I’ve seen Keith shove a game hard. The game had a excessively tight tilt and Keith was hardly the only one to show frustration. I tilted all three balls in the same game and shoved the game at least once.
Due to proximity, I’ve had the good fortune to compete with Keith a lot. I don’t think he’s much different than most of us. We’re all capable of an outburst now and then. Besides Keith, I’ve seen at least two other Papa winners shove games. In my experience, there are very few regular players who show no emotion at all.
Sports isn’t compelling without emotion. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Writing conduct rules will never be easy for pinball as what is acceptable at a bar in Portland will be different than at launch party tournament with lots of kids and noobs around. There is no simple answer.
I had to ask a player to leave for the first time this weekend, this was after warning the player that his conduct was unacceptable earlier in the year. Shouting and talking to players during their round driven by being severely intoxicated.
For me it’s simple. I’m running a competition that I do for the enjoyment of it; if something doesn’t align with that from a conduct POV then its simple, you can play somewhere else, fortunately for me the other 50 odd players that I run tournaments for really enjoy them and are super supportive.
By being clear at the start actually I’ve only had to warn a few early in my events for machine abuse, now people want to be part of the events and the events are well run and fun, I rarely have any issues. You are always going to have the odd issue, but it should be the exception rather than the rule.
Most of the events in the UK are ran at peoples houses.
At the start I make it clear what I think are common sense behaviours, no machine abuse, you must not smell bad, no swearing, we use IFPAPA rules, if in doubt ask, and remember there are kids in the tournament. It’s stated in a clear and concise way.
If you’re in a public venue you often don’t need to address conduct issues at all beyond machine abuse.
If venue staff kick a player out their behavior was unacceptable at that venue.
If a player leaves because they don’t like x then x is unacceptable to that player.
Don’t feel like you must accommodate 100% of the people in the world. The ten percent on either end of the scale cause most of the issues and most of that twenty percent can be told to deal with their issue as they see fit without making others conform to their definition of acceptable.
This has been an interesting thread to read, wanted to share something I saw at the Expo flip-out tournament that I think relates.
There was a younger-ish player, new to the big stage, who played very well, but when he got eliminated late in the tournament, he slapped the side of the machine very hard, and threw his hat. A few other players noticed, and we all sorta cringed a bit…
… but, a millisecond later, he collected himself, and beelined for his opponent, calmly, and kindly shook hands and said good game. Was great to see, and I think the kid has a good future.
It was a learning moment for him, I suspect, and put things into perspective for me as well. There are a lot of shades of grey, nobody is perfect, some people are young, some people are working on things, mistakes are made… but, it was good to see.
I have a high threshold for playing around “ragey” players, there are some quite loud, animated, and distracting players in the IFPA top 100… to play my best, I can’t let them distract me, and I dont notice. But I do think such behavior is off putting to others, so also want to say thank you to the TDs who have to put themselves in difficult positions to address this stuff. It’s best for pinball that all feel welcome, and you all are the front line defense, and not thanked enough.
It’s one thing to have a bad ball and react and another to just show up to be an asshole. Bad ball reactions are welcome, it happens and definitely part of pinball. But losing your mind over pinball, if it were my tourney/bar i’d give you 1 warning about that behavior. Then next time you act like a grown man child trying to get attention, I’d throw your ass out roadhouse style opening the doors with your face.
Why do people tolerate this? Next time you see that man child, tell them and/or the TD/ bar owner to throw them out or I’m bailing to play somewhere else. If you run it, you got to eject these clowns
Echoing this. We’ve had a few consistently ragey players at various times here, and word got around who they were and which events or venues they gravitated towards. It’s a turn off for experienced and newer players both and tolerating that kind of behavior will absolutely lose more players than it retains.
