If you have an issue with how someone is running their tournaments, you should take it to @pinwizj and let the IFPA sort out whether or not something exploit-y is going on. I don’t want TiltForums to be the place where local or personal beefs get played out, especially in a case like this where it is all just vague and hand-wavey. Keep that stuff to Pinside.
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Greg - while I completely agree that baseless accusations and speaking in vague terms is not a good road to go down - I am going to very politely disagree with the premise that these things should only be talked about in private. If there are legitimate exploits going on in the community at large, then the community at large should participate in that discussion - openly. Full stop.
If no one knows it’s going on, and things are just settled in private - how is anyone else to know what to look out for? How is Sam Smith in Somewhere, USA supposed to know if what’s going on at their local tournaments is on the up and up? What’s their measure?
I think, in general, there is a lot of “keeping things in private” and “keeping things quiet” in the community, and I think that’s a bad thing, and I think it’s a dangerous thing. It silences and does not spread knowledge and awareness.
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I think the point is that as an outsider, not in the Michigan scene, I have no idea what we’re talking about, so there isn’t an open discussion. All I can do is wonder at some exploit. Maybe the ‘exploit’ is no big deal, heck–I’ve gone on record saying outside of a few spots that open up for the IFPA World’s, none of it matters anyhow, but the ‘open discussion’ hasn’t been open. It’s more like, “I’d like to keep this private, but just so everyone knows, there’s an exploit.” Which seems unhelpful to me.
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In general I don’t disagree with you, but there are ways to go about it that are productive, and ways that are not.
For instance, challenging a rule is different than challenging a person or group. Here is a hypothetical example. Saying “I think the IFPA should revert back to the per-venue restrictions on tournaments” establishes a starting point that focuses on a solution and is not directed at any person(s). However, saying “This person(s) is exploiting IFPA rules by running an enormous number of tournaments at their venue” directs it at an individual and personalizes it. This type of challenge is not useful, because nobody in this forum has any authority to do anything about it, and it is just going to create a thread of back and forth accusations that don’t go anywhere.
This is why, when someone has a beef with an individual about IFPA rules, I recommend going to Josh. It is not about “keeping it secret”, it is just that Josh is the only one who can do anything about it. If Josh determines that someone has in fact cheated or broken said rules, that is one thing, and there are definitely cases where I think habitual cheaters / bad actors should be called out. However, if he determines there is nothing wrong, then there’s nothing to see and move along. I’d like to have that determination made before we get into it here, because as far as exploiting WPPRs goes, Josh is essentially the Supreme Court, and it is not useful to litigate them on here or Pinside or Facebook or anywhere else. And again, in that case, maybe it leads to discussions of rule changes for the future or something, which is great. I love it. Keep it at that level.
I hope that clarifies my position here: I don’t want a whisper network of who the cheaters and bad actors are. I want to make sure that those people are in fact bad actors first, and focus on the rules that can prevent them from acting bad. I’m actually very interested in how we can make this kind of information more publicly available to TDs, but it is very very delicate area with a lot of nuance. I’m involved in basically the exact same discussion in another community, and it is really fraught. It is a discussion worth having but man, it is a hard one.
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With respect to the vague comments from Todd, after getting some detail privately about what’s going on the IFPA has officially classified it as a Nothingburger.
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No Whopper?
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Sounds like fun and wish we had that around here as well! the Decathlon type of pinball events maybe? 
I do not think that their format use any kind of “loophole” either. Full day event can easily bring you to 100% TGP if that is your goal.
Yeah, right. In fact we play two 1oo% TGP tournaments simultanous on Saturday. Pingolf and Classics with a qualification time about 10 hours and with final rounds in different styles.
I think our players enjoy it 
The ‘previous experience’ criteria is simply to keep out the fodder of people stuffing the player count with randoms. It has nothing to do with quality of the players… and if the players are scrambling to figure out how to get their ‘previous experience’ quota… they aren’t likely randoms for the single event… so it really doesn’t matter if someone is trying to game how to shorten the requirements as long as they are players that will continue to be around.
It’s a bot filter… not a ‘quality’ filter.
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Then leagues with long seasons should be enough to get a player rated, IMO. If someone shows up for all or most of a 9 week league season, that person is certainly not a random. I wish there were some practical way to give leagues a break on this.
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This loophole has already been closed. At least I think it has, but couldn’t find the relevant section in the TGP guide just now.
I thought there was a semi-recent change that essentially said rounds cannot increase in TGP. So if your qualifying portion was worth 8 TGP. Your finals cannot be worth more than 8.
I like this idea the best. However, if the “experience” factor is left in the hands of the TD rather than the IFPA, the potential for shenanigans would be much higher. Kinda a catch 22
I don’t disagree completely… but a league is only one dimension (time) instead of diversity too. Allowing a league player to fully “vest” would have had a problem with the super league for instance. And you don’t need ifpa trying to define what a leagues absentee policy, duration, etc needs to be.
If you run a league in an area without much else, or you have a rash of new players that need vesting… just add some extra events to your venue. We have found 2-3 strike events after league… or another night like a monthly… have been well accepted by our locals who want more pinball.
It serves the purpose… people like them… and I don’t see it as gaming the system at all.
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never heard of this and it would affect most format. Not sure why it would be a problem anyway? TGP is game base so if they play more full games in the final then it is the same… with 8 games for the qualifiers, the top 2 would end up having to play 17 games to get to 100% at 20 minutes a game, they would be going for like 6 hours… long day!
Point is, format too optimized to only maximize point usually don’t live long because it isn’t fun for >90% of the players
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Sorry, I may have not have explained it correctly above. Here is the direct quote from WPPR v5.4
For any brackets or group play rounds, we want to promote tournaments using a consistent number of games from round to round. For bracket tournaments we have seen organizers use single game matches throughout, only to then backload the number of games played by having the final match be a best of 25 match. Same thing with group play rounds, we’ve seen organizers play 3 games per round, except for the last round they would intentionally play 11 rounds in order to reach the 25 games played metric. We will use the minimum number of games for any one round of play in determining how many meaningful games played get counted, so if someone wants to run best of 3 matches they should be making that choice for the entire bracket. They will no longer be able to pick certain rounds to expand that match total, or rather they could, but they would still only be credited for 3 games played for that round. We are okay with the winner’s bracket and loser’s bracket being different lengths, as long as it’s consistent across each of them individually.
So, it’s not qualifying vs finals…it’s round vs round. You categorically cannot just expand a particular round to however many games you need to get to 100% TGP. You’ll be graded based on the round with the lowest number of games played.
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This is true for formats that hold their style throughout finals, but a TD can simply change up the format altogether to get around this.
Examples:
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3 strike tournament until the final 4 are left. Those four players will play a 5 game PAPA style final. (Allowed)
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double elimination bracket, best of 3 matches, the final two players will be a best of 11 match (final game would count as a best of 3)
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PAPA style final where every round is 3 games … But the final is 7 games (final round would count as if it was 3 games played)
The rule is meant to promote consistency in a bracket, or in a group play final, but there’s ‘legal’ ways of backloading it if you really care to.
Ahhhh. Thanks for clarifying. I feel like a goodie two shoes.
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Just replace makeup & dancing with pinball, and that video is spot on. 