Canadian National Pinball Open 2018 - June 2-3

#1

Not one of the top 64 players in the world and want an excuse to come to Canada anyway? Or coming to “Toronto” for IFPA15 but feel like abandoning the tournament after Friday and driving 5.5 hours east? Come join us June 2-3 for the Canadian National Pinball Open, an IFPA-sanctioned pinball tournament being held during Canada PinCon 2018!

The format is Best Game unlimited qualifying, top 4 games count. Two free entries included with show admission, $3 per entry or 2 entries for $5 thereafter. (And those are Canadian dollars! So about 75 cents for Americans…)

There will be a Youth division (ages 15 and younger) with qualifying from 12-4pm on Saturday and finals held at 4:30pm.

Main and Novice qualifying will take place on Saturday afternoon (12-6pm) with playoffs on Sunday.

Any unranked players or those with an IFPA rank higher than 10,000 are eligible for the Novice division…the winner of which will get a 1979 Briarwood Aspen home pinball machine!!!

Cash prizes and trophies for the top finalists in all divisions.

Full rules can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KVm5m2QIvd9p1bd7vSbI0W26vcafkztxsoqBRNpWEXs/edit

(I welcome feedback and/or questions on the rules! Or in general. I’m still new to this.)

#2

Awesome stuff! I was reading through the rules document, and wanted to make a suggestion based on feedback I received at PinFest for the Banks to make it simpler and more consistent with an event like Pinburgh.

Whereas we were doing banks as:

Starting with the highest seed in the group:
* Choose Bank, or Defer to Next Highest Seed
* Choose Order, or Defer to Next Highest Seed

This repeats within each of the groups.

A given player is only allowed to pick a bank once. They are not allowed to pick the same bank in subsequent rounds unless they have already chosen every bank once.

At the conclusion of the game, you move onto your next game within your bank. Players will be re-seeded based on the finishing order of the last game. Starting with the highest seed in the group:
* Choose Order, or Defer to Next Highest Seed

Pinburgh however, does the following which I think will help with the flow of Finals which we’re considering adopting for PinFest next year:

The highest seeded player in the round will select from the available sets of machines for
his or her group to play​, or may elect to give up their choice to the next player. Choice of sets will then
proceed through the remaining groups, in descending order of seeding, with the highest seeded player in
each group making the choice. At no time will a player be allowed to pick the same set of machines in
consecutive rounds. Each set of machines may be selected by a maximum of two groups. Some groups
will not get to select a machine set.

As in regular Pinburgh sessions, the highest-seeded player within each group chooses the order of play
for the first game. The remaining players choose their order, in descending order of seeding. For
subsequent games, the last-place finisher of the previous game chooses the order of play for the next
game. The remaining players choose their order, in ascending order of finish in the previous game.

I won’t be able to make it, but good luck with the event!

#3

Thanks, @coreyhulse! You probably recognize that I used the PinFest rules as the template, so I appreciate the feedback.

My intent was to do it like Pinburgh where the banks could only be chosen once per round, so I’ll update the rules to make that explicit.

Because we’re going to be having four groups competing on a small lineup at the beginning, each bank will have a game that is played by more than one group. As a consequence, I was going to specify game order in an attempt to minimize waiting for a game.

I’m thinking:
DMD1
SS1
EM1

EM1
SS2
DMD1

DMD2
SS3
EM2

EM2
SS4
DMD2

But now I’m wondering if I should just define sets and the starting game and allow the players to pick the next game as available. My goal is to keep things moving!

Leaning towards set order, but feedback welcome.

#4

Go with set order: simpler; your plan as above should work fine; no issues about the urge to wait for a game that’s “almost done,” etc. IIABDFI.