Seems like the new WPPR hasn’t made a massive dent into Modern super league points fiesta, what format are they using this year t ostill get 100+meaningful players and 100% TGP? 
Superleague has no set format. It’s whatever it wants to be. At the end of 2016 FLR was testing various formats he could run for week-long superleagues. The qualifying portion is now a short 7 games, and you need to play 4 to be a valid player. This qualifying period now lasts longer instead of being a new set of 7 games every week. The finals portion played on Sunday is set up so that it will always hit 100% tgp.
In the first season you can see that out of 101 players exactly 18 played all 8 qualifying games. The rest played exactly 4 games: http://www.modernpinballnyc.com/superleague/live-standings.asp
13 players showed up to finals and played some finals format which allowed them to reach 100%
v5.31 coming with a slight tweak
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It’s funny that it’s still called a league.
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why do only 13 people play finals when 100 participate in qualifying? I don’t understand this format at all. Haha
They need to advance at least 10% of the participants into the ‘direct play’ finals.
What made me laugh was when I read this:
New rule : 4 games needed to be ranked but 5 as MUST to play in final
And then I saw that only 18 out of the 101 for January played 5+ games, 
The remaining 83 had no intent to play finals by their own rules.
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Yeah, this made me a little curious, because by their own rules only those 18 players were actually eligible to advance to finals … then 13 did. That is pretty weird, though no weirder than taking 13 players to a finals bracket
Exactly . . . drilling down on the intention of players to actually try and compete to ‘win’ the tournament is the v5.31 tweak to our rules.
For most tournaments/leagues out there, the participation rule will remain the same (must play in at least 50% of the qualifying requirements.
For events with more than 50 players, this percentage will be based on the number of participants. For example, a tournament with 75 players will only be allowed to submit results where a player participated in at least 75% of the qualifying requirements. Any tournament with 100 players or more can only include players that have participated in 100% of the qualifying requirements. Players that advance to the final round despite not meeting this percentage may also be included in the final standings submitted to the IFPA.
So in Modern’s case, if they have over 100 participants, they can only include the players that “fully participated”. This means that they either have to remove those 83 players from the standings OR lower their qualifying process to only be based on 4 games, in which case all of those players actually have a chance to compete to win the tournament (versus right now it being IMPOSSIBLE for them to win based on Modern’s rules).
So Modern changes the rules to 4 games, everyone is counted, but then only 10-20 people show up for finals because the other 80% couldn’t care less (which is my perception based on those January numbers). What happens then?
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We can’t make the players care regardless of where they qualify, but hopefully if any of those players put together a solid qualifying run and actually DO make finals . . . maybe they are motivated to come back and compete?
We’re simply trying to put them in a position to care more about competing, versus being guaranteed that they can’t compete under the current rules.
My guess is most likely nothing changes, then I put in an executive order that any event run out of that building gets a max TGP of 25% . . . and we get Mexico to pay for it! 
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Who’s ready for some Super Sidewalk League?
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you know what the final format was? with only 8 games during qualifiers they need another 48% TGP from the finals right?
In that case, if everyone plays the qualifying games then they kinda have to be counted. The issue may reside in the low minimum turnout for the finals for such a large qualifying base? 10% of 100 player really isn’t much, no actual tournament would go below 16 or 24 players finals, especially with 100 “meaningful” players?
Just to be sure I’m understanding what you mean by these “qualifying requirements” in larger events…
I’m playing in a 100 player Herb tournament where the best 6 games count and I only put in scores for 5 games and fail to make playoffs. Will I be included in the final standings?
Or say Pinburgh… I play in 9 of the 10 sessions, out of playoff contention, decide to drop out before session 10. Will I be included in the final standings?
No you won’t.
No you won’t.
I’m waiting for any good players at Pinburgh to intentionally skip session 10 so they can be removed from the standings, and save their IFPA Rating from getting demolished
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Follow up… what if a player DOES qualify without playing 100% of the qualifying portion in a situation like this. Will they be counted based on their performance in playoffs, regardless of falling short on 100% of the qualifying requirement?
“Players that advance to the final round despite not meeting this percentage may also be included in the final standings submitted to the IFPA.”
Yes, if Keith actually did sit out session 10, still qualified as the #1 seed, and killed everyone in finals . . . he would be included in the IFPA standings as winning Pinburgh
Ah, sorry I should have gone back and read that again after the initial question!
Let’s take a step back from the details of % participation, exact player #s, etc, and look at this from a big picture perspective.
The thing that is most disappointing about what FLR is doing at Modern is the seemingly deliberate attempts to exploit the system and/or just do the bare minimum for the sake of inflating/maximizing IFPA ranking for a set few people. They have such a great venue and opportunity to TRULY promote and advance competitive pinball among a large population, and yet the direct-play finals (arguably the only aspect of their format – and most formats – that involves the fun, situational, strategic, and social play that we all crave and love) are limited to the select few. They limit this critical aspect of competitive pinball to the point of minimizing the # of finals participants to meet the 10% rule.
They do some great things to introduce and promote PLAYING pinball in the NYC area, but I’d argue that Super “League” does very little to promote and grow true competitive pinball. Just having a large # of people that you convinced to play one game each on a handful of pins isn’t competing – that’s simply playing pinball and writing down their scores. Competing means actually caring what your scores were, wanting to improve them, getting better as a player, and trying to win.
Why no Super B division or Novice division finals to allow beginners or less skilled players the chance to taste finals action, or get to play against the Super high-ranked players?
Maybe I’m wrong. But I’m curious: how small is the set of players that are typically in Modern’s exclusive Finals club month to month?
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