That “chair kick” gif. has become a celebrated piece of recent competitive pinball lore. I was at a circuit event last year where the kick heard round the world played on an endless loop for an entire day on a monitor. Clearly some very big shots in the competitive pinball scene didn’t think that needed to be buried to protect the rest of us.
Top level competition can be emotional. The chair was undamaged. No permanent harm was done, and we all had a right laugh.
I don’t think we should be so thirsty to throw people out of tournaments or tar them with scarlet cards that will follow them around from tournament to tournament. If someone does something egregious, sure, but I don’t see that so often.
I see top level athletic competition with fierce, emotional competitors,
It’s pinball - the fire still burns. Shall we snuff out the flame? Are we not human? I think a scaled discipline system like the rhetorical subject of the original post has a place, and in many cases is better than a rigid two-warning system that I’ve seen endorsed.
I don’t think the chair kick was that egregious, but it brought up an interesting point of doing something outside the rules of player conduct once your tournament life is over and I think it’s worthy of discussion.
If the chair-kicker had already earned him or herself a yellowcard for say, slamming a lockdown bar, would banning that competitor from a future tournament be appropriate? Or would that be going overboard?
I don’t think it really makes sense to have some imaginary time line between the end of one event and the beginning of another. If I coffin drop a game when I’m eliminated from Classics I, should I be welcome back the next day for Classics II? I know if I was TD in a situation like that I would be likely to tell the player not to come back the next day.
Yeah, that’s a convenient circumstance with the same location and TD on back to back days, but the general concept of it is the key.
Well to answer that… you first need the idea that the organization has the power to ban anyone at all. AFAIK no such structure exists within the IFPA framework. Each event controls who they allow or not.
And i the past… organizers didn’t even want to publicly share who these problem people were, instead opting to whispers between people they feel should know. So having a banned list would have to cross multiple existing barriers.
Ifpa don’t sanction players… they just track them.
Section VII—Fines
a.
The following progressive technical foul and ejection schedules will apply:
Technical Foul 16: $5,000 fine plus one-game suspension
Each Additional Technical Foul: $5,000 fine
Each Two Additional Technical Fouls(18, 20, 22, etc.): $5,000 fine plus one-game suspension
Would people be better served to file formal complaints with the IFPA? Get enough substantiated ones and maybe they can 86 someone for the next circuit event or two, based on the infraction and it’s severity?
Something has to give, especially with repeat offenders who deliver less than extravagant theatrics at these events. It’s old.
We had a company outing (awards dinner) at some fancy place in downtown Columbus with an open bar. If anyone got too rowdy they had to wait an hour and drink a full glass of water in the meantime. This was verbally established beforehand, and as you may have implied by using the word amusing, a decent amount of friendly ribbing ensued and no feelings were hurt.
Having said that, if only a one hour penalty were given, the queue lines for every herb event are so long that they’d probably miss only 1-2 games.
Maybe the fact that they’re probably the most influential body that can mitigate those issues by taking action against players that refuse to quit being ridiculous?
On a similar note, will Kaneda be allowed back to NYCPC in future years after his tirade? Or was that all just in jest and good fun?
Why not just let event organizers deny access to those they don’t want around?
The even organizers today don’t have to bow to ifpa at all except a few minor criteria to be eligible. I think it would alter things significantly for ifpa to get more involved in how an organizer runs their own events.
Its easy… it’s the organizers prerogative - if their decision negatively impacts other players, they should voice it with the organizers or speak with their feet.
Who wants more “regulation” across events that come in every size and form? I could see something like the pro circuit doing it… or a chain of connected events… but just across all ifpa logged events? Asking for even more drama
I’m not sure how that’s relevant unless we are supposed to petition the ifpa to issue a worldwide ban on someone who isn’t a competitive pinball player and doesn’t have an ifpa number? I’d be embarrassed to bring that up with those guys.
And, it’s kind of apples and oranges since we are talking about a spectator - an outlier in this discussion for sure.
When it comes to players, I don’t think a single yellow card was issued at our event and I didn’t personally see anything that would have even come close to calling for one. For the most part I find competitive players to be a pretty well behaved bunch. I’m just not seeing all the terrible behavior that some seem to think requires urgent action and sweeping reform to be brought “under control.”
I stand corrected on the Kaneda comment, as I thought he had participated. In that sense it is apples and oranges. In that situation, obviously it wouldn’t do any good to reach out to them. The point was more or less if you saw that as a problem, or just a one off incident and it was all in good fun and booze.
Obviously enough people do see these problem players and their actions to warrant two separate threads on here, multiple discussions on Facebook, and so on. I received more complaints at Pinburgh because of player behavior than I ever imagined I would.
But these things don’t happen in Pinball.
I was trying to generate discussion and ideas for those that were interested in coming up with a solution. I wasn’t claiming to have all or even the best answers, but thanks for making it clear that my ideas aren’t good for pinball. We can agree to disagree and have a beer or two about it at the next event. First ones on me.
