I assume these questions can only be answered by @pinwizj but i figured others might be interested in the answers if they exist currently.
So last year I was watching this event on twitch and it looked awesome. I’d really love to attend in 2016 and take my wife but she doesn’t play. Im hoping I can play in the event but also do things with the wife and create a good balance.
Last year the tee times were 10am, 2pm, 6pm. Will there be similar times in 2016 and does it take about 4 hours to complete a course?
Last year there were some participants that appeared to wander off which created delays. If I had a participant in my group that did this it would cause issues, especially if i had plans made. Will this rule “Any player who is absent when he or she has a ball to play, whether in qualifying or final rounds, will be given a maximum of three minutes to return.” be strictly enforced? If not, this would inhibit my ability to plan.
I’m sure I have additional questions ill add as I think of them.
With 9 holes and a shotgun start we’re limited to 36 players per tee-time. Last year we ended up with 68 players, so we actually ditched the 10am tee time and only went with 2pm and 6pm. For pinball tournament timing things were “okay”. Little longer than 4 hours, but not too terrible.
With the amount of effort it took to pull off two tee times last year, I’m not sure if we want to add that third tee time and expand the field to accommodate 108 players. Between the National Championship and Women’s Championship potentially making up 40-50 Pin-Masters players we’re still evaluating this.
Yes, the rule will be in effect. After 3 minutes where a player is completely missing, their ball will be plunged and the game will move on to the next player. It definitely impacted not only that group, but with the shotgun start it ends up impacting all the players on the course when delays like that happen.
It sounds like your leaning towards the Pin-Masters just being made up of the participants in the following two groups?
IFPA US National Pinball Championship –> March 17, 2016 (Las Vegas)
IFPA Women’s World Pinball Championship –> March 17, 2016 (Las Vegas)
If that is the case, would you consider making the machines 3-ball instead of 5-ball which would allow you to take additional participants since the time to complete the course would be reduced. (just thinking out-loud)
I’ll talk it over with Zach, but I’m not opposed to doing 10 or 11 groups and simply having all the groups have to wait to get through their round a little longer, and doing a 1pm and a 7pm or something like that. There’s a balance for us as organizers to still being in Vegas and wanting to have a good time, and not be stuck at the PHOF from 9am to midnight each day.
With respect to switching to 3 ball, the foundation of our scoring system is based in those 5-ball par scores with the 6-10 percentage based scoring playing an integral part in what makes the event so special. We’re not going to want to fuck with that.
With Trailer Tom’s Women’s Championship being held last year, I think it was already a decent dry run for dealing with the player base from Nationals and Women’s already being part of the Pin-Masters field.
Last year we had 10 women play in Pin-Masters, and 31 players out there for Nationals, and still didn’t even manage to fill all 72 open slots. I’m assuming the player count for 2016 will be extremely similar overall . . . and in case I’m wrong, pre-register early
I’m very guilty of poking fun at Kevin over the years and have certainly had my fair share of frustration with him but I’d really hate to think he was hazed out of the hobby. I’d like to suggest we stop using his name in reference to the 3 minute rule, even if it’s his behavior which inspired it. The guy hasn’t exactly had life easy and he seems to have “quit pinball” as of late.
If you’re running into capacity issues, one way to deal with it is to split players into two large groups based on ifpa rank. Then take the top x from each group to go on to the finals. Adds some admin overhead, for sure, but takes a lot of strain off the wait times.
I planned to implement this in 2013 at PAGG because the tournament was hitting it’s cap very quickly and obviously far below demand, but space issues became a problem. Tom Collins has run the tournament the last couple years and added the two banks as well as tee times, and it ran very smoothly with around 140 players doing 6 holes last year. The whole thing runs in a single day to be casual-friendly.
FWIW I had a great time playing in Pin-Masters even though I sucked ass. I was just out there and talked to Sal who works at PHOF and he’s really pulling for more space and a larger bank to be set aside as well but we’ll see. It was a fun time and I am sure, @ZenTron your wife could occupy herself while you are playing - plenty in Vegas to do and around that time of year it’s not too brutally hot
