So, will anything change with the format of Pin-Masters? Will the point value fall precipitously? Also, has anyone heard about how this will affect Dory Hill. What adjustments might be made?

Perhaps I am not understanding all of the nuances, but am I right in assuming that the total points distributed per tournament will fall quite a bit under this rule?

In other words, future tournaments are worth in-general less than the same tournament from the past?

And none of this is being used to recalculate tournaments from the past, right? This is prospective only, not retrospective?

So, you think that the total amount of points given out is not expected to change?

Based upon my reading of the rules, the total amount of points given out will fall sharply, but I'm not sure.

If my suspicion is correct, that strongly favors players with points already amassed before these changes were made. In other words, past performance is more valuable than future performance. At least, that will be true for the next 3 years, until the only remaining counted events are those counted under the new rules.

For example, I just played in the Ultimate Pinball Carnage in Denver. I took second, and got 11.42 points. Last year, second place was worth 19.67 points.

Unless I'm missing it, I don't see any tournaments where the points actually went up...

If my observation is correct, it Just became harder for hacks like me to make progress up the ranks.

It does seem silly not to award points to the players in other divisions of PAPA. There is lots of "meaningful" pinball being played which can differentiate players. I realize that not everyone is eligible to compete in the other divisions, but that shouldn't make it worth nothing. Not sure how it should be calculated, but zero points seems like a lost opportunity...

I hear you, but we in the B and C divisions played hard for 4 days. There were lots and lots of games played, among strong competitors. I just can't believe that all of that data would be worthless for differentiating the relative skill level of those players.

I have no idea whether there is a fair way to calculate points. Perhaps not. I trust that Josh and the IFPA crew have considered every option. But, they keep refining it. Perhaps they can figure out a way.

Just to throw out a radical idea...what if people could play heads up matches for points. Perhaps the "net" points would be zero, but a few points could shift from the loser to the winner. I'm sort of thinking about horse racing's "match" races, or heads-up poker matches.

Perhaps a better analogy for my idea of competing for points is the way they do chess ratings.

If you play someone ranked higher than you, you stand to earn quite a few points with a win. If you lose, you don't lose as many points. I'm not sure how the exact calculation works with chess, but I think playing for points would be a lot more fun than playing for dollars.

Can you imagine Keith Elwin playing head-to-head against Bowen with real points on the line? On PAPA TV? I bet everyone would love that.

Or perhaps you and I meet up at the 1up on a random Sunday for some real heads-up competition? Sounds fun, and a legitimate method of ranking people. Chess has used this method for years. They have a mechanism to do rankings for tournaments, as well as heads-up play. Why can't pinball have both, too?

Just brain-storming.

There are lots of rated tournaments in chess that are not open to grandmasters.

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.

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.

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!

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?