Josh, feel free to quote my prior post when you publish the new rule. 
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Hypothetical: “We can leave R911 in, but whoever picks it gets a zero for the round.”
Thanks, this is a good rule change …
- removes intent (which always causes confusion)
- narrows applicability to a point where most TDs won’t have to worry about it
- gives some guidance for TD-selected finals banks
- still excludes machines breaking down or travelling home near the end of a show
- still keeps the ultimate say about what’s “material” at IFPA
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Is it? Or is it now a rule that’s so fuzzy it’s essentially useless.
There are unspecified criteria for what will or will not be considered falling foul of the rule now. You could run an event with a blend of classics and moderns and for reasons that aren’t made clear to the players some classics may drop out of the mix
And then one aggrieved player could raise this with IFPA and threaten the integrity of the tournament.
I tend to trust IFPA to not be a dick about it and only call material changes when it’s egregious, but to be sure we’ll have to wait and see how the new rule actually got applied a year from now.
@pinwizj do you have any 2023 data on the old rule regarding a) how often IFPA had to ask a TO whether a game removal was “due to time”, and b) how many tournaments got dinged for breaking the rule?
I don’t think it’s a bad thing that the rule provides an incentive to communicate this sort of thing to the players. “We can’t use the classics room in the finals because we’re streaming them and the rig doesn’t reach” goes a long way to keep players in the loop, and it’s allowed by both the old and the new rule.
If they want to be that person, they could have done that with the old rule whenever any one machine became unavailable. How is it worse now?
We’ve sanctioned 10,809 events so far in 2023. The answer is zero to both “a” and “b”.
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does changing setup / settings to make an game an lot harder / go faster count as well?
I know that one ball or time based does.
also I think say on game X must play challenge mode count as well?
one odd ball say you have an P3 with multi games that where being changed at random each round can you say lock the game installed in the near the end?
Josh already said you can change a games settings/setup all you want mid tournament.
Apologies as I’m trying to catch up here. Is there a published version of the rule somewhere? Is this talking about v6.0 changes? Or talking about the rules as-is?
My existing understanding of the rule is that you can’t remove games in the middle of either quali/finals because one is long-playing, but as you transition from Quali to Finals you’re allowed to remove games if a game is long-playing and you don’t want it in Finals.
I’m running an event on Dec 31. There are 38 machines. Qualifying is Match Play, Finals is Group Elimination. For Finals we’re pre-making and pre-announcing banks of games that will be A Finals, which will be a sub-set of machines so that I can simultaneously run B & C on the other machines.
We won’t change which games make up the banks once the event starts, but do the games in A Finals need to pass some kind of “smell test” now so that it’s a representative mix of games from qualifying even if it’s a pre-published list?
Except that might actually be fine as long as he doesn’t remove ALL the long playing games? 
Feel like all the answer to all of the questions in regards to the old/new rule is “Don’t take the piss and all is well.”
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I’m in favor of the rule change.
I once made the mistake of including CSI in the tournament field. The tournament went something like this:
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7:30 pm: Round 1 starts
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7:55 pm: Everyone except CSI is done and waiting for CSI to finish.
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9:00 pm: CSI game finally finishes.
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9:01 pm: I announce that Round 2 has started and that CSI has been removed from the tournament, to uproarious and unanimous applause.
The idea that I just turned it into an 8% TGP tourney by simply removing one problematic game immediately after Round 1 always bothered me. And no, I don’t remember which tournament that was. 
I’m glad this is once again an option.
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So just to clarify: “Any efforts made to alter the game availability list anytime during an event in such a way that it materially changes the mix of machines that was present at the start of the event will no longer earn TGP after the point at which this change is made” means that even if you announce an all-classics finals in advance (rather than doing it ad hoc during the tournament) it is still not allowed? I’m pretty sure that is what is intended, but I have seen people say that it’s fine as long as it’s announced before the start of the tournament.
This is not allowed. Doing this is why the rule was made.
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On the plus side we appear to have been given full approval to remove one or two problematic long playing games as long as the finals has at least one problematic long game… hey wait a minute
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that’s Ray rules 2024 for next year though
This rule is good.
Don’t run crap formats that optimize for time and who knows what over competitive play.
INDISC with R911 wasn’t a crap format. And a good decision to remove it from finals consideration. Which this rule would allow. All is well.
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Agreed, that’s why this rule is good