We run a league at a location, we don’t get big numbers but it’s growing. We did 6 meets with you only needing to attend 4 (this is changing to 3 nest season) as it takes your best 4 results.
One of our friends was nearby on a league day and popped along to have a go.
When submitting the results we were told he has to be included even though he didn’t attend the required amount of meets as he’s a top250 player.
So he ended up at the bottom of the submitted results which absolutely tanked his ifpa rating.
What is the logic behind this? It seems unfair and as if it’s punishing him for joining in for fun?
There was no chance he’d finish any higher than bottom as he didn’t attend anymore meets and noone else who attended less than 50% was included in the submission.
It just seems weird to punish a good player for wanting play for fun and support a small league.
Curious as to what it’s supposed to achieve other than put players off from playing unless they can attend the minimum meets.
Basically the post gets to explaining pacers. If they want to play for fun, great, play for fun. They don’t affect the league results, thus not included in the league submission to IFPA.
I think the purpose of the rule is to remove the “loophole” of someone playing one or two rounds / league events, doing poorly, then just sitting it out, knowing that having them not included is safer than trying to finish the rest of the rounds with a poor chance of finishing high, and a larger chance of finishing poorly. The new rules basically make it so you are guaranteed to finish poorly if you quit, so playing on can only improve your odds…
I read the thread and I kind of understand the theory but it seems to be trying to solve a problem that rarely exists.
So a top250 player attends a few meets, realised they won’t do well so doesn’t attend the rest, so what? Is it really that widespread? Maybe you see it in the USA where you have a much bigger league scene but I still can’t see it being common especially over here.
Our league sometimes only hits 10 people, we’ve only done two seasons so far and the second was the first time we submitted to IFPA. It was nice to have a good player swing by to support it and add a bit of excitement.
It just doesn’t seem a genuine representation of their skill to put them at the bottom of the standings because they didn’t attend enough meets so it’s impossible for them to be any higher. Ok that day the player finished first so lived up to his ranking, yet you wouldn’t know this.
Because of this it definitely feels like a punishment for being a good player, I don’t like that part of it at all.
You could call it a deterrent but they had to know about the rule first for that to be the case.
It’s not upto me and doesn’t really affect me being ranked 2719th just a shame it’ll put players off.
In the future just have the high ranked player play as a pacer. No harm, no foul. The player still gets to add the same excitement to the league and no one has to worry about a last place result in the standings.
If you are like me and “pacer” is not a term you are familiar with, they play as a guest. Don’t include them in the results. Keep in mind you will need at least one group of 3 players to do this. Do the same thing for anyone just visiting from out of town, regardless of their ranking. It’s just a fun way for them to play along without affecting your league standings.
So you include them on the sheet for that meet but don’t put them on the overall sheet containing the standings for each meet?
“Please note that players ranked in the top 250 at the time of the league season final should be included in the results submitted into IFPA even if they did not meet at least 50% of all qualifying requirements. Any level of participation will count as participating in the event”
As a pacer/guest these players are simply playing “for fun”.
Their scores don’t impact the match that is being played. If they are the fourth member of a group then the scoring of that group would go 7/4/1 instead of 7/5/3/1.
The player doesn’t have to be included in the IFPA standings if you do this because their participation had absolutely zero impact on the results of the league.
I thought once upon a time you could opt out of an ifpa tournament entirely (and thus the $1) if you said so up front before any games are played and the TD agreed. Is this not a thing any more?
I saw it a handful of times with high ranked players at multiple events and I only broke into the top 250 a few years ago…I would love to see the “actual” Eff and Ratings of players since I’m guessing it was a pretty frequently abused tactic. It wasn’t usually a league situation I’d see it in though, it would just be a tourney. Player has a run of 3-4 bad rounds in like a 10+ round event and skates out to avoid the potential Eff/Ratings/Stats hit, a rage quit to use video game terms. That’s what the rule was put in place to stop, players artificially inflating their stats by ducking out when they had a bad start. It’s also a good rule to stop top250 players from coming in and beating up on a casual league and upsetting the competitive balance because they are in town for one session. Nobody in a casual league that needs to score well in their session wants to end up in a group with an elite player for the night. As others have said anyone in the top 250 should ask to just be a pacer at a single league session like that, especially if their only goal is to have some fun playing pinball like your buddy.
Correct. It’s up to the TD to offer, but TD’s can’t only offer this to specific players. They would have to set up their event with that option for ALL players to be able to opt out of paying the fee and not being includes in the results.
This is an aside to your main point, but the IFPA league rules state that at least 4 league sessions have to count toward a player’s standing. (If I’m wrong about that, I think someone here should be able to correct my misapprehension.)
A league has to count the 4 best out of 6 in the standings for it to be sanctioned at a minimum. A player can still qualify for finals playing less than that but a league couldn’t allow players to drop more than 2 sessions in the standings calculation.
This is a separate rule from the participation rule.
Thanks, I gotcha, the way it was written in the original post was a little ambiguous to me since they seemed to be linking their attendance rule with their “how many count” rule (saying “only needing to attend 4 […] as it takes your best 4 results”) so I figured that meant next season when they plan to only require an attendance of 3 they were also planning to only take best 3 results. But that was totally me reading into it and maybe they will separate those two things in their next season.
just a shame it’ll put players off.