I guess I don’t see this as a major issue because I don’t see it as a practical issue in events I personally organize.
“I’ll take last available” is the most common phrase that is told to me as a TD, so players rarely even request to defer their actual position choice until later. The only time I see this questioned is on certain games and it’s because of the IFPA practice time we allow. Players have actual influence on game state because of this practice period that other events don’t have to deal with.
Players can choose their order at anytime. If I have choice of game or position and I say, “I’ll go 4th” . . . I’m going 4th. If I request that I would like to wait until the game is chosen, then I’ll defer to the TD if that’s acceptable to them.
The more I think about this, I believe this is the way it should be handled and written in the rules: to “defer.” The player with choice earned an advantage over their competitors – that shouldn’t be taken away from them by forcing them to choose order prior to the game being picked. It should be written that highest seed can choose game, or she/he can defer the game choice and have first choice of playing position instead. Game selection should always take place before playing positions are chosen.
I guess I look at it as a turn based board game like chess. A player must make a move each time, even on move 1.
On move 1, the player with white pieces (a very small advantage), cannot ask what Black’s opening move would be, and then declare what they will open with. White must move first.
If the player with White pieces wants to force Black to declare an opening/defense, while simultaneously maintaining the initiative of first move, White must play moves that will allow that.
If White does not open aggressively with their favorite opening, they have somewhat forfeited the advantage of first move.
In tournament pinball, I think the large advantage earned by the top seed is getting to choose the game. That can be HUGE. Part of the earned advantage is having the option of declaring a specific position by forfeiting game choice, but it has the potential of backfiring and is not as forceful as picking the game. That’s why there are only select scenarios where the top seeded players do not choose game.
I feel the intent should not be to make every option the top seed has equally as powerful. If they pass on game choice, they are willfully making a slightly inferior option, much like choosing the less aggressive opening sequence with the White pieces.
Not sure what the correct interpretation here is, but I still maintain that when asked, the player has to make a specific decision.
Yes the top seed has earned an advantage, but they have to decide how they want to use it.
But it’s not chess. Interesting analogy, but even if we try to suggest competitive pinball is analogous to competitive chess, I think it falls apart. In this case of having a pre-game advantage in choice, in the chess example, the player with choice should simply choose to play as black, so they can see what their opponent will do first.
I knew it was not the most accurate comparison for a few reasons. However I enjoy strategy board games and competitive pinball and in my mind I could draw some parallels
I’m new here, so I’m not sure how to make a new thread so posting here. It’s sorta related.
I thought it would be a good idea if when you have multiple groups on the same finals bank, when seed 1 chooses order instead of game, instead of someone in seed 1’s group picking game before seed 2’s group (and subsequent groups, if any) picks a game, since the 1 seed didn’t pick any game, the TD would go to the other groups first to give their top seeds game choice. This would be done to let the #2 (and 3 and 4, etc.) seeds not get locked out of picking their preferred game by a lower seed in another group.
So something like this, with four groups of four players on the same bank:
Seed 1 chooses order. Instead of completing game and order selections in seed 1’s group, TD goes to seed 2 and his/her group immediately. Seed 2 chooses order too, then the TD immediately goes to seed 3 and seed 3’s group. Seed 3 picks game and the rest of the players in the seed 3 group pick order …
The steps could get complicated if many higher seeds choose order instead of game, but higher seeds would have the more chances to pick the games they want, and I feel that they earned that right, to not have their choices undone by lower seeds in other groups.
Yes this should be happening for sure. I’ve made this mistake in the past. First game choice needs to go from seed one to two, and so on. Same for banks.
No. It shouldn’t. That’s not how the rules are written.
Feel free to lobby/argue to get the rules changed, but as they’re written now, the first choice among groups goes to the group with the highest seed – regardless of whether the highest seed chooses game or position.
Hi Well I’m glad I’m doing it wrong then. Haha. Not that it occurs that often, but I definitely think first crack at game/bank where picks can’t be repeated should go by seed not group. If there are no restrictions on piling up on a game, it doesn’t matter.
Also I don’t see where this stuff is covered in the rules?
@ANM Interesting idea. It would make game selection more complicated, but I see your point about the fairness of it. And, welcome to TiltForums, by the way!
@chuckwurt This topic isn’t covered in the IFPA/PAPA rules, hence my motivation to seek clarification. However, Jay’s (thorough and very thoughtful) reply (post #2, above) referenced the PAPA Director’s Guide, which has some of this verbiage. Look on the “Final Round Formats” tab and you’ll see a section called “PAPA-Style Final Format”.
It’s not clear to me what the status of this document is. I’ve always considered it “good advice for TDs” rather than a binding ruleset. Others may feel differently. (Colin, thoughts?)
It was written by Kevin Stone and is hosted on PAPA’s website. I do not know how current this document is, who maintains it (maybe Doug?) or whether the IFPA has reviewed it and/or adopted it. Regardless, it has loads of useful information. I particularly find the “Game Notes” section helpful, for example, when we’re prepping machines for City Champ.
I’m leaving this in this thread since it is inspired by/speaks to the implications of the top seed deferring game choice. If the discussion gets too far removed from the initial post, I can move all the stuff related to this offshoot to a separate linked topic. For the future, if you want to start a brand new topic, there’s a “New Topic” button at the top right of the main forum page. Welcome, Andrei!
In one of my posts above, I noted the same – there used to be spelled out rules for PAPA-style finals (that so many tournaments are using) for PAPA World Championships on the papa.org website. My tournaments always referenced that link. It’s gone now.
Thankfully, the NWPC copied/used the PAPA language in their rules. See @cayle 's post above. Copy/pasting the pertinent text from Section VI here:
"The higher SEEDED player from QUALIFYING will have choice of game or position
for each game played. The group that contains the highest-seeded player gets
first choice of machine and order of play. No group may select a machine which
has already been selected by a group in the same round, nor may they choose a
machine on which they have already played in that round (unless machine
malfunctions have made this unavoidable). If the machine selected is currently
being played by another group in a previous round of play, the group may wait for
that round of play to be completed.
After 3 games in each group have been played, each player will have a point total
for the round. The players with the top two point totals from each group of four
players will advance. "
