Am I reading this correct that the first ranking was 1414? That's basically winning (or coming close to) the first event you play in right?

Thanks Josh.

That is Very cool and I appreciate you doing that.

Yes, I took 5th place in my very first competition and a huge thanks to Jason "The clogger" Werdrick. He was super nice to me, gave me some great tips, and then I beat him

http://www.ifpapinball.com/view_tournament.php?t=3232#results

I have not beaten him since but still always lots of fun to play with/against him.

Atlanta is definitely a local hotbed. I participated in one two-week H2H tourney but it's just too much to drive that far on a worknight and be useful the next day. Would've loved to do more as I wouldn't have been the last seed in the spring tourney final this weekend. Certainly would've gotten more points with my performance this weekend if I hadn't been last in seed. Heck I only got to pick one game of the 16 I played. I am glad, however, that every match I played went to a tiebreaker. The points formula won't please everyone and will hit some more than others. Don't worry Baum, you'll be moving up rapidly with the performances you've put up lately.

I will say that looking at my rank over time definately is not good for me to look at. Now I have this sudden urge to go play more pinball.

Luckily the local monthly is tonight

Both of you are providing great competition in AH2H and the local tourneys. Play that well at SFGE and the points you'll get will move both of you up the IFPA ladder (if that's something you care about).

Somebody made an Android app to look up your IFPA profile and events: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.perspiratron.ifpaprofile

Good point, thanks for the clarification.

well dont take away that I beat a top 30 player and took a top 10 player down to the last ball and only a couple switches away from victory. That day still holds as a highlight that nobody can take away. I really owe it all to the godfather (as do most local players that can thank him for bringing competitive pinball to WI).

You gotta earn them switches son!

Best beat to date is still the EM world pinball championships, losing 1st round match by 40points on fireball!!!!

EM Championships was a great time. Giving the eventual champ his only strike during the day was the highlight.

Just think how I feel...The whole thing is completely confusing. At the world EM World Championships® sponsored by Dominoes Pizza™ Held @ Vintage Flipper World® during the Ann Arbor Michigan Pinball Museum showcase™ I finished as the 2nd best EM player in the world...yet I still drop spots...oh the humanity!

Well, one way to speed it up is to run a tournament and do well in it.

I'm pretty good at the former, not so good at the latter.

Hey Josh, in talking with some people, they really get into the analytics. How about some charts and graphs and stuff? And some "achievements" would also be cool.

Make sure to advertise your tournaments in every local paper that has a free events listing section. Make small signs and stick them on all the backglasses of the venue. Collect emails from attendees and offer to spam them when an event is coming up. Start a wordpress blog to post results. Meetup is also a good option but is around $60 for 6 months, IIRC.

Honestly, the location we currently use for the bi-weekly sucks for getting new eyes. It's got a pretty good bank of 4 machines though, so we are happy to support it. All of the players we have gained are ones I know and have played with (against?) at the monthlies at the 30 pin location we all started at (D&D). Actually, that's not entirely true. We have one new player who walked into D&D during a league event and has taken hook, line, and sinker. He's a cool person and a good player.

Now, with the second location for our bi-weekly we will have access to many more eyes. Roller hockey and indoor soccer on alternating days, so a new set of traffic every hour every afternoon-evening of the day. Decent bar with good food. I will have large signs too. I already have a FB page for the event, but didn't really think about free events sections in the papers. Will look into that. The populations is certainly there, now it's just getting people aware and interested.

The papers don't always work overnight, but they definitely helped with growth. Twice my events got "featured" status. Once in the East Bay Express and another time on a very popular site called SF Fun Cheap. A basic web site that explains how the tournament works is also very helpful because 1st timers are generally very intimidated.

ebexpress.jpg

You can actually do a ton of cool stuff with the IFPA API http://www.ifpapinball.com/api/documentation/ (if you don't mind doing some programming to pull the data). I'm using it at the very basic level to allow tournament directors to add players by typing in IFPA player numbers in http://matchplay.events -- no need to type a player's name and the app can then automatically seed players by their IFPA ranking. It's not even scratching the surface of what you can do, but even a little counts.

Thanks to all for great advice and see you soon shimoda....

Has IFPA's policy on endorsing women-only events changed? I was surprised to see this tournament receive points.

Got it. Thanks!

Don't you love that? If you have to lose, having the 'best losing attempt' against the 1st place guy is awesome. I did this at Texas SCS this year....

OH and for the record, my first tournament was June 2011. So it took me ALMOST 4 years to get into the top 100...

Well done Frax. Think the highest I've ever hit was the 150's. No inspiration to travel around to get in the top 100 here. I'm sure if I spent money to no end in tourneys I go to I'd be there within a year no problem.

Well, I got off easy living in Dallas...TPF and whatnot. The only tournaments I've "travelled" for have been in Austin (SCS, 2x Garage gauntlet) and OKC (Cactus Jack's circuit event). SCS was worth jack squat, but I won Garage Gauntlet last year which was AWESOME....and still good for 29 points until it comes around again. Easily my favorite tourney that I've attended on my slate in terms of overall fun and format.

Looking at players who have moved up the ranks quickly, Alex Harmon from Michigan is a great example. He hit the top 100 in about a year and a half in a region that isn't particularly WPPR heavy. He just plays A LOT and travels to quality regional events. Plus he organizes large tournaments in his area. Oh, and he's really good too.

Just wanted to cite an example of the system working for someone quickly, but it takes the right combination of location, quality/number of events and most importantly, skills. Not enough events in your area? Make more happen! Not good enough? Get better!

For anyone interested in what the "slow road" looks like...followed by a big push...

I started 2014 at 351st, after 2.5 years in IFPA. I decided to make the run to try to get as far as I could in 2014. I went to 20 events, not counting side or separate tournaments at all. I had 23 of 33 total entires on record for 2014 where I finished top 4. At the Garland IFPA Fundraiser, I went into it at 280th on September 20th. I went on a TEAR for the rest of the year....best streak I've ever had, frankly:

Garland IFPA Pinball Fundraiser Main Tournament 1st Sep 20, 2014 26.34
Garland IFPA Pinball Fundraiser Side Tournament 2nd Sep 20, 2014 4.85
Jammed Quarters Tournament League 2nd Oct 4, 2014 1.53
Jammed Quarters Tournament League 4th Nov 1, 2014 0.22
Jammed Quarters Annual at Cinemark Main Tournament 1st Nov 15, 2014 26.43
Jammed Quarters Annual at Cinemark Side Tournament 2nd Nov 15, 2014 2.32
Flip Off Hunger - Sherman Main Tournament 1st Nov 22, 2014 27.10
Flip Off Hunger - Sherman Side Tournament 2nd Nov 22, 2014 5.36
Garage Gauntlet Main Tournament 1st Dec 14, 2014 29.61
Garage Gauntlet Side Tournament 4th Dec 14, 2014 3.92
Jammed Quarters Christmas Blast Main Tournament 1st Dec 21, 2014 27.40
Sherman New Years Eve Side Tournament 1st Dec 27, 2014 13.70
Sherman New Years Eve Main Tournament 2nd Dec 27, 2014 12.69

After all of that, I started 2015 somewhere around 118th. This is all in 20/20 hindsight of the points changes, mind you. IIRC I lost a good 20-30 places because of the changes... pretty significant to me after I did what basically amounted to an event every 2 weeks for the whole year of 2014. It's all about how hard you want to go at it. It really felt like most of 2014 except for the summer we were doing nothing BUT pinball...like it was every bloody minute either planning or working overtime trying to go to tournaments, trade days off...anything I could do to get to a tournament within driving distance...

Only if Target Pool was in all of them!

You sir have a good memory. Target Polka!

I'd be absolutely thrilled for my 8 CA points to have me in a qualifying position for the state final, instead of being in 105th.

I think Jay's comparing the # of points to be in a qualifying position in CA vs GA (at least for the next two weeks...)

Yes, sorry... the quote system caused the confusion I think. It was meant as a comment for the person you were responding to, but referencing the data in your post, but it appears their post was left out of the quote.

Personally, I don't really care if I gain or lose points, I can only control how I play, when I play and accept the results good or bad. It's frankly amazing to me that people get so upset over these things.

Thanks and I appreciated your compliment before I lost on Jack's Open. I really hadn't ever been that nervous playing competitively. My first couple rounds I was shaking so badly it's a shocker to me that the ball didn't drain every time it came near a flipper. My aim is to start making the finals rounds of these tourneys. We've got some great players and I'm working on consistency. I'm so far down the IFPA stats (~1800) that it doesn't matter so much now but I do want to start getting to the top, maybe even win one of the gazillion Atl events we have

I will say that Atlanta has a LOT of great players and the scene is enviable. I wish I knew more than one other player by me so I could also have a local league. AH2H is definitely a great format, now if it was only on Sundays or Fridays! Either way, it's a minimum 3+ hour drive for me to play so I'm hoping to make each time more meaningful.

Did something change over the weekend, or recently? AZ #1 was in the 150's and is now in the 120's. Looks like everyone was affected, but not sure what happened.

Looks like I lost another few but I'm chalking it up to entropy, since it was only 1 or 2 spots. Besides, I'm still ahead of Escher.

I guess I should also clarify. AZ's #1 player had ~150 points for the 2015 SCS and now they have 128.xx. I actually moved up a few spots in AZ over the weekend, but that's because an entry from an event went live.

Makes sense, but I thought the non-rated player hit had already happened. Is this something that will happen every few months, or will future results account for any non-rated players who played?

Gotcha. Thanks for the info.