Pinburgh 2018 sob stories

Pinburgh self-sorts pretty effectively. No need to declare divisions up front.

Division B at Pinburgh is WAY different than a Division B at any other tournament because of the sheer number of players.

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Incorrect. I was in that group. Player one tilted ball one with 2500 points. The player did make a move but it wasn’t a large one. Player two played and tilted ball four with a finesse flip (lightly tapping the cabinet while flipping). I was played three and tilted ball one with 6000 points and I only depressed the flipper button with no nudging. What’s hard is that after tilt #1 the techs played a reasonable game with forward but not side nudging. but based on my flip-tilt I think that player two’s tilt affected the bob. When the bob was examined it seemed, to me, ‘rusty’ or ‘sticky’ in such a way. I believe what happened is the tilt bob got ‘stuck’ after a tilt resting near the tilt bob. And when the techs played their game they had touched the tilt bob and reset its position. Because player 2 didn’t call for a tech I didn’t get a reset-position of the bob and so pressing the right flipper button tilted me. I remember vehemently protesting player 1’s complaint about the tilt after the tech played his test game. Only when it happened to me, after zero movement, did I understand.

I would also say that I had thoughts, after a very bad day #1 where I was very despondent about my level of play, of just taking an early flight home. I had been preparing so much for Pinburgh and played well last year, so to be force-seeded into C (probably had enough points for D) was a real letdown.

However, I managed to chill out. I figured, I’m already there, I could win $2000 in C, and its important that I learn to calm down and be a good sport. And I’m glad I did, it paid off. I got to play some great games day 2 (Tron bank w/ Dragon! Two different GoldenEyes which I blew up both of them! Aztec!), met some cool people, and ended up winning $500.

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Ok, TWENTY NINE POSTS before that were all talking about Day 2 check-ins and no-shows. Doug comes in and make a comment about checkins for Saturday… which NO ONE WAS TALKING ABOUT… and afterwards even he admitted he caused the confusion by interjecting a different point (which yes, is covered in the rules).

And if you read my post… It said " I’ve never seen them advertise anyone even bother checking in beyond startup and finals."

So I’m pretty aware of the rule snip you came in days later with. So thanks for telling me “you’re wrong” days later. You’re the best

Here’s the entire chain of posts. When I say “you are wrong”, I mean that you were completely unaware about what @jeffpm was talking about.

Jeff was a Division C player, so when he’s asking about no-shows for Division C, it’s about Saturday.

He is talking about finals, not day 2. So when you said “the conversation was about day 2… not finals”, you are wrong.

Thanks for suggesting I didn’t read your post! That’s probably a good plan, actually.

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Yeah good point. I guess I was looking at it from purely a “who should be restricted” standpoint.

My sob story is that my play was wildly inconsistent. I was either red hot or ice cold. Despite that, I had a blast!

I think there’s a good point in there though, why are there D restrictions when there’s no money in E, and thus no incentive to sandbag out of D?

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Get your 10 foot poles out for this discussion folks. The thread police have activated!

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Mine is not a sob story per se, although I was sobbing (well, bitching - is that the same?) Thursday night. My first PB, and after an 11 on the last round, I ended up with 29 points, very respectable so I was told by the folks in that last group - and so I started looking at the scores for C division, and clearly that’s where I was going! Exciting!
Nope. D division (in 9th). Now, to be really honest, D division is probably the right place for me, I have an 1800 or so ifpa after 2 and 1/2 years playing in the monthly tournaments here in Texas, and I made the playoffs in D, which it would seem unlikely I would have done in C. But this structure where everyone and their brother is restricted to C is very frustrating. I saw 17 people (if I remember correctly) that had fewer points that went to C. And a few with fewer points that went to B. I don’t know the answer - I understand the issue with sandbagging - but damn. Basically I have to play way better than C division restricted guy just to get a chance to get the same woppers that he gets just for showing up. Something about that just doesn’t seem right.
Let me finish with this - what a fantastic experience PB was. Going had become a sort of bucket list thing - wanted to go at least one time - and I am so glad I did. I had a great time, and I’m very appreciative of all the work that went into pulling that monster off successfully.

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I could have written this. Yes, I loved the event and can’t believe all the effort that went into making it work. Also, I got a 29 on day one and watched my friends get restricted to higher divisions with fewer points. I also probably “deserve” to be in D, I’m a new player, but it stung a bit to think past performance got players with worse scores ahead of me.

That said, I wasn’t in the running for money at any point and never expected to be. I understand that the rules need to be established around avoiding ill-doings among those with a greater chance at winning cash. Still stung. Still can’t wait to go back.

What stings worse, watching someone get .2 more WPPRs than you due to restrictions, or watching a good player who played badly on day 1 mop the floor in lower div finals and win $1000?

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Haha. How do you think I felt seeing 31 people get bumped up to D from E? 42 if you count people with the same win-loss record as me.

I AM NOT BITTER.

Is there a reason they don’t just put everyone who qualified for a division, and the people restricted into it, into the division? Doesn’t seem like having a few more people in one division than another would affect things?

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They used to do just that. Why they stopped who knows.

Believe me, I would have rather played in E for funsies than get restricted into the bottom of D as happened! I was not playing even well enough to excel in D this year, sadly.

It’s definitely a dilemma and I understand the reason they do it as they do, but the WPPRs you can get just from being in a higher division can be rather significant. I finished at the bottom of B my first year (not restricted so I’m still awfully proud of that!) and it earned me nearly 8 points, which remained in my top 20 for a couple of years.

Pinburgh never did that, Todd.

The purpose is to avoid over-populating divisions to the point where it is too difficult to make playoffs in some divisions (and then too easy to make playoffs in others). There was also an issue, back when everyone with the same record went to the same division, where adding the restricted players could change the cutoff, pushing an even bigger pile of players into that division. With the new rules about how players move into divisions, that’s no longer a problem.

This is definitely an issue the team will consider for 2019. Thanks for everyone’s feedback!

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Thanks for proving my point.

For me it’s just about pride, not points, and I understand the rules can’t thrill everyone. Happy to have had the opportunity to play and I recognize I’m not in the group where division really matters. I’m just in it for fun.

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