I’ll start the WPPR farming forecast for Fulda at 7,726. Any other guesses?
Las Vegas has the largest collection currently in use, and a large population base, yet they struggle to get 20 players at an event; ask Brian or Sean. SoCal has a fair number of players but is so spread out plus the traffic that it’s a hassle to get to many events. I suspect NorCal has a similar problem. But the fundamental difference is that in almost every other sport, most events Don’t count towards a “world ranking.” Your local golf, bowling, tennis, etc. scores count towards your handicap or average, but that’s it. Only a small percentage of events count towards “world” rankings. The lack of “world ranking points” doesn’t keep millions of people from participating in bowling, golf or tennis leagues, but seems to mean disproportionately more in pinball. Says something negative about our sport.
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I guess now would be a good time to share this visualization of the influence of WPPR farms I’ve been working on…
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Good idea, but LPA is not a WPPR farm.
Their two big tournament weekends each year include a pre tournament on Friday and two large tournaments across the weekend.
Their most recent tournament a couple of weeks ago included a pre tournament, a Pinmasters-style golf tournament with twelve qualifying holes, and the main tournament with five rounds on three machines (old/mid/new).
Playing thirty qualifying machines for TGP in main is hardly WPPR farming (the three machines were played one at a time too).
Also, several players in the top 50 have results from LPA, Boras, and Fulda, but no one in your list has results from all three, so something is amiss with that as well.
Also, several players in the top 50 have results from LPA, Boras, and Fulda, but no one in your list has results from all three, so something is amiss with that as well.
Good catch. Bug in code, should be fixed now.
LPA is not a WPPR farm
I’m not super familiar on the Euro farms, I was told there was somewhere in Lund that was doing frequent multi-tournament weekends. I thought it was maybe LPA. I’ll look into it and update accordingly.
I say own it. WPPR Farms are great! It means that there are permanent locations with large collections where people are regularly getting together to play a ton of pinball.
It’s a relatively small sample set, but I noticed that LPA has had at least two weekends over the past 3 months with 3 tournaments. And that’s awesome. I imagine more and more players from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland will keep trekking to Lund for those great WPPRtunity weekends.
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Yes. Exactly this. Why try and nerf them? IMO, they are a sign of a thriving, growing, competitive community. If you’re jealous of people rising the ranks in a way you feel is unfair, you’re doing it wrong imo.
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I have to say I’m in full agreement here. I’m not in favor of any sort of capping of max points for specific venues.
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I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss concerns about wppr farms as simply “jealousy.” Yes, we can all agree that its awesome people are to play in so many events in a single weekend. The issue is that their impact on the ranking system is becoming wildly imbalanced. Traveling to a farm is practically a prerequisite if you want to crack the top 100 (it already is for European players).
This is only the beginning of the WPPR Farm era. The model is not easily replicated, and if changes to the rules aren’t made, the top of the world leaderboard will soon be completely dominated by events from less than a handful of geographic locations. Sorry, but that sucks.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see whether the 5.8 changes will help at all. My suspicion is that they’ll help a bit, but for the most part we’ll see farms continue to completely dominate the scene for the foreseeable future.
God no. I still remember having to lug banks of pinball machines around to different locations just so we could get full value. That rule was the worst. A less strict version of it maybe? Perhaps a single “main event” per week that is allowed full value, and all other events are considered “side events” and their value is divided by n. I dunno. As John says, glad it’s not my job to solve this problem.
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I understand the concerns, but isn’t that solved by just playing your best and letting you rank fall where it may? There are plenty of players that know full well how accurate or inaccurate their rank is.
No ranking system will ever be perfect, but any change to the current system that makes places run fewer tournaments is a bad thing imo.
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Nobody is making anyone do anything. If people are willing to power through 10 events in a weekend because it’s fun then changes to the ranking system are irrelevant.
I agree that no system is perfect, but that doesn’t mean we should not strive to improve it. The whole point of this thread is to discuss upcoming changes to the system.
That’s kind of like saying “just work hard and you too will be rich!” Ignoring the inequities built into the system won’t solve them. We’ll still see the top of the leaderboards dominated by events from a few locations, and the people who travel to those events have far greater expected value than those who don’t.
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Patience 
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We currently have a rolling 36 months of activity that has 15 months of nothing in it
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WPPR v5.8 will impact the top of the rankings more than any other section
Let’s wait and see how this plays out, and we iterate as needed… The same way we’ve iterated for the past 16 years.
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Part of the drive to do those 10 events is because of the current system imo. It’s maximizing the Wppr tuninity.
I guess what I’m getting at is nerfing wppr farms might do more harm than good. I have nothing to back that up.
No don’t change anything! I’m personally looking forward to Epstein Cup 2023: District 82 vs. Fulda 
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If there was ever a year to make the IFPA WC entry fee $5,000 per player 
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My current IFPA tracker shows Andy Bagwell at #53 as the 80th spot in next year’s event. Subject of course to which countries send two, one or no participants. Think the Japanese will come back next year?
Also, whenever held in EU, factor in more country spots being used by European countries that didn’t send all their spots.
Already did the Euro part; I have 14 Euro countries sending 2 and 4 others sending 1, plus 2 US, 2 Canada, 2 Australia, 2 New Zealand, 40 country spots in total. It’s a guess, but a plausible one.
Thanks for crushing my IFPA qualification dream in one post lol… At least I got to play this year 
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To quote Bowen, Play Better (or go to a WPPR farm more often). But in all honesty, I wanted to throw that out there to give players an idea of what it might take to get in. I assumed for now that everyone on the list chooses to go. In reality, not all do, e.g. Keith has never gone to IFPA outside the US, so the cut number will go further down than that. How much further depends on the “choose not to attend” count. That’s a harder call to make this year than in past years because there are so many players now eligible who’ve Never been eligible before. I can make a guess about the “regulars” based on their history (e.g. Cayle and Trent will go), but it’s a tougher call for the newbies, e.g. Jared and the WI gang.