Any problem with a finals for Pinball Pinball Pinball?

So one of the downsides of Pinball Pinball Pinball is that the winner can often win by half a game, where they have the same losses as 2nd place but got to play one more game. I was thinking of running a small Flip Frenzy / Pinball Pinball Pinball tourney (probably under 20 players) in April but I wanted a finals component, maybe top 4 in a 3 game finals playoff just to eliminate any sour grapes that might come up from close finishes.

Any problems that anyone could see from an IFPA / Points standpoint or a general, would this be fun or not standpoint?

Some discussion here on adding finals

I think it improves the tournament to have some kind of finals. I’ve played it with 3 different playoff formats now.

  • Head to Head bracket - Top 8 are seeded by qualifying and play best of 3 matches on random games. This is fine but takes a while. Stays in the spirit of the event with 1v1 matches on random games.
  • PAPA groups - Pretty standard. Always feels like a good measure of skill, but is commonly used in lots of tournaments and can take up to a couple hours per round.
  • Final Frenzy - One additional hour of Flip Frenzy matches for the top 8 (or whatever). This one feels like the best choice in the spirit of the format, but there is some variance in the number of games played since it’s a pretty short time window. Not the most accurate measure of skill, but its fun, unique and wraps up fast. HT to @chuckwurt for the suggestion!
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Good summary! If time isn’t an issue, which did you like best?

And in the option using another round of FF, can you share the Matchplay link?

This was the first attempt doing on a weeknight as an ongoing weekly event.

Super Flip Frenzy - TD @ChubbyGoomba did a nice job pulling it off
Qualifying (7:30 - 9:30) : https://matchplay.events/live/bvw82
Final Frenzy (9:45 - 10:45) : https://matchplay.events/live/652qq

The location closes at 11pm, so a quick finals is necessary to shoehorn everything into a relatively small time window.

As for personal preference without a time constraint, I don’t know… they all have their benefits. If I want to win, PAPA group finals. If I want to retain the spirit of the format and prioritize the immediacy of “quick wins” in the finals, then Final Frenzy. It stung a little bit to go 12-1 on the night and take 3rd place, but I’m trying to “embrace the randomness”!

Thanks for the info. Going to run this next week.

What size queue did you use for finals?

8 players made the cut. 6 started on games, 2 in the queue. That felt about right, but with varying game lengths there was a variation of 4-6 games played between players in that hour, which is significant.

I think trying to use games of similar play time would help to straighten things out a bit. Taking out the longest and shortest playing machines might be an experiment for next week.

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And you can simply use Matchplay stats to tell which are the longest and shortest too.

Thanks Jdelz for sharing the data. Someone only got four games in the finals! which I mean based on the results didn’t factor in, but still. IMHO having the finals is to eliminate the vagaries that separate the top four results from the regular portion.

Fringe TGP question for @pinwizj

Qualifying - 10.2 avg games played
Finals - 5.3 avg games played
Total - 15.5 round up to 16?

Or is each portion rounded separately? So, 10 + 5 for a total of 15 games.

Very negligible difference but I’m sure it will start popping up more.

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When I grade events I only round at the end, so I would use 16.

YMMV depending on whether Becker or I approve your results . . . YMMV includes the fact I haven’t approved a result in nearly 3 years :slight_smile:

I’m a personal fan of skill verses luck or randomness. I know in pinbal it can be difficult but I’d like to minimize when possible. If doing the format of a time constrain I would have to agree that choosing machines with similar play times is crucial. It takes a little more input from the TD yet it’s well worth it.