Certified is really more about having a lot of “approved” format TGP on the front and backend, 2 days minimums so hopefully there is a good amount of people for those events.
Ah yes… “Seattle strikes.” So named after a group of us went to Seattle for a weekend vacation back in April, and discovered almost every local event was running a strikes format.
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Does this count for tie-breakers? As in, “we are now making tie-breakers classics only?”
What if you were to create a bank of “acceptable” tie-breaker games - could this be done at any time, or would it have to be declared before the tournament starts?
Tie-breakers aren’t counted as meaningful for TGP, so you can do whatever you want.
Pinburgh’s tie-breaker model was even quicker than Classics games . . . you should look into that one 
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During qualifying? I remember having to line up at no fear and play a full game against like 10 people to get 1 of 2 spots.
The old way was a proper full-game tiebreaker. The most recent one (or two?) featured a “roll back through the rounds to break ties”: Pinburgh 2019 - Tiebreakers, Friday Night
I remember now. Thanks.
The roll-back was done as a time saver, and made some sense in that it said the tied players who had the theoretically toughest round 10 got the nod. It was flawed in that it failed to account for the overall strength of schedule of the tied players across all 10 rounds, not that that would be a perfect basis either. I prefer playing it off for anything as important as in-vs-out. If that’s a problem for your schedule, that means you had a flawed schedule (or number of rounds) to begin with.
Anyone have any stats on the average time duration of different formats to get just-enough-for-full-TGP games in? I think there’d be some interaction between how the longest-playing players are grouped in each format plus how the games are chosen plus the logistics of going from game to game and round to round. I suspect no-playoff formats can get to full TGP quicker, but have no proof.
Liquor license is good til 3am, we ride til dawn!
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For sure. On the sheer basis of no tie-breakers alone — both to qualify as well as those that are needed at the end of each finals round.
And there’s no need for break between qualifying and finals to get finals set up.
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From an insider’s logistics standpoint, I really appreciated the swap from the “everyone plays a game” tiebreaker. Friday night was the time we had to do all of the Finals preparations:
- Determine a list of 12 games that did not have many malfunctions and would be desirable for a Pinburgh finals
- Check the lists against the other 4 TD groups, deferring your choices if someone in a higher division picked your game(s)
- Re-write your list because you’re running E Division
- Find the 12 games in the Pinburgh banks, move the games into your designated Finals bank area
- Ensure the games are still properly leveled and set up. Make changes if needed
Now ideally you used a fair amount of the games in your designated area, those games weren’t appropriated by other groups, and made some tasteful swaps to finely craft your Finals banks.
A Division takes extra time because of the expected quality of games and the extra logistics needed to move things on/off the stage.
Hard cut-off was 2AM for the venue to close, although this is after at least 3-5 rounds of TD work so you’re pushing to get done ASAP so you can enjoy the show - or more likely, sleep. While some of the steps could be done during tiebreakers, having an extra 15-30 minutes thanks to no physical tiebreakers was very appreciated on both of those fronts!
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Why?
Multi-matchplay makes the players use different strategies and mindsets but how are these “worse?” They are only different. How is the “quality” of the format measured? Isn’t it purely subjective in this case?
Why not just force FF to have a finals then? Also, just win faster.
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Any opinions on quality have nothing to do with the value adjustment. As I stated above a couple of times … I’ll say it louder for the people in the back …
“Just to make sure we’re clear though, the 2X bonus being removed has nothing to do with any of that. It was still purely a timing issue thing 100%.”
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Heyho. Just found the thread here and I wish I had the time to read all this.
What a fun…
Cheers
Tobias
Team Bulls&Balls in Fulda
… and inventor of the whopper tournaments… 
I will write a statement about that in the evening. Perhaps it is interesting for some guys.
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Hey guys,
as i was the tech doing this let me add some details:
Yes, i play in that tournament, but my main focus is fixing stuff and not playing for myself.
I like playing pinball but i’m not really good at it (some 9 points for the whole wekend)
That said, that peticular machine which had bad adjusted flipper fingers(wizard):
As a pingolf tournament was running during that day i doubt that it is a good idea to adjust flippers inbetween as this would give unequal results to all players.
So my choice is if they are working to keep them working for all players the same way.
the choice for Wizard for the finals was not that smart as it was not perfectly adjusted and Tobi and me didn’t talk about that before he started the finals. We promise to get better for the next time
I fixed it afterwards the next morning
The event running till the morning was a midnight madness mode, so it was planned this way, working as expected 
Hope to see yome of you guys one time in Fulda or somewhere else
br
Kim
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No problem Toby - I can teach you to read faster
More seriously though - The choice of which machines to play in a tournament is mainly set by availability in the venue. The level of diffuculty can be set by the TD (removing posts, ball saves etc.). There is a danger that this could develop into every machine having a % time to play factor that would need to be taken into account when results were submitted. Do we really want to get into assessing all this???
Jim
Also just a point on tie-breakers - these do not count towards TGP so only need to be fair to the players.
“Just to make sure we’re clear though, the 2X bonus being removed has nothing to do with any of that. It was still purely a timing issue thing 100%.”
I always thought the 2X bonus was about the number of players the winner has to beat. Thanks for saying it again, as reading through this thread is impossible for my short attention span. Perhaps this is why I like formats that are quicker.
Hi Kim, nice playing with you at times and also bothering you with machine issues 
I actually thought the flippers on wizard was intentionally as they were to make it harder. Wizard was the one machine I really managed to play consistently well on during the whole Olympics, won every single match on it, (as opposed to most others).
Else the midnight madness was fun, earned me my first medal from Fulda!
That said, the finals for the earlier tournament did go on until 4-5 also, guess Johannes and the others werent too happy about that 
But in general I think the Fulda machines should be set harder; open outlanes, rubber removed, no ballsave consequently. But overall it was a great experience to be back! Alright, digression over, back to wpprs discussion.