For those of you interested in attending a First State Flippers event, below are all the updates for 2020 along with a tentative schedule. Looking forward to our 4th year of tournament pinball in Delaware and hope to see some new faces once again!
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All events will now be capped at 40 players. This is a reduction from the 48 players we had imposed in 2019. At the end of the day, all of our houses become just a little too cramped with 48 players. We wish we had a huge public venue to host our events so we didn’t have to turn anyone away, but for now that is not the case.
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All tournaments will now start at 11am sharp. Practice will start at 9am sharp. Most everyone enjoyed the earlier start times, and as I continue to streamline the events, my goal is to finish up finals before 5:30pm. This will allow people to come play an event and still enjoy their Saturday nights.
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“B” division and “C” division finals will revert back to a 2-strike format. Reason being is the B & C finals were taking longer to complete than the “A” finals.
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“C” division finals will now be restricted. Anyone ranked #750 or lower, will not be eligible to play in the “C” finals. Meaning, if you are ranked #699 at the start of the event, and you finish in 28th place after qualifying, you will not be allowed to play in the “C” finals. Your day will be over after qualifying. Again, we are implementing this because we are trying to promote pinball of all skill levels, and the worst thing we want to see happen is the #250 player in the world have a bad day of qualifying, and then blow through the “C” finals with a victory.
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Extra Balls - If you earn one, play it!!! Meaning, we will do our best to disable extra balls, should we miss a game like Iron Maiden, and you earn an extra ball you will be allowed to play it. For games like Count-Down where we cannot disable the extra ball, if you earn it then you get to play it.
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Bounties are being changed up for 2020. For 2020, we will now be drawing a random name at the start of each qualifying round and they will be the “Bounty”. If you are in the same group as the “Bounty” and you get 1st place on that game you win the bounty prize. Should the “Bounty” player beat everyone else, they will win the bounty prize. This now guarantees 7 bounties for each Match Play tournament.
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Here is the biggest change of 2020. We will not be opening up registration for all of the events at the beginning of the year. Instead, each the event registration for each event will go live somewhere between 30-45 days before the event date. We had a lot of people pre-pay for the entire 2019 season, yet numerous people had to drop from tournaments because of other obligations. This will help reduce the amount of work I do behind the scenes with the registration list and issuing refunds, etc.
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Lastly, starting with the first event in 2020, our February Flip-Match-Ladder tournament, we are going to test out using Eventbrite as the source to purchase your ticket for the event. Again the purpose of this is to help streamline things behind the scenes. Eventbrite also has an automatic wait list, as well as automatic email notifications when spots free up. Again, we will test it out for the first event, and if all goes well we will more than likely use Eventbrite for all of the events held in 2020.
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The prestigious Delaware Tour Championship - We are making a few changes to this event. We will be taking the top 36 in 2020 after 6 tour event standings. Also, the top 4 players will receive a first round bye (this is a huge incentive now for qualifying throughout the year). Same format will still apply for the finals. Round 1 will start with 32 players in 4-player groups playing 4 games and 16 will advance(2 from each group). Top 4 seeds will then join in and 20 players will play round 2, same format as round 1, with 10 players advancing to the Ladder Finals. The first 16 players that lost in Round 1, will advance directly to the “C” finals which will be a 2-strike format. The 10 players who lose in round 2 will advance directly to the “B” finals which will be a 3 strike format. Prize money will also be added to the “B” and “C” winners of the Tour Championship.
And now for the TENTATIVE schedule for 2020. The reason I say tentative is because all dates are subject to change.
February 29th - Flip-Match-Ladder Tournament at Joe Fox’s house
March 21st - Tour Event #1 at Mike’s house
April 25th - Tour Event #2 at Chad’s house
June 13th - Tour Event #3 at Mike’s house
July 25th - Tour Event #4 at Joe’s house
August 29th - Tour Event #5 at Chad’s house
September 26th - Flip Frenzy at Mike’s house
October 24th - Tour Event #6 at Joe’s house
November 7th - Flip Frenzy at Chad’s house
December 12th - Delaware Tour Championship at Joe’s house
Additional events may be added throughout the year, like another BBQ event or something.
Finally, registration for the first tournament of 2020 will go live this Sunday (1/19). This tournament will be capped at 40 players.
The first tournament of 2020 for First State Flippers will take place on 2/29 at Joe Fox’s house starting at 11am. $35 entry fee. 40 player capped field.
We are going to run a crazy hybrid format for this tournament. The first 60 minutes will be a Flip Frenzy. From there we will take the standings and carry them over into a 2-hour session of traditional 4-player match play and play as many rounds as we can in 2 hours (estimating 4-5 rounds). “A” Finals will be the ever popular Ladder Format! As usual with all FSF events, we will also have a “B” and “C” finals! Full tournament details will be posted to IFPA, Facebook Events, and sent out via email later this week.
-Chad Hastings
First State Flippers