There are states that don’t have 10. A few don’t even have 5. And then you get the “one significant event vs. a handful of tiny events” issue. A universal minimum number rule isn’t workable at this point.
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Why not? Just need one location. Hell one collector could host 5 if they really wanted to qualify their state.
If you can get one tournament in a state, you can get 5 imo.
Just to continue my earlier thought on “prestige”…
Let’s say the winner of PAPA A receives $7,000 (this year’s prize). Let’s imagine that the winner of IFPA 15 receives $10,000 (thanks to the new $1 fee). These are both high caliber, well run tournaments, featuring some of the world’s most highly skilled pinball players. Which one is more prestigious?
It’d be easy to say that the IFPA crown is more prestigious – hey, it pays almost 50% more! But the PAPA crown comes with one magical thing: your name, hanging on a huge banner in the rafters of a pinball mecca, to be admired by hardcore and casual players alike in perpetuity, captured in photographs year after year.
For me personally, were I skilled enough to seriously be in the running: I’d take the PAPA crown. The hypothetical extra $3,000 IFPA dollars would obviously be great, but realistically, that money would fade into one or another bill and eventually be forgotten… but every time I walked into PAPA HQ, I’d see my name hanging in the rafters, and know I’d earned my spot there. For me, that’s prestige.
This is all highly personal, so YMMV, and that’s OK! But this is part of why I’m not a fan of the $1 IFPA fee. Money ain’t everything.
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I don’t think any change should be made strictly to encourage players to travel. The SCS is the only series where a player can be a rock star without traveling. You can win state without spending a dime on travel. Want to be a rock star in IFPA or on the Papa/ Stern circuit? You pretty much have to travel.
The SCS is the only series that allows a player who can’t afford to travel or doesn’t like to travel to win a title with some prestige. That’s a good thing IMO.
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the issue is, not everyone has the time to organize and supervise weekly events. how things are now, the people who have the most time on their hands and can travel freely are the ones having the most points in the scs. MI events are heavy in the west side and south, those areas are 2 - 3 or more hours or more from some people who play. and none of them pay out. so if these people want to travel weekly to free events, or donation only events, they better have no job and be rich so they can keep up with the rest in those areas. you have people in the top 16 who nickel and dime their way into the standings getting a point here and there. And you also have some organizers adding names to the list of players making is seem as if there were many players at the events. its all a bunch of nonsense IMO and some people won’t make the top 16 that really should be there. OH is another state. make the top 16 based on average points earned per event or make a cap of 16 events. just because there is a cap doesn’t mean the people who play in 100 events now won’t still play in 100 events. They will just use their best 16 events and its fair to those who cant retire now and travel everywhere every week with expenses to play in events with no payouts and actually have life duties:).
some people have kids, and responsibilities and bills.
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top 50 is way way to much. who has the time once per week to travel to play pinball unless its in your own immediate area. that favors only players who are close enough to a place to do so or who are retired and don’t work and can do what they want when they want and drive all over the map.
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This is easily defeated. If I’m coming into town for 1 event, I can just simply organize 4 or 9 ‘very small’ tournaments while I’m in town.
Play one ball on a game, top 4 advance to a one ball final, TGP of 4%, done! 
A) average points earned per event means players would no longer play in anything small. If my average from winning just the one large event was 50 points, why would I play in a local event worth 4 points? The BEST I could do is lower my average from 50 down to 27. It would motivate for non-participation in a huge way.
B) using the best 16 events instead of unlimited for the standings, both Ohio and Michigan qualifiers would be THE SAME … next idea?
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IFPA does not need to raise the prestige of the SCS IMO. You’re the best farking player in your state for a year. That title alone is prestigious.
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Hear, hear!
I was the first ever IFPA SCS winner for Virginia, after a grueling 8 hour day of competition. (I had to beat my wife in the final round to take the title!) [Fill in your own joke here.] I won a measly $100 for my trouble, and was quite in the negative financially after my unsuccessful trip to Nationals in Colorado. I still look at the trophy with pride…
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The prestige level is not about the prestige that the PLAYERS associate with the SCS. I’ve heard plenty of people say they would rather with their State than their State’s circuit event. The money there would easily be 20:1.
The prestige is about trying to get the outside world to give a shit about any of this, and money has most definitely been a factor in us having Big Buck Hunter taken more seriously. The potential for better outside interest = potential for external sponsorships… blah blah blah I’m sure I’ve posted all this multiple times in the dollar thread.
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I doubt this would be done, but technically you’re right. Also, if people were doing that, we would just continue what we’re doing anyway and block them with our bigger events that they wouldn’t come to most likely. And if they did, great! Shows your drive to participate in that particular state’s SCS. That increases the prestige too. Yay more prestige!!
Easily not defeated!! Haha
If I won LAX and thought there was a sprinkling of a chance that I would end up wanting to play KY SCS, I would absolutely run 4 different 1-ball tournaments on the show floor. It would take less than an hour and I would ‘check that box’ as my SCS insurance policy.
Just to throw it out there, the other option being debated between the State Reps is the idea of an expanded field for those states that are most active. I’ve been referring to them as “Super” States.
If some minimum event count and/or unique player count (which is easily tracked by us) is hit, that SCS field expands from 16 to 24 for that state.
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More power to ya. Would that make the prestige more or less or the same that it currently is? I say the same at worst.
Also I think it would be hilarious if I saw 10 events scheduled for the show floor at LAX with these ridiculous rules.
Also again I don’t think this would happen, and if it did I don’t care if you won classics and main, all it would do is drive us to hold MOrE tournaments to block you.
More prestige!! Haha. Sorry I’ll stop with the prestige stuff.
And if a player is also in the Power 100, and earn most of their points from league play they are part of the “Super Power 100 League”.
Next items up on the IFPA store should be capes and utility belts. 
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I am just thinking - with the big change coming in 2018, why not wait and see the effect it has on the SCS before making any other changes? Maybe the current system will already be perfect.
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Wouldn’t it be better to count only the top 20 events for each player (like the main rankings do) than top 20 events overall?
Here’s the compare/contrast of the 2017 Texas SCS standings “uncapped” versus “top 10 event cap”:
Uncapped:
1 Colin MacAlpine 184.79
2 Fred Revnew 181.51
3 Phil Grimaldi 181.35
4 Eric Stone 144.99
5 Craig Squires 142.04
6 Robert Byers 133.66
7 Mark Meserve 133.59
8 Ken Kemp 123.13
9 Cory Westfahl 109.95
10 Trent Augenstein 104.68
11 Kevin Rodriguez 98.66
12 Bryce Revnew 91.49
13 Zach Sharpe 78.62
14 Ray Ford 75.78
15 Josh Tidmore 69.33
16 Sven Johnson 63.37
Top 10 cap:
1 Phil Grimaldi 176.13
2 Colin MacAlpine 172.03
3 Eric Stone 144.99
4 Robert Byers 131.83
5 Mark Meserve 114.22
6 Trent Augenstein 104.68
7 Craig Squires 96.52
8 Fred Revnew 91.22
9 Zach Sharpe 78.62
10 Ken Kemp 67.56
11 Josh Tidmore 64.98
12 Bryce Revnew 64.32
13 Ray Ford 64.09
14 Joshua Henderson 58.71
15 Cory Westfahl 58.63
16 Garrett Hays 58.55
14 of the top 16 players are the same names.
Who would be IN under the capped system → Joshua Henderson, Garrett Hays
Who would be OUT under the capped system → Kevin Rodriguez, Sven Johnson
Between the ‘out of towners’ in that list (Zach Sharpe, Trent Augenstein, Eric Stone) . . . KRod is 17th in the capped list so he would most likely get in. Sven is 19th on the capped list so I’m guessing he would also get in.
So if by “reasonable” you mean it doesn’t really matter . . . then I totally agree
All of the simulations I’ve run is based on the best 20 for each individual player (like the World Rankings do).
I have no interest in doing the “best 20 events of the state”. No tournament could guarantee in their marketing materials that they would even be included in the SCS of that particular state, because you wouldn’t know until the end of the year.