As Josh mentioned, what you're describing is exactly what is already in place and dubbed "IFPA Rating". You start at 1200 and move up or down. The only reason it gets ignored is because it isn't the default sort on the player rankings page.

Based on comparing our ratings, I think it's pretty accurate.

I'd say we are pretty evenly matched. Is there any mechanism in place to allow official heads-up matches?? Or, would it not count for anything because the entry would be limited...? Don't get me wrong, I think the system is very well designed as it is. Frankly, it's much more sophisticated than a niche hobby like pinball probably deserves. But, even a good thing can be improved.

I got ~9 points for finishing 46th in A at papa, the bottom of A div was less than 1 point.
How many points should someone get for B division that would be fair to me, when they didn't have to play ANY Adiv players? How many to be fair to the players that tried in A, but ended up getting less than 1 point?
B div at papa is great fun for all that play in it, but when you don't allow any top players to play in it, it is simply NOT an open tournament.

@Russell: I'm certain there is at least one other thread (if not 3 or 4) here that discusses your exact point, that addresses your arguments and others. I didn't find it immediately with my first search, but I'd encourage you to look for it and read through it.

It tends to crop up every year within days after PAPA world championships end.

DNO, I honestly have no idea how it should all be calculated. It just feels weird that I get (a tiny amount of) points for finishing 15th at the 1up on a random Sunday, and none for playing 4 days at PAPA.

It certainly seems that the top finisher in B should receive fewer points than the last place finisher in A.

The analogy of chess tournaments is appropriate, I think. There are lots of tournaments with restricted entry criteria based on rating/ranking, but the results still affect those involved. Perhaps the answer lies in the difference between ranking and rating. I've never really spent enough time understanding the difference.

Snailman- For me, it is much more interesting to discuss this in real time, rather than to search and read an old discussion. Sorry if it's repetitive. Feel free to skip or drain.

As I've said, I don't claim to know how many points things should receive. It seems like a nearly impossible and certainly thankless task to try to create a fair system.

I hope everyone is open to discussing issues that we identify. Shutting down discussion never really seems like a good move. I'm simply pointing out what I see as a flaw. Conveniently for me, I'm not really offering a solution.

Huh? I know you earn your way into "A". But when push comes to shove in the final tournament you think it is better (worth more) to lose to everyone in "A" than to beat everyone in "B"? Sorry, I have to disagree with that thought.

What do you think the answer is? Roughly.

This is really interesting stuff. Having seen this, it seems that the lower finishers in A are not receiving enough points given the difficulty of the task they have accomplished. PAPA 'A' is hard!

IMO I believe the PAPA and Pinburgh should be worth 5X the points, the tournies are the hardest to win have the greatest level of competition and really determine who are the best players int he world. The other tournies that are majors are not full open tournies and they should be kept at 3X as you still need to qualify for them ie top 64 in the world but are not fully open to everyone...

I think what you need to consider is that this is a PAPA event that is scored by the IFPA. So the IFPA is not running this tournament, they are just awarding the points. If PAPA were to receive more points from the IFPA, they would need to run it differently. Honestly I don't see how PAPA could be awarded more points. 105th place got over two points. That's a ton of points. Without knowing if there is a max to the points awarded by the IFPA, I have to think this tournament is close to that.

When you limit participation you limit the opportunity for full competition in my mind, when you have a tourney like Pinburgh where you have to get through 700 people in order to win the tourney, ultimately the best gauge competition is there... Of course you can argue if those 700 people are not in the top rankings etc, but IMO anytime you have this much competition it can't be compared to the rest of the formats. PAPA is kind of the same in that there are just as many participants they just choose to play in lower divisions. Thou your mathematical may not show the premium if you took a poll and asked the players which two tournaments are the hardest to win I bet the majority would tell you PAPA and Pinburgh. Great discussion!!!!

Understood... The same can't be said for Pinburgh and would be interested in hear you arguments there...

In the PAPA format having 5 good games in one entry IMO shows the strength of the format, having the B,C,D didn't change the results for the A div players, but it did show the strength of the field in that there were ton of participants who played at PAPA but felt they were not good enough to compete at that level or chose to go lower at the prize money was more attainable.

In every open tourney format you have the same, we just create B or consolation formats to give some prizing to those competitors due to the sheer size of the tourneys, and those are still considered in the strength in size even thou many of those participants didn't have a hope in hell in making it to A div.

These major events are showcase events, like in Golf "The majors" they should be worth way more than a regular event, a regular event no matter how many people participate in them should not be able to get no where near the WPPR points for them. I would like to see a 200 point standard for the two majors (PAPA/Pinburgh). a 120 point standard for other majors and a up to 40 max for normal events. To be considered top player in the world you should have to do well at the majors...

If you care about points, and this is the case, would you have played in A? Wouldn't lots of B/C/D players who care about points do the same? You could jump ahead of 300+ players in points just by choosing A, no matter how poorly you play.

(I do still think it would be cool if your Rating was affected by the results though).

Is this the only tournament where this discussion matters? Or are there other tournaments that let you self select a division?

Points are calculated using a standard formula that applies to all events...though the four majors are already given a 50% boost. I like that it works this way. Attract all the best players in the world to your tournament? Awesome, it's worth a ton of points. No reason it should be worth 1/5th the points just because it wasn't arbitrarily declared a "major".

The "top players in the world" are already mostly attending these tournaments. Now you want to further muddy the waters by making it an absolute hard requirement that you have to have the ability to slack off for weeks out of the year, and be able to afford to travel to all of these, just to even have a chance to sniff the air? No thanks. They already get enough benefit from being able to do so.

Nope I think what I am trying to say is that major tournament should mean something. I agree it sucks to have to travel but if you want to be considered the best pinball player in the world shouldn't you have to a little to be considered?

200 Points - Pinburgh/Papa
120 Points - Other Majors
80 Points - PAPA Circuit Event
40 Points (maximum) - All satellite events

40 points of WPPR is nothing to sniff at you get 20 of those on your profile you are top 10. In the world of super selfie leagues and manipulated satellite events setting a standard will help in ensuring all satellite events are on equal foot but still leave you room to get maximum participation. It also gives the city an incentive to try to get they tournament up to a PAPA Circuit event. At the same time 40 points is a lot and if a person just wants to play local they can still be near the top in the world they just probably won't be the #1 player which in my opinion they shouldn't.

Gagno got 142.86 points for PAPA... not even counting all the side events there. Robert alone walked with 216.91 points on his main profile?! Classics 2 was worth 89 points. Classics 1 was worth 89 points. Classics 3 was worth 86 points. 406 points available for players to claim if they swept everything. I don't see any reason on earth that this SHOULD be 464 points. It's unbalanced enough already to require travel and being competitive in these specific events to reach the top levels of IFPA. There doesn't need to be a de-facto rule in place for this to occur, which is exactly what further incentivizing these tournaments would do.

Pinburgh was worth 106 points, and I could make the argument that getting 1st at PAPA is mathematically 'easier' than 1st at Pinburgh.

PAPA circuit final was worth 56.... so you think an event where only 40 people are allowed should automatically be worth 80 points? Sorry, I just don't get it.

This is a good discussion, and Josh, as always, has thought through every concern. The key point to understand is that WPPR is made to identify the best 5% of the players in the world, so the points provide little to no value to the other 95%. I'm actually more interested in a useful ranking system for the other 95% of the players.

Josh, is there a way to tell how "hard" a tournament is in terms of top-to-bottom? I'm not a statistics guy, but I wonder...is it "harder" to finish, say 50th in PAPA 'A' compared to another event that awards a similar amount of points. In other words, perhaps the difficulty of a tournament is not determined only by how hard it is to finish #1. Do you get what I'm asking?

Jumping in here with a question so that maybe othes can see the answer also

With the new WPPR 5.2, how will a Round Robin tournament be in regards to TGP and wppr?
If there is 10 players, double round robin, will that be 18 games counting for the TGP? (beat the other 9 players twice).

yeah its a great format for deciding the best player amongst a group of people, eliminating more of the randomness a knockout tournament often can introduce. Also a good social format

Can you expand more on how this format works? I am all for less randomness and more social aspects haha

Sure, its quite basic really, I use matchplay-app for setting and executing this.
So Double round robin is that every player plays two games against every other player. Thats it, really.

One game against every player, makes it slightly more lucky/unlucky ball, but with a double round robin then usually if a player wins both he is the better..that evening at least Will probably also have a small playoff best of 3 games with the top 4, but thats just me. I like 4 player matchplay.

how do you decide what games the players play each match?

In this format, every player will play head to head matches against the field.
Each player will play every other player in the event.

For Example ... a round robin event with eight players ...

Player One will play Player two through Player Eight.
Player Two will play Player three through Player Eight plus Player One.
Player Three will play Player four through Player Eight plus Player One & Two
Player Four will play Player Five through Player Eight plus Player One through Player Three.
...
Player Eight will play Player One through Player Seven.

After 7 rounds, each player would have played a different opponent in each round.

Marcus

If I am to have it at my place, where i have got and twd, it wont be a problem hehe, but else Matchplay will randomize and assign games for people each round. Have you tried Matchplay? (matchplay.events )

Yeah I am familiar with the app, so I will give it a go and might try something different like this for our monthly tournaments.

I use round robin very often without an app like this: Divide players into two groups (randomly)...and draw a big grid for each group on the whiteboard. Names of the group go across the top, and down the side. Then just show it to the players and have them self-organize. Look at the board, see who you haven't played, pick a game randomly (that neither of you have played yet), and then come back and write down your result.

Once people understand, it's really easy. Play is pretty much continuous: you don't have to wait for rounds to finish, and the tournament director doesn't even have to constantly go around telling people what their matchups are. It pretty much runs itself.

It can even accommodate people who arrive a little late. Just add them to the grid.

I'll then have the top 2 from each group (based on W/L record) advance to a 4 player bracket for finals.