc.

Well, I hope at some point you'll reconsider. Maybe even try running it at one of your local events sometime and you'll see what I mean about its advantages and that it's still very skillful play. As much, I feel, as pingolf is anyway.

sounds like a really cool idea to me!

Time for me and you to go in on a copy of SQL4Dummies man.

I see what you're saying. I have to think about it. One issue is it would significantly impact why a lot of players like the format. It's a very high-energy, pressure atmosphere, quite in contrast to the gentlemanly, golf-like atmosphere of most head-to-head formats. It's an adrenaline rush.

Each round consists of me calling up the next 6 players (3 matches). I yell at them to coin up, count them all down "3-2-1-GO!" and all plunge off at the same time. I sound off at the 1 minute mark, then 30 seconds, then 10-9-8... hands off!" They assess the scores, switch games, and repeat. The only format I can think of that has a similar feeling of excitement is the PAPA Gauntlet format.

Speaking of which - Josh, would guantlet fall under the timed game format? That's similar to pingolf, just with the haul-ass factor.