Ultimately IFPAPA makes rules for the tournaments that WE RUN. It’s up to TD’s outside of that group to decide if they even want to use the IFPAPA ruleset for their event.
Every tournament that doesn’t allow the playing of extra balls is technically already deviating from our ruleset.
I believe PAPA enforces making Circuit events use the IFPAPA ruleset . . . but we don’t require following the IFPAPA rules for IFPA endorsement.
I understand situations vary greatly on where/when/how events are run. Whether you have keys to games or not. Whether you have access to be able to change setting or not.
The ruleset is really just guidelines for other TD’s to make their own ruleset. As long as that published ruleset is followed for the event in question, those rules are free to be ‘anything goes’.
I’ve often seen “We’ll be using IFPAPA rules except extra balls will be plunged” for various tournament rules posted to our calendar.
This I can understand, and would answer truthfully, because you either deliberately tried to nudge it back or not.
Back to TAF tilts: I’m on ball 2, have 3 greed letters, post a shot and the ball is screaming SDTM. I give the game a particularly violent slapsave to try saving the ball, knowing that I’ll either save the ball (good), or tilt and get another greed letter to have MB ready on ball 3 (not horrible). Worst case is drain with no tilt, so I do want one of the first two outcomes. I bang the game trying to make the save, flipper makes contact, ball arcs upward (yesss!) … danger… (no!) danger… try to settle… tilt. D’oh.
You ask me if I tilted intentionally. I honestly cannot answer yes/no. “It’s complicated.”
The gist I’ve gotten from other threads is that there must be a difference in the number of on-location events in the US vs. the UK, because my mind is boggled by this statement. I run weekly tournaments at over a dozen venues on machines operated by at least 5 different operators with an average attendance of 35 people. With few exceptions, the Portland pinball scene is all about location pinball, not private collections. There’s no way the operators are going to give me all their keys. There’s also no way the operators are going to run these tournaments; if they have the capacity, they can and do run their own tournaments in addition to our weekly Tuesday tournaments, but there is a demand for tournaments that operators can’t satisfy. And they’re not about to expend the energy to put games on tournament mode for a few hours just to change it back.
So, let’s take it as given that I can’t get EBs turned off on the machines in my tournament. The reason we don’t “play it as it lies” and instead have a “plunge, one flip” rule is because EB awards are not necessarily about skill. A mystery award can be an EB for one player and 25k for another through no fault of their own. A pity EB on Simpsons or Mousin’ Around rewards a player for poor play. In order to keep the playfield level, we don’t allow them to be played. We also have ZERO TIMES had a conversation about whether its legal to tilt out an EB. For some reason, it has never crossed anyone’s mind to try and tilt out in the 7 years I’ve been TDing.
What I’m saying is that there are plenty of logical reasons that EBs aren’t turned off or that tournament mode is turned on. Those of us who have local rules for dealing with this situation aren’t doing it simply to max out TGP or WPPRs or what have you. We’re trying to create the closest thing to a level playfield experience out in the wild. And offering a competitive pinball experience out in the wild upon which someone can stumble and get hooked, as someone said upthread, is how we have encouraged a pinball resurgence in our broader community.
Is there a point at which the ball has passed where nudging is no longer “ok?” In particular, say I get a lazarus on an old Gottlieb with a bouncy apron. I’m probably moving the game to influence the outcome before the ball gets below the flippers, and that nudging/shaking probably contributes to the ball bouncing upward off the apron such that another nudge or slap gets enough flipper on it that I’m able to put it back in play. In this scenario, how do I answer the question “Did the ball bounce back into play on its own, or did you influence it in any way?”
I ask because I’ve done this A LOT playing old EMs and never though twice about whether this was potentially against the rules.
Any movement while the ball is ‘in play’ is fine . . .I would consider anything ABOVE the flippers definitely still in play.
The most common move for inducing a lazarus is that rage-push after a drain, that just so happens to occur right as the ball is hitting the bottom of the apron.
The point I was trying to make, which was also made by @BMU in another thread, is that all tournaments don’t have to be IFPA sanctioned or earn WPPR points. To paraphrase - Jordan Spieth, or any other golf pro, could play and win a club tournament but he would earn no ranking points for it. The governing body doesn’t give a monkey’s about piddling little tournaments.
In no way should that stop tournaments being held to encourage newer plays, who almost certainly don’t care about world rankings anyway. They just wouldn’t qualify for ranking points.
It’s why I believe there should be a set number of tournament formats which are IFPA sanctioned, follow IFPA rules, and thus earn WPPR points. Anything else that falls outside this doesn’t.
funny enough I actually ended up tilting up an EB on DH, after plunging the EB I kept getting ball save into the magnet, every time giving points seemingly never ending. so in agreement with the TD and other player, tilted out before it got out of hand… Some games “plunging EB” aren’t that easy…
You might be surprised how many players are motivated by seeing movent from 20,000th to 10,000th to 3000th, etc. People love their internet pinball points. It would be unfortunate if the IFPA eliminated or added burden to allowing the low-end to be ranked.
