What: The Seattle Pinball League is hosting its annual finals, an innovative ladder format with each round having the players duke it out in a four player game, then a three player game, then a two player game. One person eliminated each round, one person joining each round. One champion when it’s all over!
Full rules @ http://spl.wapinball.net/results/2016/SPLfinals2016.htm
Cool. Should be a lot of good pinball to watch.
But, I’ll take the “later” of “midnight or later.” In sequence, you’re going to run 18 4-player games, 13 3-player games, and 13 2-player games?
The 4-player games alone are the equivalent duration of a 128-player PAPA-style finals. Not to mention the 3 and 2-player games.
We did the math, and it’s actually the exact same number of total balls played as it was last year, which ended around 1am, EXCEPT this year there are NO TIE BREAKERS, which should speed things along much faster.
Last year - 3 x 4player game x 9 rounds = 108 player-games x 3 = 324 balls
This year - (4player + 3player + 2player) x 12 rounds = 108 player-games x 3 = 324 balls
I wasn’t comparing to last year. Just noting that it’s a lot of pinball. Hooray!
For clarity, the link you provided said elimination Rounds M-Y (= 13 rounds), followed by Round Z which is five 4-player games.
And comparing to prior year… yes, no tie-breakers definitely shortens your event duration. Plus: if you have same # of total balls played, the 3-player and 2-player matches create more opportunities per ball played to have a last-player walk-off ball 3’s than 4-player games.
You scared me there… Somehow our letter-assigner (cough @dbs) missed the letter ‘O’… so it is indeed 12 rounds haha
Another benefit is theoretically the better, longer playing players will gain immunity sooner (like in the first four player game), and thus average game time will be shorter. Also the walk-off effect as you mentioned.
Big ups to Matt Cohn for the best commentator of the day and to Bobby Connover (sp?) for sticking it out to the end on the mic. Oh, and to Raymond Davidson for winning.
I really enjoyed watching the wildcard and the finals. I had to leave to go play in my own league, so it was great to see today that I could watch the saved videos on Twitch and see the finale.
Yeah, turns out having @KCB in since the beginning round adds a few hours to the tournament Although I think the time to change camera between games was also a factor. Next year we might invest in setting a camera on each game sort of thing
Although I think the time to change camera between games was also a factor. Next year we might invest in setting a camera on each game sort of thing