My request was never and will never be selfish in nature. Just tossing you softballs to make the NACS even better!
I would be super excited if some player none of us had ever heard of won two tournaments in Alaska, showed up at the North American Championship, blazed through that stacked field of state champions, and won it all. That would be amazing, and something we should be rooting for to happen.
The cards are already stacked against people in areas where there arenāt very many players, locations to play, or tournaments to play in. Keep the Cinderella dream alive.
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All it really takes in an small player base state to have a few monthly events and then host an state happens if say they only fill 4-6 of the 16 slots in a state? as low as 1-2? Even if out of state people show up for 1 of the events how meany will come back for state finales and can they even get points needed in 6-8 man monthly events by just winning 1 vs the bar regulars who are there for 11-12 of them?
Not completely as some can use them vs an state with 3-4 top players in them. Hell it may be better to let the top players knock each other out. Unlike Cinderellas with the ncaa. Where you may have to play some big boys as not all areas have have automatic bids.
The North American Championship has automatic bids for all states. So all it really takes is some one to run an some monthly events and the state finales to give an small time player (in state field) (but big winner in state field) to get an automatic bids that may never happen with the NCAA. But the NCAA will take 2-3 good top players from the same state)
I know itās ālegalā, but it just seems odd when out of state players participate in State Championships not even close to where they live, especially if they are qualified in their home state.
Iāve read all the prior debates and discussions, and certainly understand that there might be a perfectly valid rationale why someone might play out of state.
I am just saying for me personally, I would prefer the winner of all particular states to be a ālocalā.
And to be clear: I am not criticizing decisions made by anyone in the past, present or future. The current rules allow it, and thatās that.
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what about at least 2 events more then 7 days or 1 league with at least 2-3 sessions?
The current rules allow it, and thatās that. Do the rules say an dog can play? Be cool to put that to the test if just have movie based joke.
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Iām sure thereās a wide range of opinions on the subject in various parts of our country, but a majority of the people Iāve talked to about this are against playing in another state outside of residence under most circumstances.
We have multiple out of state players coming to Oklahoma to play in our state tournament. I personally donāt like the rule and feel like there should at the very least be a minimum amount of tournaments to be played in order to qualify or if you fail to qualify in your home state to allow for some variance in participation. Maybe things are different nowadays with how many different tournaments there are, but when I was in baseball growing up, state tournaments allowed a percentage of the top finishers from each state (which had to reside in the state) to qualify for nationals. We got to qualify and go to nationals while wearing our state flag on our jerseys, carrying a state flag in a parade, representing the communities we came from. That was an exciting thing and helped the local communities grow because there was a common goal and awareness through local media helped as well.
As it is now, we have state tournaments in name, but letās face it, these are really just multiple national qualifiers all occurring on the same day. For some people, going to nationals is the end game and there is no regard for what state theyāre representing because they have no personal ties there other than using it to facilitate what they believe is their easiest path to qualify for another tournament. That plaque could have any state name in front of it as long as thereās a ticket to nationals. Thus the paradox exists that a state representative could very well be someone with no ties to any part of that stateās existing pinball community, while that actual community gets shut out from truly representing itself.
Unfortunately, for the time being, it is what it is due to the rules in place.
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Iād say itās especially tough on newer ranked states that donāt have many ranked players yet. When a high-ish ranked player comes in and increases the point value of an event they also will likely win said event and leave the locals in the dust. A decent amount of people in the top 16 of my state just popped in for the weekend and left with a state championship spot. So what Iām saying is, COME DOWN TO NEW MEXICO to get in on our easy state championship qualification!
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There is a difference between being excluded and not meeting the criteria for participation. When my metro league baseball team wins the league next year are you gonna make the argument that MLB is wrong for not inviting us to play in their playoffs? It would be a fun way for me to experience a big destination event though!!
Cinderella is a fairy tale for children, not reality. Even the miracle on ice, which is often considered the greatest upset in sports history was pulled off by professionals, not novices playing in their second match ever. While its heartwarming to think that some small town kid from north dakota could dethrone one of the all time greats id bet against it ever happening in real life.
Either they didnāt qualify in any other states or they feel what they chose what they think is the path of least resistance to nationals.
Just a strategy play. But youād have to ask the individual people to find out. As long as I keep qualifying for KY, Iāll always play there. But if I donāt qualify for KY, and I do qualify for OH, Iām definitely playing there.
Not true. It was college kids, aka amateurs.
If the rules were changed to what you suggest it will definitely exclude these smaller state winners. Thatās a bad thing.
If you donāt like underdog stories, then You must be a patriots fan. Haha. Kidding, but who doesnāt like an underdog story? They are ALWAYS fun.
Thatās not always the case. Every player that earned the right to have a choice evaluates things however they prefer.
Fred Richardson this year had 4 options. His easiest path to Nationals and best seed was his home state of South Carolina. He chose Ohio where heās the lowest seed and had to travel.
If the only ālegalā way for him to choose Ohio is to not play in those other states, thatās not the kind of incentive/motivation I prefer for the players who are obviously putting in the time and effort to support the IFPA and play as much as they do.
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Yeah thatās why I said youāll have to ask each person that has multiple options to see why they made the choice they did. Could be anything.
I think you need to recognize the importance that winning the whole thing isnāt necessarily āthe goalā for these Cinderella stories. North Dakota is my FAVORITE example.
During 2016 qualifying they were able to slap together 3 events, they had ONE rated player who used to play in Minnesota back in the day, along with nine unrated players for their State Championship field in February 2017.
Dan Stephney won that Championship as an unrated player, having previously played in 3 IFPA sanctioned events ever before that day.
His trip to Nationals brought media attention about competitive pinball to the State:
This ādead moneyā guy finished tied for 17th at Nationals that year, winning 3 rounds. The excitement he brought back to North Dakota after this experience (which he told me was one of the greatest experiences of his life) helped invigorate that entire player base to start more events, play more events, recruit more people . . . and thatās worked.
This year they ran 21 events and have increased to 68 players competing. Dan will be the top qualifier going into things next week, and I tend to believe that initial trip to Nationals had a lot to do with this trajectory for the State as a whole.
YMMV of course 
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My mileage does vary. I simply donāt see the appeal behind this story. Plenty of states contribute thousands to the prize pool. Players in those states often attend fifty plus events and play against top level competitors all year just to make it. That considered, I really donāt see how letting someone who played in three events from a state contributing ten dollars is fair. Iām not impressed by blurbs on small town blog sites. Is it cool that the scene grew? Sure. But it grew to still be an extremely insignificant part of the pool. A pool that many better, and more experienced players are excluded from because of a format that has the goal of a fantastic outcome and not an accurate one.
Can one of the mods maybe split the discussion of NACS rules from the brackets /streams / updates thread as it makes it impossible for the thread to serve itās purpose since the actual posts about brackets and streams are lost in the noise.
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This particular IFPA campaign is designed to not be about the same āmore experienced playersā filling the field. Thereās about 8000 events per year that serve that function.
I can appreciate that youāre not a fan of this design, but itās an extremely intentional choice to serve a particular purpose.
Iām not against exploring the interest of an āOpenā National Championship to serve a different function. Weāve run the same campaign on a global level, featuring a World Championship that reserves Country Exemption spots, and now a World Championship āfor allā because we found a great partner to help us pull it off.
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This story is a great example of the primary reason why all state communities would greatly benefit from being able to send their top player as a representative of their state.
What it all boils down to, the rules as they are allow for people to act in their own self-interest to qualify for a national tournament, despite that potentially shutting out entire pinball communities from having representation.
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So youāre saying that both state and national championship series is intentionally not about being accurate and instead is about having a variety of players rather than those who earned it?! I know competitive pinball has its quirks but I didnāt think Iād see the day when the president was proud to admit that the whole thing is intentionally inaccurate.
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Exactly this. If I went to North Dakota and won nobody there would be happy about it. Let alone the whole community rallying behind my āCinderellaā story.
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