Loved Pinburgh. Thanks to organizers and tds.
Glare sucks, but that’s pinball.
I did some casual watching of A finals. Ditto on wishing the doc was updated. I’ll bet they’ll rig an awesome video leaderboard next time, but a dry erase board would totally suffice.
2 Likes
This was my first Pinburgh as well and just had a freaking blast! I was shocked to make it into B Division and even more shocked to make the finals. I bowed out in the first round of the finals, but I am still extremely happy with the finish. I only had a couple of people in my groups the entire weekend that were acting like jerks, so that is good. I had a guy tilt through on my last ball of the last game of a group to cancel out all of my progress and locks, which sucked. He didn’t apologize either… meh. Looking back though it was a blessing in disguise as it is probably what kept me out of the A Division, which I really have no place being 
Fantastic job done by Bowen and Co. I can’t believe how smooth it all ran.
Only issues I found are:
-glare on some of the games at night
-more seating for the finals
-a leaderboard showing points in the semi-finals/finals for A division
1 Like
Fantastic as always! I thought the convention center was great - having extra space/bathrooms and other stuff to do. Suited the size of the event for sure. Everything I played worked really well, so hats off to all the techs. Also the rulings we needed went smoothly and quickly so hats off to the organizers.
I finished in my typical “2 points away from finals” as many others did - PLAY BETTER.
My only suggestions/hopes for next year are in regards to the A Finals presentation.
1 - Scoreboard showing how many points each players has in the round. We all thought Raymond won after the super orbit game (I think he did too - maybe Zach also thought he won at that point?) If at the very least there was an easle with a dry erase board showing each players point value at that time, it would add to the intensity cuz everyone (in the audience and playing) would know where everyone stood.
2 - The TV screens are awesome. It would be great to have one giant projector/screen above the A bank showing the important game on. This would add to the WOW factor of the A bank, and again, everyone watching would see every save/drain etc etc. Maybe it just shows the feed from the live stream since that usually has a score/DMD cam. Again - everyone watching in person would know exactly where the players were and it would be a more immersive viewing experience.
3 - additional seating/bleachers and maybe a small stage? It seemed like there was a great crowd watching finals, but with more seating/and elevated seating options there could be WAY more. Bleachers and a projector screen showing what was happening on the stage would just add to the epicness of A finals. I guess in my mind the A finals should be such a huge spectacle that everyone standing in that hall should feel like they’re missing out on something big if they’re not over their watching. It should be the boxing ring in the center of Madison Square Gardens. The setup that was there this time was probably the best finals presentation I’ve ever seen, but unless you walked by it, you could miss it. Maybe A finals bank/stage etc is in the CENTER of the whole room and not by the other pinball machines. it could be BIGGER, FLASHIER, MORE EPIC.
I have zero complaints. Fantastic weekend and thank you for everyone who put their energy into it.
2 Likes
Awesome comments from all. Please keep them coming.
We did have a projector, but it malfunctioned. I’m not sure how we would have used it for finals though. I imagine the stream could be shown from it though.
A scoreboard is an easy addition. I remember Molly using a white board at one of the PAPA or Pinburgh finals. Or we can start looking at implementing a scoreboard to the stream, similar to what Karl does now with his broadcasts.
Apparently the convention center has some bleachers that they can pull in. Depending on the size of those, that may help with the seating issue.
3 Likes
this is a tournament ? and maybe get some clarification. In B tiebreaker we had 5 players for 4 spots to get a bye in first round. So that says we are playing for 13,14,15,16 spot. After the games were over with I had the highest score from the 5 players on Supersonic but still ended up #16 playing in second round with the highest seeded B division participant. I know this is after the fact but if all 5 players are playing the same game in a tiebreaker could you seed therm according to their points in that game which would have put me in the #13 spot not the #16 spot. Just asking hey it was my fault in Fish Tales trying my hardest to get monster fish to no avail.
Here’s a crazy idea. Before the final match, instead of just starting up a game and having the players go, we take the 4 finalists out of the room and clear a little walkway for them up to the bank of games.
Then you get the guy with the best booming voice and give him a microphone, and have him “ring announce” the 4 finalists,
like “Introducing first, he is a 5 Time PAPA CHAMPIONoftheWOOOOOOOOORLD… from Carlsbad, CA, KEEEEEEEITH ELWIIIIIIIIIIN” etc.
and they can make entrances, pose, get the crowd hyped, etc. Maybe even play their choice of music while they enter.
4 Likes
There is talk of adjusting the tiebreaker process next year.
If Bowen had not been on commentary for finals, he mentioned “pumping up the crowd”.
1 Like
Was curious myself… to the best of my memory:
14 on DMDs
11 on Early Solid State
21 on Late Solid State / Early DMDs
21 on EMs
EMs were a Pinburgh strength for me for the second straight year. The people that say that EMs are where some of the most points can be gained are absolutely correct. Was surprised by the rest… I generally play DMDs well in location play, but I think the slope & bounciness of many of the machines caught me off-guard (Tron was particularly evil). The lightning flippers on Scared Stiff really threw me off. Guess I need more work in general (minus EMs, generally always a strength for me).
General thoughts:
- Tournament ran super-smooth; only the first round was weird, and that wasn’t the director’s fault - lots of players didn’t show and didn’t contact anyone that they weren’t coming (including friends of mine… they’ll be hearing about it the next time I see them).
- Finished a point out of A, then washed out of the B finals in the first round (made second round of B finals last year). Was hoping to make A this year.
- When requesting rulings on game issues, there were times where the person making the ruling wasn’t decisive. What I mean is: instead of (paraphrasing) “the ruling is X” there was a lot of “I think it’s X, I’m not sure, but we’re going to go with it.” People making the rulings should do so confidently, so that players feel that there’s authority behind the ruling (even if the person making the ruling isn’t quite sure themselves).
- There was a really nice spinning logo up on one of the walls in the convention area. Is there a way to project a clock (digital or analog, doesn’t matter) inside that logo? I know that almost everyone of us has a clock on our phones or watches, but a big clock on the wall that you can just look up at would be nice.
- I felt bad that I wasn’t able to attend many of the talks that were provided, especially the ones with a pinball focus. I made it to the VIP party on Saturday night (because I didn’t watch the finals - I know they ran long), and a few of the talks on Sunday. There were many talks, though, that had a pinball focus but were scheduled during Pinburgh rounds (or playoffs), making it impossible for me to attend them. I wouldn’t trade making a finals round for attending the talks, just food for thought.
- I know that securing the hotel block in the Westin was an adventure in and of itself, but was disappointed that (I think?) all of the rooms secured were of the 2 double beds variety. Making a generalization, single guys (or those who’s other half did not attend with them) sharing a hotel room for the weekend are a majority of the Pinburgh population, but I felt left out because, well, my wife and I aren’t going to be interested in that kind of room. Perhaps a block of rooms with single queen / king beds for next year? Totally understandable that they would cost more, and I understand that it might not be possible based on how a hotel block contract has to be structured.
When I booked at the group rate I could only get that kind of room, but when I went to check-in (with my wife) the guy asked if we wanted a room with two double beds or a room with a single king bed. He didn’t care at all. Next year I’ll just be calling to change room preference after I book if I can’t pick what I want from their website.
1 Like
^^^^ THIS! Combined with the uber-powered flippers of Robocop, super-bright insert lights, the tight playfield + standup targets everywhere — and there weren’t a whole lot of sweet jumps.
Aside from my win on Pinbot, winning on Robocop was my greatest accomplishment of the tournament. Everyone was struggling with the lightning fast speed of the game mixed with the lack of GI and bright-ass LEDs and flashers. There were a couple of middling scores and a couple of bad ones (including mine) going into ball 3 and I just decided to buckle down, focus extra hard and I had a killer 3rd ball given the circumstances and came away with a W!
The Generally Accepted Line of Thought WRT tiebreakers these days is that since it is fairly random luck that you get into one to begin with, they shouldn’t be used where you can alter your outcome based on your performance in them. That’s why there are no tiebreakers at anything other than significant breaks.
Think of it like this: Say, for example (just go with it), I qualified #1 and Keith Elwin qualified #2. The top 8 go on to head-to-head matches. You are in a 3-way tie at 7th with 2 other people and are player #3 in the match for whatever reason. Player #1 has a decent game, 10M points. Player #2 tanks hard with 3M points. You are starting your last ball with 2M points.
You have a decent ball, and pass player #2 and are in. If tiebreaker is allowed to seed, you now have one of the most valuable positions in the entire tournament. You can stay where you are at #2, and play against me, or play as hard as you can and play against Elwin instead. I am going to assume that given past performance, most people would MUCH rather play against me than Elwin. By draining as soon as you pass Player #2, you choose your opponent of me instead of Elwin.
But no one else gets that choice. Why should you? Especially because you were in a tiebreaker at the bottom of the qualifiers?
Leaving the seeding up to the RNG solves several problems: no jockeying for position as I just described, no need for non-material tiebreakers, no unfairness because you just happened to end up in a tie and someone else didn’t… And in case you don’t think this is an actual thing, there was a tournament within the past year where there were reseeds after each round, and there was one tiebreaker that wasn’t material but judged which person went into which group. One person (@pinwizj?) immediately tried to forfeit, but both players wanted to lose because neither wanted to be in one of the groups. The decision came down that the tiebreaker would instead be played for choice instead of for entry into the “bad” group. I’m sure others remember the tourney/circumstance; I wasn’t there, just remember it from twitch IIRC.
3 Likes
That was Free Play Florida down in Orlando. Myself and Brian Dominy had our group clinched after 2 games, and I know I’ve been giving Donny (the organizer) shit for years on his reseeding each round for exactly these reasons.
I know there was definitely the ‘easier’ of the two groups that I wanted to play in (it may have also been avoiding Zach which we try to do at all costs anyway), and it just so happened that the 2nd place finisher in our group advanced to that group. I immediately went to Donny and was like, I forfeit. As I explained to Brian what was going on, he then also offered to forfeit. Rather than me pushing some angle that I forfeited first, deserving a worse “0” than Brian, we just agreed to play off for choice of what we both really wanted, which was to NOT win our group.
Pretty much everything Keith mentioned has been worked through as ‘best practices’ over the years of debate. The idea of giving any benefit to a tied position has been ripped out of as many tournament situations as possible. The only time a tiebreaker is played is if it’s “meaningful” - meaning it decides whether you are eliminated or not from the tournament, or whether you get a bye for a given round or not.
2 Likes
Keefer’s analysis is spot on. The tiebreaker is only used to decide, up or down, whether you advance, then your play in the previous rounds determines your seed. Doing it a different way might encourage players to target a specific seeding to avoid a difficult opponent. Additionally, it allows players to stop playing in a tiebreaker once they know they have achieved a high enough score to get through, which saves some time – this definitely happened several times, and in those cases you can’t use the results for seeding.
The tiebreaking situation definitely needs some improvement, it was quite chaotic. Some early discussion around this makes me inclined to play only the absolutely necessary tiebreakers (in or out) while bye-based ties would be broken the same way we seed players for finals.
I remember the very first tiebreaker game for seeding at PAPA – both players decided they would prefer to lose, so it was an instant slam tilt victory! That rule changed pretty fast 
2 Likes
Yes, we need a hype-man for 2016. Any volunteers?
1 Like
This was clearly a major error on our part, with the choice to assume all players would attend instead of forcing a 600+ player checkin process into a two-hour window that also included badge purchase, playtesting, game repair, scoresheet generation, and more. We’ll do better with this next time, and it was a clear inconvenience to everyone who had to wait, then play in a 3- or even 2-player group for Round 1.
This shouldn’t happen, thanks for letting us know. If a TD isn’t certain of their ruling they should call over another TD for support. I know I did this multiple times, including the very first ruling I had to make – even though I knew what it was. (Player 1 tilted through Player 2, then Player 2 played Player 3’s ball. Both DQ on their very first balls of the tournament.)
I wasn’t involved but I believe rooms of both types were blocked off at Westin at the very beginning, but the single-bed rooms sold out almost instantly. There were single-bed rooms available at Renaissance and Hampton and Omni, I think.
1 Like
Thanks everyone for clarification. Never been in that scenario of a tie breaker for a bye and was wondering. One thing I do know what happened in tie breaker scenario at end of night Friday at replay is that everyone heard the announcement for the participants to get in to Saturday’s round but they did not announce till a very longtime later the participants in the bye.
If they would have announced the tiebreakers right after the others it would have been better. I did not know about the tiebreaker until a friend of mine said you are in a tiebreaker tonight then I checked it online.
Looking online it seems over 54 participants were a part of tiebreaker and made for a cluster in the A bank area. Maybe have each division have their own section or have a big bank against the back wall that can take care of tiebreakers.
Thanks for the feedback
1 Like
The end-of-Friday transition is very difficult, because most people (TDs and techs) are working to move games into position for Saturday’s finals – and meanwhile the area needs to become open for public play as soon as possible. This made it impossible to have multiple locations for tiebreakers … and, you’re right, 54 players in tiebreakers is too many to make a smooth transition.
Something to think about and improve, for sure.
1 Like
Had a blast at Pinburgh and the only thing I missed was tailgating in the parking lot
The floor situation was tough even in my official New Balance “pinball” shoes!
For finals definitely agree on the scoreboard situation. Some big screen to show the scores more easily as well as the playfield would be nice with the scoreboard so if you aren’t sitting close you can actually tell what’s going on.
or even having a room or feed to watch Twitch and listen via headphones or something while watching live too? (guess watching on a phone could do that but something larger could be cool as well).
Thanks for such a fun tournament!!!
3 Likes
I had a good time at pinburgh. It was well run, everyone deserves a lot of thanks. Thanks!
Here are my pros/cons of the event at the new location/versus previous years:
Pros:
- For whatever reason, this pinburgh had a lot less of the “tailgate party” feel that it has had when its been held at the papa facility. I like that this pinburgh felt more like a competition and had less of a hang-out and hot-box the van vibe.
- Saturday finals seemed to allow/encourage more people to watch the finals live and in person.
- more space between games and in rows
Cons:
- Making qualifiers with byes show up early to check in at finals at 9am was really annoying. Showing up 3 hours early to check in doesn’t guarantee that player will be back 3 hours later.
- Worst lighting I have experienced at an event in years (for the last two rounds each day). Much too dark, couldnt see games/ball.
- Hard concrete floors kill your legs & feet
- Rubber cups on the games are annoying to nudge (on bare concrete would suck too. basically the floor there sucks.)
- No wifi for international players to look up groups/standings (even a local wifi that could only access the standings would be nice)
- More expensive area of town to travel to. (to get an equally close hotel to the event was more costly, parking expense etc…)
- No good place to store valuables (or I couldn’t find any lockers). being more of a public event the risk of theft felt higher and lockers were missed.
- Acoustics were worse, louder location.
- Dace game next to finals bank should be murdered.
- Harder to find people with no centralized rest/relax area
- Less sexy papa tv setup
General feedback:
- Rulings and rules enforcement all over the place or arbitrary (though this is on par with other pinburgh years).
Example1: I had a em game where people had points on the reels before they plunged ball one due to a hardware reset between players malfunction - it was ruled those points were inconsequential and meaningless, however those points added up to %5 of your average game total score on that machine.
Example2: leading in to pinburgh we were all threatened with the rule that if you knocked a game out of its rubber cups you would be DQ’d. In The play off for qualifiers to be in our out of B finals (7 for 2 spots?), the player with the top score knocked the game out of one of the cups onto the floor on their last ball. The next player up and other participants brought it up to the official immediately. The official ruled that because they didn’t see the state of the legs and rubber cups when the game started that it didn’t count and there would be no DQ. Then, the officials proceeded to lift the game and put it back in the cups giving the player who was up next a tilt-warning. Essentially it turned into some sort of reverse punishment. - Maybe I wasnt paying attention, but pinburgh round 1 just kind of started without much announcement. A lot of people, me included, were like “oh, its starting I guess…ok”
- As usual the announcement of the awards for 1-4 in A division just kind of happens, It always feels like it should get more attention or focus.
1 Like