Putting a player on a timeout in unlimited qualifying.

Should be tournament by tournament. Posted publicly by the event. It’s on the organizers.

I endorse this kind of creative thinking, and find the idea of a penalty box amusing and effective. Let’s face it, at almost every tournament it seems like TDs are kind of making it up as they go along anyway so I don’t think it’s fair to demand that the penalty box be established verbally beforehand.

Nobody should be thrown out of a tournament unless they really deserve it. In this particular rhetorical case near a city that may or may not be famous for its chicken wings,I do not think the offender was really doing anything anybody else wasn’t (profanity), but certainly, his reputation precedes him. Three strikes and yer out was appropriate here - after all, the TDs aren’t made of Stone!

Being thrown out of the tournament would have been excessive overkill and might have caused a meltdown, and perhaps even some scuttled watercraft.

My only complaint is there should be an actual penalty box. Perhaps forcing the offender to sit in a dinghy afloat near the dock, or maybe just one of those tables with yellow tape around it or something.

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While amusing to think of from an entertainment/drama standpoint, I don’t think we should get into public shaming/humiliation. :slight_smile:

I don’t mind the thought of using a time-out as a first level of enforcement prior to the yellow card – but only if this is captured in the event’s rules prior to the start of the event. It’s certainly creative. It also doesn’t have universal application, as it would carry a much stiffer penalty in a match play setting. On your timeout? You just took zeros for the last two games of your round.

My preference is to not include a punitive consequence (such as a timeout, or loss of game), and keep it simple with the current yellow/red system. For non-severe or questionable code violations, I’ll go with a verbal warning first, then yellow, then red.

For reference, tennis uses a progressive punitive consequence system from the chair ump to individual players for code violations: warning, loss of point, loss of game, loss of match. Something like this could also be considered: warning, loss of ball, loss of game, loss of match, expelled from tournament. But the 2nd-4th level don’t necessarily carry a lot of weight in an unlimited qualifying portion of tourney.

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The problem is TDs generally don’t obverve these outbursts and where the line is is fuzzy.

“All players are expected to conduct themselves in a polite and sensitive manner. Outbursts, especially those including indecent language, are unacceptable.”

Raise your hand if you used indecent language in your last tournament with no consequence.

:raised_hand:

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The line is less fuzzy when every time this conversation is started it’s based around the actions of the same few people.

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I remember “chairkick.gif” sparking some conversation about carryover warnings if a player gets out of line as they’re eliminated from a tournament with nothing to lose. I don’t see why something like this can’t be enforced against those who are repeat offenders and oftentimes need to receive a yellow card before toning it down.

The NBA uses a system where they tally technical / flagrant fouls across a season and there are penalties at certain quantities. Maybe the violation isn’t strong enough to get you tossed out any one day, but over time there will be consequences for repeat minor offenses. (citation needed)

What if IFPA added a field for results submission that included player conduct warnings? I picture it looking like World Cup score listings with little yellow/red cards next to the player country flag. :man_shrugging:

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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.

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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.

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Of course, let’s discuss it!

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.

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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.

Just created a new thread to talk more about general yellow cards, penalties, bad behavior etc: Yellow Cards, behavior and penalties

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

That fine structure sounds perfect! Pinball players can afford that, right?

As long as they remain B eligible. :wink:

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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.

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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.

What makes anybody think the ifpa wants to deal with any of this? They got a lot on their plate.

Although they might like he idea of collecting $1 fines!

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Ifpa has threatened to ban certain player(s) from being included in the rankings because of negative actions though.

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?

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