Thanks Chris for posting. If we made separate divisions a and b then only a would get ifpa points so we decided to make the bank bigger to 16 games then all would be a part of ifpa points . The aurcade system is a little different than most pinball tournaments but has worked well at flippers. There is a strategy to making sure you play the games you think you can maximize your points after posting your first score. Having live scoring from aurcade helps out in knowing where you think you can get better and take points away from a competitor to move up in standings. The great part of having 2 divisions is that in playoffs a lot of competitors will get to participate since in past tournaments we only took final rankings then went to playoff then now going from 16 to 32 in playoffs
We will not have a classics on top of main tournament. It was hard to put up scores on classics and get main tournament in the allotted time. It was great to see all participating but think it was too much for time . The best part of the tournament is going back and posting a better score on a game you think you can do better on.
Agreed on the strategy of the Aurcade system, which isn’t really all that different from standard 100/90/85-1 scoring. The one problem was not enough qualifying time (should be improved with only 12 games needed).
Full disclosure: I didn’t play well last November @ Flippers, but under PAPA scoring I finish 7th (Google Docs link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qmu9ukpce-P2PiqmTxG-V9gITQrX6an86702JD4anpg), whereas under Aurcade I finished 18th and out of the finals (I know, “PLAY BETTER!”). But, when you play 7 top 16 games (including 4 top 10), a 17th, a 25th, and a 26th, that really should be enough to make a top 16 final.
The main problem I have with Aurcade vs. PAPA scoring is that, if you look at many arcade game tournaments, the top scores are very close to each other… the top 10 players, let’s say, are within a few thousand points in games with scores of 1M. But if you look at pinball tournament scores, generally you have one or two blow-up scores, a few really good scores, and then all the also-played’s. In PAPA those also-played’s are still worth 75-80 points, whereas in Aurcade they’re worth…
Well, to give an example, Chris Newsom blew up ST:TNG for ~4B points last November in qualifying. I put up ~700M which in PAPA scoring would have been good for 81 points, but in Aurcade was 17. It also happened to be my “worst” qualifying game (lowest Aurcade points), but I’m not going to go back and attack that table again, because the odds of me getting a better game vs the amount of qualifying time (waiting in line and actually playing) it would take to play that game wasn’t worth it.
I’m curious if anyone can chime in on when PAPA decided to go away from Total Points as a system of ranking in tournaments, and why.
Love that google doc very interesting on the difference. Each tournament there are a few monster scores that mess up the aurcade system but as you know unless you think you can also have a monster score on that game it is best to leave that one alone get a decent score then move on to a game you know you can do better at and not waste time going after the small points on a game that has a monster score. Newsom and Cedolia have put up some monster scores in tournaments we might have to retire Star Trek next gen because the first tournament at flippers he had a 9 billion score on it and completely took all those points away. We did get David to agree to start a extra hour early at 11 instead of noon. Maybe in future events we can get to a point where qualifying is all day Saturday and the playoffs will be on Sunday .
Just an off-topic interjection, but y’all should see what Newsom has done with the new Star Trek code at our local pin bar. Just insane! Don’t see myself or anybody else (that plays at Lyman’s) catching the 38 medals, 42 warps, or the 800 mil GC anytime soon.
also in November I did not even bother with the other tournament because I knew that it would be close to get all my games in and then add all the games in classic tournament in time , that is how I went back and beat my scores on a few that I tanked at to . You were so close to getting into the final round of 16 by 3 points. Looking at the ac/dc all it could have taken is a score of around 28 million that was close. Drew had golden eye in monster score area but a few got close to half that score.
hope to see you in april at flippers and hopefully it will go smoothly but you never know but I do not think it will be close to TPF status as we have been hearing about this past weekend.
Exactly – this is one of the reasons I prefer the PAPA scoring to the Aurcade scoring. For example, if I’m third and an opponent is fourth on a game, then someone comes and blows it up, we’ll slide down together but effectively still have the same margin between us (third/fourth vs fourth/fifth). In Aurcade, that same blown-up score can affect our position, because now my third place can be meaningless.
Example: I’ve got 200 million on Creature, an opponent has 100 million. Top score is 250 million. In Aurcade scoring, I’ve got 80 and the opponent has 40. Now Elwin comes along and hangs a billion on it (I know, it’s unlikely to be that low). My margin (80-40) now becomes 20-10, and an opponent gained 30 points on me without either of us doing anything.
Something similar to Aurcade was used at the “old Pinburgh” for two years (1998-99) before being switched out for the current ranked scoring format. The move away from Aurcade-style scoring happened because it put a huge emphasis on single blowaway games instead of focusing on strong, solid “runs” or consistent play. In Aurcade, someone can post a #1 score on one game and not even play the other game, and do better than another player with two consistent games.
It is all good don’t want to rehash what we have talked about in past post on other forums. Playing at flippers since the main tournaments have started and liking how smoothly aurcade works and David hernly is a great guy running the event it is hard for me not to like aurcade but I get where everyone is coming from.
It’s fine, it’s not different enough to be too worrisome. The one time I competed on Aurcade, there were some early monster scores on two games, and the result was most other players just ignoring those games for qualifying. It wasn’t worth it to try and play for some small percentage when there were other games to improve on. That felt weird to me, but it’s alright, just different!
I competed in C division at PAPA last month and was in NC State Championship at Flippers in February. I also competed in the Charity Tournament that occurred during the NC State Championship event that used Aurcade.
I’m a pretty negative person and complain a lot 
. At this point I don’t have anything negative to say about Aurcade. I finished 6th in SCS and 5th in the Charity event and Aurcade to me is similar to PAPA qualifying or any HERB style. You just have to play decent and consistent and you’ll move onto the final.
If you have any luck like I do, they would move to IFPA/PAPA point qualifying and you’d have a bad day of playing.
I hope to see you and as many others at this Flippers event later this month. Its going to be awesome!
The cool thing about Aurcade is it’s different and one great score can make up for many bad scores. And it’s not the same old formats that nearly every tournament uses.
Anyway, circuit event at MAGfest will also use unless something changes between then and now.
The number of games though should be reconsidered. We barely got one game each machine completed in the main bank last year, odds of completing 12 of 16 might not be possible. The qualifying times should be extended from 10 - 6, then it would help.
I will let the directors know about trying to extend qualifying time. If we have as many show up as we did in November we might need to consider maybe having qualifying all day Saturday and playoffs on Sunday. It has always been a one day tournament. We could maybe have some qualifying happen Friday night then start back up again on Saturday for a time then have playoffs. David the owner of flippers is a great guy and awesome to talk with. We always try to strive to make it a good day of pinball
I don’t think it would be a bad thing if the tourney (and the possible Fall one) were multi-day. They could be used as trial runs for a Circuit event format next year (which would probably work best as multi-day).
I respect Flippers for sticking with a format that they like and not switching to a WPPR fest style tournament.
A place like Flippers that is open every day could have hundreds of people listed in the tournament results if they stretched the tournament participation time out over several weeks.
The problem with the format is the time available to play the games, which is mutually exclusive from whether WPPR points are involved or not. Last fall, no one had time to play one game in both main and classics bank. The spring format is basically main bank using the same number of games as main and classics from fall. The same issues will re-occur.
They might as well only let everyone play each game once, because then the lines will thin out near the end and people can’t replay a game and prevent or slow down other players from playing each game once.
With the number of players and games and lines, it’s an average of 15-20 minutes to get a game completed. Maybe 3.5 games / hour on average, 4.5 - 5 hours without break to play each game once.
Of course that is only due to flippers success and growth. If they really wanted to mitigate the line/time problem, split into A & B banks and don’t worry about trying to inflate the player numbers for the sake of WPPRs. With 5.1 rules, many players probably won’t count towards base points anyway.
So in fewer words, 5 hours isn’t enough time for a qualifying portion of a tournament with 16 machines
I think having a longer qualifying period is a good idea but with the extension for qualifying in the fall I was able to play at least each game in the main bank twice.
Numerous players competed in both classics and modern banking enough games to do so.
It is now starting at 11:00 am not noon for spring
I agree with almost everything you say.
I started out playing classics as the lines were shorter there, hoping that the lines would get shorter for the main tourney. But, they never did.
I only played each game once in the main. And I would not have had time to do that had the qualifying time not been extended.
I would prefer separate banks for A and B, but understand this would mean more work for those running the tourney.
This was done in Fall 2012 at Flippers and worked well.
Longer (or multiple day) qualification time would work well too.
Bowen, you mention that someone can get a #1 on a game and not play another game and still rank well.
In the three Aurcade tournaments that I have played at Flippers, one thing that I find strange about the format is that until a player plays the required number of games ( at the three tournaments that I played in, it was all ten games, and I’m assuming that it will be twelve games for the Spring tournament), a player is not eligible to qualify for the playoffs and none of his scores affect other players.
In the 2012 tournaments that I played in, this was not as big a deal, as there were fewer players and longer qualifying hours (and no playoffs!) than in the Fall 2014 tournament.
In the recent Fall tournament, players were advising me to plunge my balls on my last game or two, just so I could get scores in. I did not do this, but would have considered just taking a zero on a game. However, taking a zero on a game that has not been played is not an option at the Flippers tournaments that I have been to.
The lines were already bordering on PAPA Classics-esque length lines (which I imagine are even worse now than when I used to go yo PAPA) where I lose interest in playing because it is not fun to wait so long for each game.
I know that I was getting far less than the 3.5 gph that KStone says that he was getting.