Not sure I’ve ever disagreed more with a pinball opinion. Granted I’m no danger of competing in such an event.
Have “fun,” masochists.
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I agree that payouts less than entry are dumb. I’d rather have higher 1-8 (or whatever) payouts then payout lower down. Better incentive to do well and rewarded more for it.
Pretty sure that was a joke…
Just done with a tournament and had a talk about streaming and visibility of competitive pinball. What of a 10% TGP boost to any tournament that streams the finals? Link to a twitch or yt vod required to get it.
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I think this has some merit but it can’t be that simple. We’ll end up with every tourney being streamed by old flip phones just to get the boost.
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Re that “feels like” curve, if IFPA used 25,000 for the player count, on the assumption that everyone who played at all for the entire year was entered and the 64 who participated were in the “playoffs”, then 64th place would have gotten about 14.27 WPPRs and 32nd place would get 22.41. The top spot wouldn’t change, and other sample changes would be 102.85 vs 81.9 for 4th, 77.21 vs 48.91 for 8th, 47.71 vs 19.94 for 16th. Does that “feel” better?
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That would be effin’ awesome!
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Where did this 25k number come from? Lots of IFPA profiles are dormant so I would think some number based on the actual number of unique tournament participants over the relevant year of play would have more merit. That is, if you were even serious about this as a concept.
The values aren’t that sensitive at this level; even “only” 5000 players would still be 22.34 for 32nd and 14.13 for 64th, tiny fractions different. I dug up the 2019 data, on which this year’s IFPA participation was based, which had 24,380 unique players. When I put that in just now, the numbers were all the same or moved by only 0.01.
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This makes a lot of sense for this specific tournament to use an active count of profiles as you need to qualify specifically for this tournament out of everyone. NACS is another example where this could be used.
I have always been a believer of having all playoff places getting paid and for it to be at the minimum of the entry fee. I get it that there might not be sponsorship $ for this to make it happen and there might be push back from top players who want larger top end prize pools, but hopefully in future years IFPA can find some other revenue streams for the event.
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“Get some sponsorship!” always sounds like a great idea, but in practice it’s very difficult. There’s a reason why pinball tournaments rarely “get some sponsorship,” and it’s not because they can’t use the money.
While many pinball-oriented companies may be happy to hand over t-shirts, rejected playfields, beer coozies, etc., getting them to simply part with several thousands in cash has never been easy.
Where’s Deep Root when you need them?!
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The struggle is real. I’ve had success moving from one or two big sponsors to like 10 little ones, but yeah, it’s very hard to ask for money.
Curving the results to these events (IFPA, NACS, etc.) in this way sounds great. For the Swedish Championship Series final, where we can’t have prize money, providing some WPPRs just for getting there would be great as an added incentive to get there. Having the final be 225% TGP next year will be great, but the curve is very steep as it is now, even with 64 players.
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Back on the WPPR-farming side, anyone care to give the over / under on the total number of WPPRs to be awarded in two weeks during the IFPA Olympics in Fulda? 10 events plus one women’s, right?
It’ll beat even the District 82 flood.
I’m sure many players who can’t readily get to a WPPR farm location would be glad to see a “maximum WPPRs per venue” cap reinstituted as was the case for Launch parties years ago - - have multiple events and the WPPRs got divided. It prevented locations from overdoing launch parties. But now it’s all just fine it seems. “Hey, we have this golf course in Florida that a few dozen pros all practice at 'cuz it’s got good weather all year. Let’s have a tournament every month to get our rankings up. You folks who live in Oregon or Minnesota, tough nuts.”
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I clearly remember those days, and while I don’t think that particular rule is the answer I do agree with the general idea of some limitations. Glad it’s not my job to figure it out!
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Something like players being limited to one WPPR award per single day event per day. It seems like the new 150% standard for TGP is pretty much aimed to essentially make it impossible to run two events in a day, similarly the flip frenzy 1/3 tgp nerf. It would have the same effect, only one event would be valuable per day, unless it’s a show or some other qualifying>finals type event over multiple days, then multiple finals would be allowed for the same day.
Bob - You forget to mention California as “tough nuts” also. Besides INDISC, City Champ, Pinball at the Lab, and maybe one other, California is a dry desert when it comes to high value tournaments, especially multiple tournament events. You would think it would be just the opposite given the population and size of the state. For now, dial up those frequent flyer miles if you want to get to those fertile fields of WPPR’s.Would be nice if we had a farmer on the west coast.
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Time to bring back the TOP 15 RESUME! 
For me I guess I’m trying to figure out if I’m just looking to improve your rank or actually get better at competing against the world’s best? They are different things imo.
That’s why some of these multi day, 4-6 tournaments are so great. I get to have cracks at the best in the world multiple times instead of just once.
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As an rolling X day window may work and can help fix the issues of 1 show being able to kill an full year of local state events.
Or limit points in total for big main (say CERTIFIED EVENTS etc) + sides at the (same site / ORG) But not for say things at non show local places that may have an side event
May need some work for an say an District 82 that does have smaller local level events + the bigger events with sides