High throughput, easy to run tournament

I have been asked to run a tournament at a location where my friends are having their stag and doe. They want me to run something similar to what I did as a Maiden charity launch tournament (unlimited entry, best game on 1 machine with 4p single game final). But they would like to scale it up a bit to handle more people.

I am thinking of using 2 games and allowing unlimited attempts on either game. Then having the finals be something like top 4 on each game play one game final, then either top 2 or top 1 in each advance to a 2 game final (one of each game). 2 game final or course lends itself to many ties, so if it is final 2 it is really a best 2/3.

Have anyone run a 2 qualifying track herb. I don’t really care too much about TGP, but it would be nice to be able to count the unlimited qualifying, so does this 2 track setup count?

Any other alternative ideas. Needs to be easy to administer, especially with progressively intoxicated players.

For a stag and doe party with expected high intoxication, I wouldn’t care ANYTHING about TGP… aka don’t even run it as an IFPA-sanctioned event. Instead, do a split-flipper team event on your two pins with whatever finals you want to run.

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I didn’t really want to run it as IFPA, except I was specifically asked to run it as an IFPA event. It will be worth approximately 0 WPPRs regardless of format, but it will get some of our new community closer to 5 events.

Looks like you can count one game for TGP per game that counts. So if you’re doing best game on two different games then TGP of two (8% I think).
Plus 1% per hour of unlimited qualifying. TGP Guide

Best Game Style Qualifying (Herb)

1 game added to TGP per game counted towards your qualifying points earned
If 9 games are available but only 5 games are counted towards your qualifying standing, only 5 games will be added to the TGP
If unlimited qualifying attempts are available, the number of hours of open qualifying will increase TGP by 1% per hour up to 20% for open qualifying of 20+ hours
Please note this format is not IFPA endorsed unless there is a finals component that involves DIRECT play, made up of at least 10% of the participants
Please note the qualifying portion of the tournament can be added to the TGP calculation only if that qualifying portion reduces the field of participants by 50% or more

So if you did three hours of qualifying (+3%) on two games (+8%) with a two game finals ladder using four player groups (+2 TGP, 2x multiplier for four player groups=+4 or 16%) I think you would grade out to 27% TGP.

But you have to reduce the field by 50% or more to count the qualifying portion. So if you’re taking eight players to finals you have to have sixteen or more participants. Otherwise you just count the finals portion for TGP.

They are going to open up their Stag and doe so randos can just show up?

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Yes. There will be a cover to get into the event, but anyone (standard 19+ bar restrictions apply and 150 person limit at the venue). So if anyone wants to pay a $20 cover and then $2 per game to try to win 0.5 WPPR and hang out with a bunch of people they don’t know they are more than welcome.

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There is a flaw with what you’ve proposed: if you let people play both games, and you take top 4 on each to a semi-finals…what happens if someone is top 4 on both machines?

If you’re thinking two different semi-finals games, then I’d propose you do what most Herb tournaments do: some kind of 100, 95, 93, 92…etc scoring (or whatever you choose) on each game. The people who advance are those with the Top 8 combined scores (across both games). Have the #1 seed pick which of the two games they want to play in the semi-finals (and again in the finals).

If you don’t combine scores for both games, then you’ll have issues like: once someone gets first place on one machine, there is no reason for them to continue playing (unless several players knock off their score), people might favor one game over another and most people are focusing on that one game, leaving the other empty, (as mentioned earlier) someone qualifying in top 4 for both machines, people getting to the finals and playing a game they didn’t bother to player earlier (yes, their fault…but it wasn’t encouraged)…and probably others I’m not thinking of.

For this part specifically, I was planning on only counting your top finish. I know pre-pinburgh pinball did something like this 2 years ago with 2 courses.

The idea of running 2 machines instead of 1 is to shorten queues. I guess I can just make it a usual HERB qualifying with best 1 counting. Don’t need to do anything special. People could choose to play 1 or both machines. I could advance 10% to a final of some kind.

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