Yes! To those who say 30 seconds of practice doesn’t help, try playing funhouse fresh without seeing it on screen or being able to see a previous player plunge a ball and you are suddenly player 1 (the guinea pig). You have no idea how the scoop kick out is to the right flipper. Can you let it dead bounce? Can you just hold the flipper up cradle it from the scoop drop? Can you live catch it from the scoop?
that 30 seconds could answer those questions. In some games, only 1 or 2 feeds really matter.
TAF is another. 3 things matter. The swamp kick out and the chair kick out and if you can hold up thing’s flipper and not flip safely. That 30 seconds can save headaches, house balls and your tourney life.
Next- for those of you stating there are games in the facility to “warm up” on, that has nothing to do with the exact games you are playing in the playoffs and those specific game’s feeds and ejects from scoops and kick outs.
I totally agree those feeds matter. However, I’ve played in enough events with TZ, TAF, FH, TRON, AFM, MB, MM, WH20 etc. to know that whatever I learn about the feed in 30 seconds won’t necessrily be the feed that I get when I play it for real.
Each playoff group has a TD there… (or did in the past). It doesn’t take much for the person to stand back and look for traffic jams and just say MOVE if needed
players didn’t listen when told to move because most of their 30 seconds were spent restarting a game or waiting for a tilt or a bonus count or something.
and then other players complained about the extra practice time that those who didn’t listen got.
This was a headache.
In Pinburgh finals, the new players coming in will always be the highest seeds and will have choice of position in the first game.
They can choose to be player 3 or 4 and watch how others are handling things.
The things a player does away from the game can make a huge difference in winning and losing.
I can only speak for my division. I tell my players with byes to check back every so often to see where we are in the round, and always set an “earliest” time that a round will start when we are close to the end.
I have never had a player with a bye miss a start yet.
There are plenty of games close enough to the banks for players with byes to go get a game or two in to shake off rust and still be close to see how things are progressing.
How about giving suggestions on how to accomplish this. You want them to invest in restaurant paging systems?
IMO This and the need for practice are petty items. It may just be that I’ve been to Pinburgh 3 years in a row and never made finals and am just bitter.
Publish “Will start no earlier than” times for rounds 2 and 3 of each playoff bank. Have shorter windows for E/D than A/B/C or whatever the breakdown. It’s a small organizational issue (decide/publish these times and make sure the playoff TDs are aware) that I feel greatly enhances the tournament experience for 80 players. Being able to get a coffee after checking in without fear that your playoff bank is going to finish in record time is a huge win.
Our goal is to get a finals done as quickly and efficiently as possible. This allows the volunteers to go and help out in other areas of the show. We need to to keep things running smoothly for every guest of the show.
Schedules are very easy to get thrown off. I know one of my “earliest start” times got shattered by needing a tiebreaker game. Game issues can wreck things as well. A round of Intergalactic ran long when the last game being played crapped out on Ball 5 Player 3.
Part of the players responsibility to participate in a finals is to be there when needed. if something comes up, communicate with your TDs and we will do our best to make it work.
During the Intergalactic finals, a player asked if they could go get food. Having potential time issues, I had to say no, but suggested they have a friend run and grab it. And thats what happened. The Pinball community is pretty solid. They will usually lend a hand.
I’m well aware of the goals of speed and efficiency. Earliest start times for rounds 2/3 are a courtesy to players with byes that say “You have 45 minutes or 90 minutes or whatever where I can guarantee you’re not going to get DQd if you aren’t here”. They’re not guarantees that round 2/3 will start at X time. I think they would be very well received and appreciated by 80 players without impacting your ability to run playoffs.
A player with a double bye in E might have literally no idea how long 2 rounds is going to take. Telling that player “as long as you check back here by 11:30 AM you’re fine” is much better than “You better be here when round 3 starts or you’re DQd”.
I recently qualified in 1st place at the UK Open.
That got me 8 (EIGHT) byes.
The initial communication was that my round would start at 5pm (first round started at 9).
That morning I got an email telling me my round would start about 4.
I had a relaxing morning in bed and decided to walk down to the venue to arrive for 3, giving me time to get my eye in on some of the practice games.
As I was walking down I was told by a number of people by WhatsApp and FB that I was holding up the whole tournament and I had better get there soon.
As I walked in my opponent was waiting for me, there was no practice allowed and I consequently got knocked into the losers bracket straight away.
There is a definite advantage to the players who have made their way through earlier rounds as opposed to someone stepping up to the competition without that practice. I don’t think it’s a matter necessarily of playing a particular machine, but of being in the competitive mindset.
If there is such an advantage why’d you put in the effort to qualify 1st?
Or
Is this single event you experienced the basis of your opinion that players without byes have a competitive advantage?
This isn’t just a one-off. I regularly qualify higher than I finish, and see it in many other comps as well with many other people, especially ladder style comps.
It simply boils down to communication… is it really that hard to think of alternatives in this day of everyone carrying a super computer in their pocket?
Potentials
1 - You could collect qualifier’s phone numbers and setup a group chat - (could break down with internationals)
2 - Use a simple discord or slack for the event where there is a channel for each division and notifications can be sent on progress and ETAs. (my preference). This is free, and works across all devices
3 - Setup a broadcast SMS system people can subscribe to, or other notification platform like ‘Remind’. Our high school uses this to tell parents when the kid’s activity buses have left, ETA for pickup time, bus has arrived, etc. People simply ‘enroll’ in a channel they care about and notifications get sent to them. Remind is built for schools… but I bet there are parallels out there
4 - Allow opt in to a event wide broadcast where updates on divisions are done
In general, progress in finals continues to be a weak point in Pinburgh’s tracking and digital systems. This year they at least had the web site showing the rounds… but they had some failure that lead to it not being used beyond round 1 from what I saw.
can’t stand close enough to watch on the A stage with the boundry tape unless you are extremely tall to lean forward enough lol and on stage the players cant see anyone on the screen bcuz there was no screen up there for us to view. With only one machine being shown at a time that may not be optimal anyhow if the game you are playing isnt on the big screen. When each papa machine had a screen next to it, we could all sit back and see how each game played.
Agree with Iverson 100%! I only watched the final four players at Pinburgh this year, but I believe Elwin had a couple of byes and he didn’t get to practice on the banks ahead of time, yet he still stepped up and executed and won.
