We had a situation at our national championship this past weekend, where a ball was stuck in the left outlane on a World Cup Soccer. This had initially made the player play single ball multiball. Which was a hole seperate issue to deal. But when we located the ball we were - but what if it is kicked into play on the ball search? The player gave the game a few nudges (fairplay points here) and eventually the ball came loose and drained from activity earlier in the ball search sequence.
This event made me think.
Are you in your full right to wait a ball search and play on if an outlane stuck ball is punched into play?
Or are you instead required to stop playing?
Can other players “take over” control and hold a flipper button to prevent ball search. And call for a TD to open the game and drain the ball manually? Without being subject to punishment from intervening somebody elses turn.
I have addressed the IFPA book already and looked around elsewhere. And I have not found rules text or discussion on this specific case. It is not legal to set up a beneficial ball search. But this is addressed for trapping up on games where such is not pausing the ball search event. This is a bit different.
From the beneficial malfunction part of the IFPA rules:
"Any beneficial malfunction which results in a player being able to continue play of a ball that normally should have ended is allowed once per game. Examples of this would include: an unexpected software ball save or a ball thatcomes to rest on an unlit kickback in the outlane (which will lead to a ball search, kicking the ball back into play).
Any such behavior shall not be allowed if it repeats, meaning that Tournament Officials may require players to allow the repeatedly-saved ball to drain, or play on the machine may be terminated in accordance with catastrophic malfunction rules, at which point repairs may be attempted.
"
Ugh. I was overlooking this because the pdf has some issue with the text formatting not hitting on a “kickback” free text search.
So it is addressed. Still somewhat greyarea where the TD can call it either way. This can certainly end up in one of those unfortunet heated disputs at competitions. Such that comes with pinball. Not always being clear cut.
Besides the paragraph about TD’s being able to make whatever ruling they want, including any ruling that goes against anything else written in the document, I’m curious how this is a grey area based on how the rules verbiage is currently written. It seems pretty clear cut when I read it on how this situation should be handled.
but then you need to go to catastrophic malfunction rules and not just tell the other players that they need to lose the ball but the 1st player get’s an free ball save.
it’s a relatively rare occurrence, imo, if it’s the kickback firing in ball search that returns the ball to play, play on, even if it happens more than once, though repeats seem unlikely, it could happen and play on.
If there’s a ball that drains but doesn’t enter the trough, and chaser ball happens to come out, I would rule the same, if this behavior repeats I might rule that players have to nudge into the drain.
There’s a third situation which I’ve seen on some games with kickback, kickback is lit, ball speeds between the flippers and ends up rolling high enough to the outlane that it triggers the kickback. This is a play on, and a lazarus of sorts, even if it happens multiple times to the same player on the same ball, play on.
If you’re using the IFPA rules as a guide a beneficial malfunction (as described below) is permitted once per game:
“Any beneficial malfunction which results in a player being able to continue play of a ball that normally should have ended is allowed once per game. Examples of this would include: an unexpected software ball save or a ball that comes to rest on an unlit kickback in the outlane ( which will lead to a ball search, kicking the ball back into play) .”