Intergalactic Pinball Championship @ ReplayFX Announced!

Intergalactic Pinball Championship

OVERVIEW:
In lieu of a consolation tournament for Pinburgh, ReplayFX will now include a second WPPR-eligible pinball tournament open to all players. This tournament has been structured in a way to give anyone who desires more competitive pinball during the ReplayFX weekend a chance to continue playing, and also as a way to solicit donations for a group of charities hand-picked by the Replay Foundation staff. The tournament format will be Limited Best Game.

In exchange for a $10 donation toward one of the charities listed below, each player will receive 10 tickets, with each ticket representing one game on a qualifying machine. Players may not purchase additional tickets, which makes this tournament “limited” when compared to other Best Game or “Herb”-style pinball tournaments. The available qualifying bank will consist of 12 pinball machines drawn from all eras.

Qualifying scoring will follow standard PAPA World Championship procedures:
1st place on a qualifying machine will equal 100 points, 2nd will equal 90 points, 3rd will equal 85 points, 4th will equal 84 points, and so on. The sum of points from the player’s best scores on 4 games will be used to rank players throughout the qualifying portion of the tournament. Only a player’s best score on each machine will be counted.

This is an IFPA endorsed tournament; anyone is eligible to play.

SCHEDULE:

Saturday
10:00am – Open qualifying and registration.
10:00am – 5:00pm – Qualifying open.
5:00pm – 9:00pm – Qualifying closed. Go watch Pinburgh finals.
9:00pm – 1:30am – Qualifying re-opens.
1:30am – Qualifying ends.

Sunday
9:00 – 9:30am – Check-In for Finals
9:30am – Finals Begin
COST:
$10 donation to any of the following charities at registration: Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, RAINN, Replay Foundation, Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, or Wounded Warrior Project.

FINALS:
At the end of qualifying Sunday, the top 40 players will qualify for finals. Any players tied on the qualifying bubble will qualify for finals.

Finals will be conducted as a 3 strike knockout tournament. Players will be grouped in 3 or 4 player groups and play one randomly assigned game. Players will record the results and return the scoresheet to the registration desk. The players who finish 3rd and 4th (or 2nd and 3rd in 3 player groups) will receive strikes.

After all results are recorded groups will be drawn again. Players will be grouped with other players with a similar number of strikes. Once a player has received 3 strikes they are eliminated from the event.

Play continues until there is only 1 player remaining. That player will be crowned the Intergalactic Pinball Champion.

PRIZES:
All prizes consist of ReplayFX store credit. All credit won must be redeemed before the end of the show Sunday at 5pm.

1st: $150 +Trophy
2nd: $100 +medal
3rd: $70 +medal
4th: $50 +medal
5th-10th: $30
11th-20th: $25
21st-30th: $20
Any ties in final standings will be decided by initial qualifying seed.

9 Likes

Great idea (and thanks for adding it) but … most of us flying already booked our flights … any guess as to ending time?

My best estimate would be finals ending around 4:30 PM Sunday.

4 players 3 strikes knock out are fun for sure, 6-7 hours seems to be a safe estimate for 12-13 rounds in average. Giving strikes to 2nd/3rd in groups of 3 will help expedite a little bit.
Though if you end up with a lot of A+ player grouped together due to them not having strikes (Swiss match up) that one group may take 45-60 minutes to play their game while every one else is done :wink:

I am happy my flight is 7PM on Sunday now only need to qualify :slight_smile:

The old consolation always seemed like a bit of a cluster, so this is a welcomed change :slight_smile:

Schedule sounds a bit less sexy with it ending on sunday and having booked flights out before then… Though i’m not sure I would book flights later just for this, so as a data point something to note.

noticed this on facebook and they sent me a reply that they are going to change the day but it should say Saturday not Sunday

Great idea. And It’s LIMITED qualifying. :heart_eyes:

This sounds like a big improvement over the old consolation tourney. If you’ve been following the Herb=Funny math thread, if my math is correct you would need to average 13.33 place over the four best games to qualify in the top 40. Of course, having some #1 or #2 will help a lot.

Aw man, and I was looking forward to breaking my old ‘total players in tournament’ record!

2 Likes

PRIZES:
All prizes consist of ReplayFX store credit. All credit won must be redeemed before the end of the show Sunday at 5pm.

mad dash to spend?

We promise we won’t close the store until finals are over. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Will Ghostbusters be in Pinburgh? :slight_smile:

PAPA Doesn’t own a Ghostbusters yet.

I know of two Ghostbusters on public route in Pittsburgh not far from the Convention Center - Ace’s (5 ball!) a few blocks across town and Kickback in Lawrenceville (about 3 miles away in a neighborhood with great restaurants, bars, & shops). Both are actively tracked on Pittsburgh’s Pinball Map.

1 Like

Actually I was asking for another reason :wink: If I were a tournament director I would not use it at this time :smiling_imp:

1 Like

Do tell… :wink:

By the way, I really encourage folks to explore a little if they have extra time while visiting Pittsburgh - I started another thread for chatter about what else is fun to do around here, check it out and post if you want recommendations - ReplayFX/Pinburgh Tourist Advice

@Nick_BuffaloPinball

Might want to look into this?

We just ran the Pintastic show tournament this weekend with Ghostbusters and had no problem at all. No glitches, scoring bugs or tech issues at all. Never had to open the game. Nearly 800 plays logged on it including the tournament after party.

Also congrats to Lyman for winning the tournament this weekend too.

what’s he going to find? Keith is either hinting at some playfield validation trick or scoring exploit that he found. I’m not going to find it either because after about 4 games or so of Ghostbusters my hands hurt too much from smacking the cabinet and I don’t get to take the glass off. oh well. won’t miss it at pinburgh