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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
This is a very odd rule, especially in that other players won’t know where they stand against you, or even against their opponents if you’re about to steal a #1 score. I suppose the same happens at PAPA with incomplete entries, but those tend to get completed fairly quickly.
Why not count those players’ scores anyway, or at least post them? Only #1 scores affect the Aurcade standings anyway.
PAPA Classics lines weren’t bad at all this year, I thought, due to the quality of the score-entry software and the increased number of games available to play each day. There were lines for the longest-playing games like Argosy or Grand Prix, but you could complete a full ticket in less than an hour (4+ gph!).
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Every tournament I have been involved with aurcade and the tournament director will not let you take a zero on game you have to physically play the game . All scores are there for you to see where you stand but until you put up your last game it will finalize your total points compared to the others who have finished their rounds and who are now going back to get a better score.
Some like to strategize and not turn in last game till 1 minute to go in qualifying round which is fine but I have never taken that strategy and have always turned in all games then go back and get better on a game I stunk up .
I would not strategically hold off on getting the scores in.
Also, players usually know if someone has put up a big score on a game. Even if it is not in the system yet.
There was a player at the fall tourney that held on until the bitter end to play the last game to bank their score. The player continued to improve their scores on other games but avoided banking so didn’t do it out of a lack of time. Not sure the point of it.
I have never understood the waiting till last minute . Remember one time joe said was awfully close to not getting that last game in and he was 2 minutes from not qualifying for the playoffs. It would have been a shame the best qualifier did not get in because of waiting till last minute. Maybe in future tournaments we can have qualifying up to a certain time then all have to play all games then have like 2 more hours to play the games you need to up your score. Then we can hold playoffs on next day. Have like a 11:00am till 6 then have all games in then 6-9 try to up score. Then top qualifiers come back next day for playoffs. Just a suggestion will let them know at flippers
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After the fact, the tournament was quite fun. It was interesting to see literally everyone on their phones checking their tournament score and rankings. The Aurcade system is not perfect for seeding pinball players as has been noted, but the combination of aurcade and Challonge bracketing did work very smoothly. Big thanks to David Shields for sharing his wonderful line up. A few games went down as always happens but there was no lack of games to substitute.
Good call to adjust the games to shorten ball times (many of the outlane and center post rubbers were removed). The competition was good and some monster games were played (Pancoast/Mustang for one) without having hour long games as in past finals.
Being a bit of a plugger, I really enjoyed having the B division and the double elimination system. Almost everyone who attempted to qualifu got to play some one on one matches. I, for one, do much better playing a single game against someone than on the pump and dump. I would love to see that continue. It helps take advantage of the killer depth of lineup at Flippers as well. Thanks to everyone and see you next time.
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My issue with Flipper tournaments are you can’t play after 5pm (or the exact time qualifying ends). Even if you are on your second ball they expect you to stop. That makes no sense… whoever is on that machine at lets say 5pm (end of qualifying) they should be able to play out their game. I have never been to an event that makes you walk away from the machines at a set time. I think if you pay to play that last game (you coin drop for their tournaments) then I should be able to finish my game.
That just a peeve I have. Once I see Flippers getting an established circuit event I’ll come for sure!