So - if the rules stated “If you didn’t plunge it, don’t play it” - this would be a very simple case. The problem here is that player 4 is allowed to try to trap up and gain control of their ball if it gets autoplunged and declare that they are continuing. There are a lot of reasons to have the try to gain control rule (we won’t recreate state being the main one, so if player 4 has done setup for ball 3 and this situation arises - losing their ball will be disasterous), but it can lead to something like this. Heck - there are games where it won’t be easy to tell who’s turn it is quickly because there is something overriding the score display.
I imagine this scenario like this - ACDC - i’ve got all 3 multiballs lit and I’m down significantly and as I am stepping up a ball is leaving the pops. It’s going to bounce over from left to right for an easy hold up the flipper trap. The ball save isn’t blinking. I’m down 40m. Are you really saying I’m stuck between pressing in the button and possibly get DQ’d (it’s not my ball) or letting it go and start from scratch (it’s my ball)?
Actually in trying to address this question I understand the ruling completely now. The ruling is an extension of “That’s Pinball” and it makes perfect sense.
Is that actually a thing? Being removed from IFPA listing or having your tourneys rated by IFPA because you didn’t follow the letter of their law? I get for big tournaments there’s a certain expectation, but when you’re talking about local weekly tournaments and leagues… meh? I can’t believe that IFPA would be so uptight as to expect rulings like this one to just execute a player in a small time tourney or face that kind of repercussion.
Don’t want to follow those rules, and don’t care about being a “major”…well…okay. Part of bringing new people into the competitive side is providing as much clarity as possible. We all have those altruistic moments where we don’t really think first and just instinctively go to help someone (well, unless you’re a psycopath or something…)…that shouldn’t be punished, at least not the first or second time, when there’s no real impact involved. As far as I’m concerned if player 3 walked away, they’d already given up. Penalty is loss of ball in play for “display of apathy” and P4 just lets it go.
I dunno about this specific situation, but I don’t think it’s out of bounds at all for the IFPA to decline to endorse a league or tournament that they feel is too far from what they want to have their name associated with. It speaks to brand protection.
It’s not a requirement to sanction, but I would expect anyone wanting to sanction would be agreeing to a certain level of quality, and part of that is consistency of rulings.
This is the key I think. And if word gets out you’re running crappy tournaments with completely inconsistent rulings, I don’t really think the ifpa needs to do anything. People will simply stop coming.
And I think consistency is the key, moreso than any particular house rules that might differ from IFPA. Especially when playing on location with no keys, rules will have to be adjusted - just be consistent.
