It’s pretty basic, and the foundation of what WPPR v5.0 onwards is based on.
The more games played in determining a result, the less volatile and be trusted that result is.
If I play my mom in ONE GAME, she’s far more likely to beat me then if we play Best of 3, or Best of 5, or Best of 7.
I think the head to head component of a tournament or league is a good thing. Simply playing well by yourself against the machine to get solid scores, while a fair indication of skill, is not capturing the full essence of a competition. Showing up and playing clutch against 1-3 opponents in each game of the finals captures that high anxiety moment and the adrenaline rush of a victory or near defeat. You can play in a herb style and get your scores but showing up when it counts isn’t the real test. I know that first hand I missed the circuit final by a round or two and qualified 10th and 6th but finished 17th and 15th. Those other players deserved it, some won despite not having a bye or game choice. One of the hardest things to do pressure wise is drive that bus and not run it off a cliff.
wait which one is you
Nice. Should have worn a tux for the occasion. 
Welp, I’ve had my fill of IFPA rankings discussion for the remainder of the year. 
Some of us in NYC have always found Superleague a little unseemly! Just took others a little longer to get with the program!
Welp, rumors out of our Midtown East office are that the tyranny of Modern Super League has ended, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Not sure of the details but it seems due to some onerous bureaucratic requests from the powers that be, Super League players will now actually be forced to actually exist in human form, which causes a problem for the current model.
I’m kinda bummed because I was starting to consider padding out my card with some Super League, but now I’ll never know the joy - tempered by secret shame - that I’ve always imagined would unleash endorphins in my pinball-addled mind.
If the rumors are true, anyway.
Details!?
Yeah. Don’t leave us hanging.
The biggest issue with respect to Super League that we heard was whether or not people realized if they were even participating in a tournament or not.
For most events it’s easy to assume that someone has paid an entry fee, or signed a registration form to official acknowledge their interest in competing in the event at hand.
At some point in the past I had requested that Modern Pinball start having players sign a registration form marking their interest to compete in Super League. The miscommunication came that this was something that I wanted every month. Instead the participant was registered the first time they entered Modern, checked the “YES” box for wanting to play in Super League, and then it was assumed that player was interested in having every game they ever played within Modern’s wall as a Super League game in perpetuity.
This leaves a situation where AT BEST it’s unclear whether a player intends on wanting to participate and have their scores recorded, and AT WORST allows every score from every player that is playing in the building the opportunity to be recorded, and for that interest in participating to be ‘assumed’.
Our goal now was to make sure it was CRYSTAL CLEAR to those players participating in Super League that they are verified to be explicitly interested in that part of their visit to Modern Pinball.
With trying to ensure that the IFPA isn’t being exploited by the inclusion of players that aren’t actively participating in an IFPA endorsed event, we sent over an IFPA registration form be filled out for each participant of Super League. The form was a copy of the registration form our location uses for our selfie league here in Chicago.
Due to the logistics of needing to get this registration sheet signed and sent over to us, Modern Pinball has instead opted to only include the finalists that compete for Super League in the results submitted to the IFPA, which was an alternative solution that I offered.
In addition . . . due to the issues of things being unclear with respect to players being aware they were actively qualifying we’re making the 50% participation rule retroactive ‘as much as possible’. Because Super League has all of their qualifying results posted on their website, we’re able to pull out those players that didn’t play in at least 50% of the qualifying games.
We will also be investigating any qualifying results we can find from past events (with the help of a mystery volunteer) from all results in our database from 2015 and 2016. If you are the TD of an event that may have included these players, you may receive an email at some point in the future from me.
For entertainment purposes, here’s the WPPR rankings pre-nuke and post-nuke for the previously top 100 ranked Super League players:
Pre-Nuke
6 Steven Bowden 890.92
23 Greg Poverelli 569.1
29 Alberto Santana 545.27
33 Sean Grant 542.75
34 Francesco La Rocca 534.13
43 Lee Hendelman 471.29
55 Basci Dinc 425.3
70 Eric Asher 390.54
74 Frederick Asher 375.9
Post-Nuke
11 Steven Bowden 779.76
58 Alberto Santana 406.37
71 Sean Grant 373.41
98 Greg Poverelli 333.05
146 Francesco La Rocca 278.36
394 Lee Hendelman 156.11
277 Basci Dinc 199.41
499 Frederick Asher 125.76
525 Eric Asher 120.97
Thanks for doing this Josh. I really believe a lot of the players had over inflated ranks and this will even things out. The good players are still at the top while the others are adjusted to more accurate levels.
If you’re on page 6 of the ifpa rankings, this is your f*cking warning! I’m coming after you clowns! You thought you didn’t like having me ahead of you? You’re gonna HATE having me in the rearview!!!
“Here is how its going to go down. You got @pinwizj right here, okay? And first you got PPL coming in. Nice IFPA league, back from a dream finals, we know it’s okay because we correspond! So the PPL gets WPPRs! Its easy, we understand that? Perfect! Now who’s up next? Uh-oh! Uh-oh, its Modern! Whoa, whoa, slow your roll honey! And then we’re gonna pare em’ down, and then we’re gonna read the players’ emails, and if we don’t like the answers (WHICH WE WON’T), BOOM! GUANTANAMO BAY!”
I think that’s a dangerous precedent you’re setting there. Especially if you don’t retrospectively amend ALL other rule changes for ALL other submissions for ALL still actively contributing events.
As an example of the implications that this will have:
Lets say player A won a Modern league. This will increase his rating, which in turn gives a boost to any other tournament he enters, meaning that whoever competes in that second, or third, etc., tournament is getting additional points based on the incorrectly awarded boost from the win at Modern. Every player then carries this boost into every other tournament they enter.
Are these all going to be rolled back?
I think that the stance should be consistent with previous rule changes: The rules have changed from “this specific date”, we’re not going back and changing anything before then.
This is the answer I’ve received when querying previous rule changes.
Every single rule change will negatively effect some people and positively effect others.
I have to say that this looks like bullying Modern, who’s going to be the next target, because they’re not in the “cool gang”?
