Who said it wasn’t a valid question? I sure didn’t. I just answered it. The current rules of the IFPA don’t allow submission of IFPA points for women only events for nationals or state which is where the money is going.
There was probably some confusion because the IFPA does award points for Women-only tournaments, albeit recorded separately: International Flipper Pinball Association
By that point, I hope it will no longer be necessary to have a separate WWPPR system…
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Sorry if you took that as a jab at you, it’s just my academic writing style coming out when I post on TF during the workday. @MCS pointed out what I was trying to, which is that because the IFPA does award points to women’s tourneys, even if they don’t count toward states or nationals, it’s worth ensuring that everyone understands the nuances of when the dollar is required to submit results and when it isn’t.
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H1 perspectives?
Washington is only at 145 tournament. Seems low, that is less than 1 per day 
What is the deal with WI? 44 tournament, that seems like plenty for a state that was going to abandon the IFPA.
Pretty awesome KY is in the top 16. Ifpa events have increased significantly since this change was made.
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Numbers for half the year . . .
Total Events = 2434 (this was 4830 for all of last year)
Total Attendance = 57,280 (this was 115,656 for all of last year)
Total Unique Players = 13,546 (this was 19,427 for all of last year)
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To be clear it’s less than one IFPA tournament per day 
I do not believe any of the usual tournament have stopped some have just decided to not be IFPA but keep going strong.
See the list for a slow summer month
http://www.skill-shot.com/calendar
That’s correct. One of Seattle’s two Wednesday tournaments isn’t IFPA ranked anymore. It’s actually usually the larger one. The Tuesday tournament downtown isn’t ranked anymore either. We also have Friday and Sunday tournaments that were never ranked. That’s 208 events per year that aren’t on the IFPA radar and only the ones I’m personally familiar with. In general the players with the greatest chance of winning would rather have the extra 20% payout from a $5 entry event and the tournament directors don’t want the hassle of tracking and sending off the money. I can’t speak for all of them obviously, but that’s the general feeling. Full points annual events and larger events generally still use IFPA. A side benefit is that it’s easier to qualify for B division when you don’t have a ton of points from weeklies. We’ve also switched to using the Matchplay.events rating system for league events and determining B and Rookie classification for many major tournaments, which factors in IFPA ranking, but looks at non-IFPA sanctioned data as well. Since more than half of the event pinball is now non-IFPA, it’s no longer as good of a way of determining league or B eligibility for us, as some of our better players now play in maybe four IFPA events a year. In my own case I played in five IFPA events and probably 20 total events this year, not counting league. Overall most of us barely noticed or cared, even if debates ran hot for a while when the changes were first announced.
Edit: I just saw in another thread that we aren’t using just IFPA and Matchplay data for league and B division rankings. It’s actually Michael Adcock’s homebrew creation that takes some otherwise unreported Brackelope events into account as well as league results, IFPA and Matchplay’s rating system. http://pinballstats.info/search/
I actually just got promoted to a 5 out of a possible 6 in skill level. Thanks Michael!
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I think FFDD’s Thursday tournament also stopped doing IFPA. That’s another ~50 events with 15-30 players each.
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I wasn’t sure about Flip Flip, so I left them off. And is Another Castle out too? I played in their Saturday a while ago and it doesn’t look like it posted to IFPA. If they’re gone and Flip Flip is gone, I think Hounds Tooth is the only weekly left in the IFPA system unless I’m forgetting something.
Same difference actually. Michael is submitting brackelope (and Monday Night Pinball) results into Match Play’s rating system and then combining IFPA rank and Match Play ratings into a single number.
Michael has done a ton of work to make sure the brackelope data is cleaned up before it’s submitted to Match Play ratings. You should definitely buy him a beverage of his choosing when you see him because Seattle tournament organizers are more inconsistent than anywhere else in the world when it comes to typing player names into tournament software. 
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Consider him beer’d. I’ll also mention to the TDs I know that matching the IFPA name is still important even though we’ve largely abandoned their rating system. I’m not sure if most of them were aware you were largely cleaning up the data by hand.
It’s most certainly not being done by hand. Thankfully computers are good at this sort of thing once you train them
For tournament run on Match Play directly it’s not really an issue since there are multiple ways of disambiguating players. It’s just brackelope that’s a messy when names are not spelled right.
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Little late to the game, but for all the comments that the $1 isn’t having an effect, I’d like to add a counterpoint. IN will look a little different this year because the TD in my area is protesting the changes and not running any sanctioned events. We typically sent 40-50% of the SCS field, and this year is likely to be 0. I know Josh and our state rep will be glad they dont have to deal with it this year, but others are disappointed we won’t be able to participate.
There’s no need for a community to be totally reliant on what ONE TD decides to do. I’ve seen plenty of other communities where a TD has protested only to see someone else step up to start running events.
If there’s a group of players within that community disappointed to be left out of the SCS race, there’s no need to sit on your hands. Start organizing events yourself.
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I get that, and its certainly true. But it’s not always that simple, of course. He’s also a Stern Army rep, so he’s still having events, and we’re attending and having fun. But they’re non-sanctioned and non-sanctionable formats. There’s only so many days a week I can get out from the family for pinball, available locations, etc, etc.
I’m not asking you to fix /my/ problem, just pointing out the changes aren’t without negative results (which everyone already knew - but here’s an example).
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As long as competitive pinball events are continuing to happen, regardless of whether they are IFPA sanctioned or not, then I’m not seeing this as a negative thing.
Only in situations where a TD has stopped running an event altogether over the $1 fee would I consider that a true loss.
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Completely agree Eric on KY getting up there in the ranks! Since starting the new weekly at Recbar in Louisville (mid April ), we have over 40 new people to pinball tournaments that have came out and competed… with a good group coming back every week. Seems we are averaging around 30 per week now too.
As far as the extra dollar, recbar is just paying that, so no gripe from the players. Tony (the owner) looks at it more as an investment on keeping players coming back and supporting pinball competitions.
Having it Sunday evening at 6p allows my two daughters to compete too (we have family match play tournaments in our basement from time to time lol)… and we have a couple other kids show up, so that is nice in getting the next generation involved (and the tourney “promotes” family time?)
As far as having one sole TD… I have been running most of them, but starting to get into “Designated directors”. No need to have one person get burnt out on running events too. I would love to get where we have a schedule made up of 4 people able to run the weekly, and we are on a primary/secondary backup. Multiple TDs help with any issues that come up too as far as rulings.
Last part of my long post … this has been quite the learning experience for me with shifting roles to a TD, and I try to keep it as transparent to the players as possible ( they are learning at the same time as me really ) , but I have to give a shout out to the tiltforums posts, esp Eric’s ideas/feedback, the matchplay software , and of course ifpa for answering any questions I throw at them
-Jeremy
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I don’t know the background story here, or who you are talking about. Doesn’t matter.
This TD is entitled to their opinion and protest, but that opinion should not stop you and those in your community who do want the sanctioned events from pursuing points toward the NACS.
Does the TD own every machine in Indiana? (Of course not)
If you want NACS points for your community, YOU make it happen. Sure you can still support that TD’s non-sanctioned events, but this is not about them, it is about what you and the competitive community in your area want.
So what do you do?
Step 1: Be your own TD and organizer
ANYBODY can register an IFPA event, it does not to be one of the established guard. You can work with a friend and both serve as TDs. The community will be very helpful to you if you are basically starting a grassroots movement.
Step 2: Pick a place to play.
Hold an IFPA event at a public place, a collector’s home, etc. Players don’t need permission to show up at a public place. Just be respectful of the venue’s rules, other patrons and have methods in place for dealing with game malfunctions, stuck balls etc, if you don’t have access to the keys. If the games have extra balls, either say play it as it lies, or have an on your honor plunge system.
Collectors can avoid publicly posting their address (IFPA will need it for the registration, but won’t post it) and can limit the number of people at their house, by saying 20 max, for example, they just can’t cherry pick the attendees.
Step 3: Pick a format.
For most new TDs and players, the X strikes format is simple, flexible and popular. Use the matchplay software to make your life easy. A 20 person 3x event can usually be done within a 4-5 hour window.
Step 4: Fees and Prizes
At first, you can keep it low key with bragging rights only or some certificate awarded etc, The low entry fees and lack of cash prizes avoids problems with any TD inexperience or venue glitchy games causing frustration over some ruling or game malfunction causing potential large cash prize swings.
You could say entry fee is only a dollar to cover the IFPA registration fees. Heck, if it is a 20 person event, call it FREE, front it yourself as an act of good faith to the competitive community and your willingness to promote IFPA pinball.
As you gain more experience or have access to games to address issues, the entry fee and prize fund can increase.
Step 5: Run it, post the results to IFPA, collect WPPR points for the community
Step 6: Lather, rinse, repeat
In short, If there are games in your area, there are plenty of ways YOU can create your own destiny.
And yes, it is that simple.
Best of success to you guys.
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As you say, who it is doesn’t matter, but again, I’m not looking for solutions to my problem. I’m aware that anyone can be a TD, and that I could travel to play in sanctioned events elsewhere, if it was such a big problem for me. However, going back to the beginning of the thread (again, late to the party - sorry about that):
The answer to this question is yes, and I’m providing an example. It was previously very convenient for us - 3/4 weeks of a month was league, the 4th week a different TD held a monthly tournament at the same location. Now that 4th week is unsanctioned, and we no longer receive points towards NACS.
Can I start running a competing event against my friend, the TD? Sure. But again, I’m not looking for solutions, simply providing an example where the $1 has had an adverse effect on our community.
I’m curious if Josh has any way to quantify how many other TDs have made the same decision. Obviously the numbers show that the majority of TDs have not quit running tournaments, and that’s great, but in IN it’ll be the direct cause of 40% of last year’s field not qualifying for this year’s tournament.
No blames, no complaints, no arguments, just providing a counterpoint.
Edit: 1 person from our area has traveled 3 hrs to Ft Wayne to play in 2 tournaments (and won them both), so he will qualify, otherwise it would be 50% of all the competitors that would not be qualifying this year.