We’ll keep waiting for someone to find that unicorn 
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I’ve acknowledged as such elsewhere. Point being… just having a ranking system doesn’t make it suitable for all evaluations. Nor does blanket ‘outsourcing’ your decisions to a body you don’t control always make for a sound choice.
Yeah the IFPA rankings are not perfect and there are certainly players that are not ranked or are ranked super low that are way better than what those metrics indicate. However I don’t see how changing the ifpa restrictions will be a bad thing.
@bkerins have you guys thought about adjusting the splits? What are the pros and cons of making A top 100, B top 500, and C top 800?
Not sure if this is another topic, but should be read by would be sandbaggers.
I had 27 points going into round 5 and had full intention of going for the A cutoff. I got a 6 and was disappointed that I did not make the 34 cutoff (I thought it was going to be 34)
I quickly accepted that while I was going to finish outside of A, that my chances of making finals in B was a much more realistic goal. That best I had done was 81 in A (2015).
So the results post and to my surprise I see all the 33’s got bumped up. I was initially a bit frustrated and was almost going to talk to Bowen about how messed up it was that players below the top 200 might as well forget about the possibility of making finals at such a deficit not to mention the wall of talent already defending the top 40 spots.
I quickly changed my attitude and just decided to see what I could do playing my best and attempt to finish higher than my previous best.
So day 2 starts, I am sitting at seed 209 going into round 6. And on top of that I am grouped with my good friend Per who is one of the last people I want to be playing against when I need to score points. I put up 3 points and drop to seed 240… I was pissed off.
Next round I am still determined to climb back up to at least 150 to match my 2016 performance and it seems like a realistic goal.
Round 7: I score 7 points and I am playing well and regain a bit more confidence.
Round 8: 11 points. I had 9 points going into game 4 and my focus shifted to “I want and effing medallion!” Almost got it. Also realized that I just got a huge bump. About 100 spots to seed 124. I was back in it. I was joking with friends. Now I just need 2 more of those and I should b good.
Round 9: I am feeling super confident and playing great! Game one player 1 I am up on WH20 and put up at 250m ball 1. This pretty much lit me on fire. Finish the Round with 9 points. Yes! Shit just got real.
Round 10: do or die. Oh great Keith Johnson in my group. Everyone in my group needs to win big. This is going to suck. I was a bit nervous, but was just going to keep playing my best and forgot about my opponents. After being down as player 1 going into a couple ball 3s and coming back from behind. I scored 11 wins.
By far the best feeling I have felt playing competitive pinball so far.
I qualified 22 seed for A finals.
I played my best and advanced 2 rounds of finals and finished 10th tied with the number 1 ranked player in the world.
Moral of the story. Don’t sandbag. Just play your ass off and good things will happen.
ZRW
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[quote=“flynnibus, post:60, topic:2953”]
When the divisions are set based on a single day… on a format that is INTENTIONALLY throwing wild things at players… and the split is only 1-6 game finish positions over 20 games… Divisions aren’t always going to be mapped purely based on what people perceive the player’s abilities to be.
…
I think the problem is worst at the A/B line simply because the skill curve at the top of these divisions makes it very difficult for some one to get restricted due to past performance… and the skill range is so different at the top of A, it’s very difficult for low A players to be competitive.[/quote]
This is exactly it. When one hears the phrase “A Player,” one immediately thinks “Elwin, Sharpe, Belsito” but that group is actually “A Finalist.” There are plenty of A Players who can qualify sometimes if they’re on fire, or who play consistently well but not enough to make the upper echelons. It’s also about the bank of games! I’m an A Player, and on Friday I had a 2-point round because I’d never seen Flicker, Rocky & Bullwinkle, or Eight Ball before in my life. The point of finals is that not everyone qualifies for them, so there’s no mechanism to solve for that spits out 796 happy and well compensated finalists after 4 days. We’re all going to lose sometimes!
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I started as the #94 seed and finished tied for 94th. Pretty sure they’re perfect.
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MIND. BLOWN.
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In this case ignorance really is bliss.
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I don’t get the suggestions to dramatically change the seeding. Clearly people like the format, it sells out in an hour and there were waiting list people present who didn’t make it in. If the format is not for you, maybe give the spot to someone else.
I said this last year and I will say it again, I also still believe that some of the people bragging about sandbagging are just doing that to cover up playing below were they expected. Easier to tell your friends you sandbagged than failed. 1-handed play and stuff like that should just get thrown out of the tournament.
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^^Exactly! Sometimes you brick that shot you’ve made 300 times before in a do or die game and another player just walks up and flails two fully lit meteor spinners when they were really just trying to get the drops down… totally not speaking from experience last Thursday… 
@bkerins perhaps it is just a matter of increasing the restrictions based around qualifying the finals rather than getting to the top 4?
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Not really a suggestion, but this thread made me curious as to how differently things would play out if:
- Players weren’t broken into divisions until after round 10
OR - Players weren’t broken into divisions until after round 10, AND divisions were simply made up of the top 160. (A: 1st-40th, B: 41st-80th, etc.)
OR - All players who finish high enough to win any amount of money are restricted to the next higher division for the following year, but they can avoid the restriction by agreeing to forfeit their payout.
Personally, I am far too proud, and have too much respect for the tournament organizers and fellow competitors to do anything but play my best on every ball. I’m there because I want to be in A, and I want to measure my abilities against the best.
That said, it does sting a little to feel like I’d actually be rewarded with much easier path to $$$ for slightly worse play/luck on day 1, giving me the advantage of starting day 2 as a high seed against a field that excludes the majority of the top players.
I guess one positive is that getting into A means I’m less likely to have to play against the kind of people who are selfish enough to sandbag. I bet a lot of them are the same people who have to shake the game around and rage tilt after every single drain 
Regardless, the positive aspects of the format outweigh the negatives by far for me, and there’s no way I’m going to let the presence of a few shameless cheaters affect my good time.
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For every sandbagging instance I heard of, there were also instances where a player was trying to make A and didn’t because his or her set 5 group played as best they could. I know of one player who lost a point to another player by 1000 points on Stars that would have gotten him into A, and the other player it didn’t matter to but they played it out anyway. My set 5 group, any of us get 11 and they’re in and one player had an 8 going into final game. He got 4th that game and didn’t advance because we were still playing our best.
For that matter, I’ve heard other players COMPLAIN about players that had nothing to earn but still played their best in set 5 rather than sandbag or let another player earn points to help them get into a better division. Personally, I won’t ever do that because if I did, I’d probably be hurting a friend in another group that was also on the bubble. Besides all the other obvious reasons, helping out someone in your group most definitely will negatively affect someone else you know in the tournament.
So even though players hear about sandbagging, it doesn’t mean it is the entire story. There are far more unheard examples of players playing as best they can regardless of divisions on day 1, and in my opinion they outweigh players that do make it into a lower division due to sandbagging.
Something else to remember, better players sometimes have bad days, bad games, bad bounces or minor malfunctions that affect their ability to make A (or B) division, and other less skilled players perform very well and make it into those divisions when they don’t expect to do so. That is an earned accomplishment and a player should be proud to have performed that well.
I wish I had played better and made A division like the last 2 years, but this year just wasn’t for me (and EMs turned out to be my nemesis again).
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Beyond sandbagging can we just acknowledge that Pinburgh has a vastly higher variance than any other major and that that might be a contributing factor to a lot of what looks like sandbagging? Not saying sandbagging doesn’t happen as I’ve literally had multiple people tell me they were intentionally shooting for a lower division in round 5, but when the cut between A to C is like 5 points (or less), and you have banks like RStones/Hang Glider/Pinbot/Pinball Champ 82, is it a shock that someone might flop in round 5 and fall from A to C?
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Doubt that would shock anyone here
This group pretty much dropped me to D. Haha. Got an effing 2. I was excited to play hang glider though. That’s a cool game. The rest of that bank can go kick rocks. Haha
Also what should we do if someone in our group day 2 mid round freaks out, goes over and signs the score sheet and then just ghosts? As in doesn’t play the rest of the round. Also there was at least one game left. I assume this should be brought to the TD’s attention as well?
Time to suppress standings until after round 5
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Amazing story! Thanks for sharing.
Most of my feelings about sandbagging/this thread in general/my own experience at Pinburgh can be summed up in two words that apply to almost any situation in pinball;
PLAY BETTER!
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I purposefully pay no attention to the standings during Thursday, as I feel it would just distract me with more things to think about. I had assumed I was in low to middle B going into round 5 based on general estimates, but had no inkling the A cutoff would be a mere 3 games over .500. Last game (Aerosmith), I’m P4, ball 4, 2.5M in last place, 25M down from 3rd. I managed to start Toybox MB and put up 50M to take one point, which threw me into that 56-way tie for bottom of A.
Food for thought: Had I been paying close attention, and known I was one point out of A on that last ball, I would have skipped the 3-ball Toybox MB, and instead gone for a 6-ball Toybox instead (locks were already lit), in an attempt to surpass the 1st place player at 90M. I would have played as hard as I could have to get that 6ball MB, 1st place and two more spots higher in A, but also doing so with the knowledge that failure meant high B seed, which was also nice. Is risky play in round 5 considered sandbagging?
SANDBRAGGING!!!
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I often hear people make excuses for playing poorly, but it’s usually along the lines of, “I shouldn’t even be here, I’m super sick. Just thought I’d show my face.” I think (based on anecdotal evidence) that it’s more common for people to blame their performance on other factors than it is to make up a story about intentionally playing poorly in order to get ahead in other ways (especially when that’s commonly frowned upon). But obviously that doesn’t apply to everyone.