There are (roughly) 16,764 people queueing around the convention centre to see Hillary later. Loads of Police sealing roads off etc. Hoping it’s not that that’s causing issues for Pinburgh steam?
The live results page has also been static for over an hour. Hope everything is going okay.
http://pinburgh.com/2016/live/finals/playerIndex.php?bracketId=1&set=Quarterfinals
Edit quarters just updated. Semi groups: http://pinburgh.com/2016/live/finals/playerIndex.php?bracketId=1&set=Semifinals
Edit stream is live: https://www.twitch.tv/papatvpinball
Now that I’m off mic, I can say…
HOLY FUCK TIES.
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We did better this year and finished by 1:30 
Also, by having two courses and alternating which course the newest foursome went to, we got everyone in that showed up and wanted to try.
For next year, which would people prefer - starting earlier and cutting off earlier to get done sooner or keep it as it is so that people can get into Pittsburgh a little later on Wednesday and still have a chance to play?
This was my first Pinburgh and it was everything I thought it would be and more. Everything ran extremely smoothly. Can’t wait for next year.
Kudos to PAPA, the techs, volunteers, TDs, etc… who put in a tremendous amount of work to put all this together.
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SThis year was incredible and last year was awesome. Each year it gets better. Here are a few bullet points on the positive from Pinburgh and Replayfx
- Pinball Olympics was a great addition
-Having the credit games together made a difference not many machines had zero credit in them except the zaccaria pinball machines. Maybe next year have all the zaccaria pins in it’s own section together - Bands both nights were really good , enjoyed playing video games and pinball listening to the music
-ping pong table was a plus maybe add more than 1
-casual seating especially in the concourse was a plus this year
-number designation on the sign boards were perfect
-having a TV monitor for status of A finals was spot on
-commentary from Bowen on finals was perfect but might need a longer microphone cord or go wireless speakers
-massage specialist was perfect
-special thanks to all volunteers, techs , and all the vendors there to help support this event
Here is a few notables to improve for next year
-more than 1 beer vendor man that line was packed and long especially with only 1 person working the area
-lets have the league trash talking tournament on Saturday night
-the lower playfield monitor on A finals were not visible as we saw plenty move to the left for the family guy games, maybe have one huge monitor with the twitch feed in middle of stage.
-could there be announcements from a overhead speakers to inform on events coming up and seminars to see
-maybe during trophy presentation recognize the winners of B,C, and D division winners
Overall great improvements to this event and had a blast meeting new people and spending time with old friends
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So who else got the VIP bag with all the goodies? I have no idea what the black plastic thing is - looks like a frame of some description, but not sure what for. Anyone?
I’ll probably make a longer post at some point, but in brief - awesome event again. Tournament went smooth like chocolate from what I saw, with pretty perfect timing on getting the rounds started and so on. Audience area was a great improvement since last year. Hopefully this is one area that can keep improving. Bowen’s announcements during finals (on score, position and so on) were great, but I heard some say that if you were sitting more than a few rows back the screens were hard to see (and in some cases players or machines would block view of the monitors). It’s almost a victim of it’s own success here, with hundreds of people wanting to watch the live finals I think still more could be done, so it will be interesting to see again next year.
It was so much fun I ended up missing ALL the discussion panels, and even missed the VIP party when the finals ran slightly late. Hope someone has video capture of some of those?
Haha, that’s a license plate frame for the US. You screw it in over your license plate, they usually have witty sayings, ads for the dealership, etc.
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I thought the two courses was a great idea and everything ran super smooth! Wish I could have come back for finals but we left ATX at 530a 
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Pinburgh/ReplayFX was magnitudes better this year (partly because I didn’t compete and flail this time and was in a much better mood as a result, but that’s besides the point).
Thanks to @bkerins and the rest for their hard work! The finals stage and seating area was a much needed improvement over the finals bank last year… and all the extra floor space throughout the expo was great, too.
Some improvements that would put it over the top for next year…
Better finals game visibility on the monitors – if all the monitors could be switched to the same machine, that would rock.
Larger monitors – or rather, a large monitor array front and center – a couple 2x2 or 3x3 monitors in an array would make the visuals YUUGE.
Looking forward to next year!
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This is wishful thinking but if we could squeeze one more round into Thursday qualifying it might make the point spread a little more and might have a better gap between A,B,C division.
All 3 divisions were pretty close A ended at 33.5 where B started going down to a 30 where there was 149 participants within 3 points of each other . In C division you had 30.5 down to 27 with majority within 3 points.
It was close between all divisions to qualify . I will probably get vilified for suggesting another round on Thursday but it might make a better gap between divisions.
Pete,
Thanks for running it again. Re timing, you’re right on the fine line now between too late a finish to get decent sleep for Pinburgh and too early a cutoff for people to get their rounds in. I’d probably keep the cutoff time where it is and just see if there’s a way to speed up the playoffs a hair. I’d also suggest is sequencing the machines so that the “fastest” ones are first and the “slowest” ones are last to avoid a bottleneck mid-round. A couple of games seemed to always have a wait on them, though I can’t now recall which ones after everything else that’s gone on this week. If some of the targets weren’t so high [the ones where half the people got 6’s or 7’s], rounds would take less time. And I’d leave out Hot Tip unless it’s flippers get some power.
Actually, adding another round is unlikely to change the divisional spread. I’ll be writing up all the stats on Pinburgh for the IFPA site once the standings are officially uploaded, but I can tell you now that the gaps moved by mere fractions each round from 2 to 5. After 2 rounds, the cuts were 15, 12 and 9; after 5 rounds, they were 34, 30.5 and 27. The normal distribution function is just going to make it that way.
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So 3.5 wins is the difference between A and C and 7 wins the difference between A and D?
No, these are the cut lines between divisions: the A/B cut line was 15 after 2 rounds, then 34 after 5 rounds; 12 and 30.5 were the B/C cut lines; 9 and 27 were the C/D cut lines. So after round 2, 15+ points had you in A [including ties, which move up], 12-14.5 in B, 9 to 11.5 in C and 0 to 8.5 in D. After round 5, 34+ put you in A, 30.5 to 33.5 in B, 27 to 30 in C and 0-26.5 in D.
Basically, most of the spread emerged in just two rounds - - the bottom of A was 6.5 points ahead of the top of D after two rounds [15 vs. 8.5], and that only moved out 1 point to 7.5 points by round five [34 vs. 26.5].
Hope that clear things up.
I think we’re saying the same thing (and I think what triadwatch is saying above also)—34 wins puts a player in A and 30 wins puts a player in C at the end of day 1. If so, that’s really really close. If you turn 1 win into a loss (or vice versa) over 20 games, you’ve gone from being on the cut line for A to C. I would have thought there would be a bigger difference I guess.
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I think that is the one and only thing I don’t like about the Pinburgh format. The points spread across divisions is just so tight.
It’s a much larger scale example of what was discussed in the Herb style thread where there are many more games that could be played in a bank beyond the number of games actually counted. That’s what resulted in the higher composite scores above the exoected average required to qualify.
In this case there are many more people playing only 5 rounds of qualifying matches for division placement that have little to no influence on all the other players. So ties and tight groupings will be inevitable.
Somebody with time on their hands could analyze the distribution and standard deviations.
Yes, it’s a fine line. If you had 26 points after game 1 of round 5, just three games left to play before the divisional cuts are made … you could still end up in ANY of the 4 divisions! Get 8 or 9 of the remaining 9 and you’re in A; 5-7 and you’re in B; 1-4, you’re in C; 0 and you’re in D. I’ll put that in the article.
One more article preview:
After Round 9, by division, how many players had enough to make it in already and how many still had a mathematical chance, i.e. they were within 12 of the tiebreaker?
A: 6 in; 100 others 175 within 12 of tiebreaker score.
B: 4 in; 106 of 163 within 12
C: 3 in; 116 of 170 within 12
D: 2 in; 103 of 157 within 12
So overall, 64% of the players in Pinburgh were still “playoff status undetermined” going into round 10.
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From IFPA home page by BowenKerins
If every B-restricted player opted into A, it would almost completely eat the division; the only other choice would be to allow the divisions to have much wider ranges in how many players could participate in each. I don’t think having “top-side” restrictions is a good idea at all, because a player could come into Day 2 with a heavy advantage in a lower division, even after demonstrating skill that should place them elsewhere.
The sandbagging is unfortunate and aggravating. The only real solution I see is a wholesale change in the tournament payout structure, and I don’t think that would be popular.
My reply to Bowen:
I wasn’t talking about opting in, just opting out of being pushed up 2 or 3 divisions: C’s could stay no higher than B if they chose, unrestricteds could stay no higher than B or C if they chose. B’s couldn’t opt out of A if they pointed their way into it, nor C’s out of B. Note that I did not suggest letting people opt out of being placed just one division above their restriction.
As for players coming in with an advantage, well, that’s their whole point. Some players I’ve talked to who played above their restriction are fully comfortable going where they’re slotted. Others feel that they just had a good day, or caught better players on some EMs or other games that were kind of random, or just dodged playing too many high-ranked players the way the parings went. They’re in A [or B], but feel it was more a lucky accident.
Say someone ranked 500 is in that 26-or-so-points-with-three-games-to-go situation. If they get a 34 and would be slotted in A, they may feel from experience that they’ll likely not make the playoffs there. They’d rather try to win B or C, where they feel they have a chance. So their two choices are sandbag for B or C, or play on and potentially screw themselves out of a decent chance to cash. Some people like testing themselves in A, others would rather cash. Why not give them a limited choice? Even if they had 40 points and an advantage within B, that edge can be overcome by others in the remaining rounds, and is no guarantee of success even if they make the B playoffs. How does one define “the best B player”? The best player who chose to play B? Is 20 games “enough” to say that someone must be slotted in A, or just enough that they can play in A?
Not arguing with you, just looking for a partial solution. I know, there’s no great answer. Just laying out the painful facts.
Don’t know how many B or C players read this board, but I’d be interested in hearing what they have to say.