WPPR v6.1 sneak peek . . .

General
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@gdd paid me $20 to try to get this forum rockin’ again, so here goes!

Tilt Forums exclusive . . .

Another sneak peek into what’s currently being talked about and proposed among IFPA leadership. As always, everything is subject to change prior to the end of the year.

Tossing around an added class of event for 2025. Feedback welcomed!

Tournaments that run a LIMITED Best Game qualifying format → 4% increase to TGP for each game included in the qualifying standings

Tournaments that run an UNLIMITED Best Game qualifying format with a minimum 20 hours of qualifying time, will have those qualifying games counted at 2X value (8% increase to TGP for each game included in the qualifying standings).

PROPOSAL:
The IFPA will be introducing a new class of the Best Game qualifying format called LIMITED PLUS. To be eligible for this class of format, the tournament must allow a specific number of limited entries which will be based on the number of machines available for qualifying at the tournament. This number must be 4X the number of machines available to be played. For example, if the tournament utilizes 10 machines in qualifying, players must be limited to 40 entries to be eligible. This number of entries is regardless of how many games count in the qualifying standings.

Tournaments that run a LIMITED PLUS Best Game qualifying format with a minimum 20 hours of qualifying time, will have those qualifying games counted at 3X value (12% increase to TGP for each game included in the qualifying standings).

LIMITED PLUS is meant to combat the ‘buying your way’ into finals. We feel limited qualifying under these LIMITED PLUS conditions is a better test of skill than UNLIMITED Best Game while also helping to address the advantages players get through their increased opportunity/privilege at these Unlimited events.

(for purposes of Certified rules - LIMITED PLUS would follow the same rules as UNLIMITED:
Unlimited Best Game/Card Qualifying – minimum 20 hours of open qualifying time, minimum 5 games being counted)

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How does spare / (backup) games what about games dieing fit in?
What about games being added at the last minute?
At what point does the count of games X 4 have to be locked in?
Is there room for flex like we got some maybe games in that put an event that per planed to cap it at say 40 got 1 more game in putting them to need 44?

What about limited plus card? games per card X4 = max cards cards? (games per card X4) X 2? = max cards cards.

Can events have an per game max?
To allow for an say big pool of games say we have 20 games you can only play each one 4 times? And still have it count as an 80 game per player cap?

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I miss this …

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Right now there are some “limited” events with a maximum number of entries that is less than 4X the number of machines. Some I’ve been going to for many years include TPF (Texas), both Main and Classics, and Zapcon (Mesa, AZ), again both Main (15 on 8 or 9 games) and Classics (12 on 5 or 6 games). It seems that events with a limit BELOW 4X should also qualify since they’re even more challenging.

As for when a game gets pulled, especially in Classics, the rule should probably be based on the number of machines used at the start of qualifying.

I like the idea. Some organizers might not go for it (Jeff?) since they want to maximize their pots, but that’s their choice. More options are better.

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and more then x4 does not court as well?

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I assume more than 4X would be just plain Limited.

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it seems the idea is a limited version of an unlimited event, to highlight consistency, not expanding limited event which were limited due to size/time/machine restriction(s).

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Regardless of why it’s done, the skill-based impact is the same as for otherwise constrained events.

Another option is to not have only exactly 4X but a range, e.g. 3X to 4X. This way some Unlimited events could scale back to Limited-Plus while some constrained events to try to scale UP to Limited-Plus.

<— not a big fan of super-secret IFPA Leadership

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Are there ANY current or recent Limited Entry tourneys that come close to offering 4x the number of “available pins” in limited # of entries?

For example, at TPF ‘24 and prior, there were 15 pins available in Main. This would mean it would need to offer 60 limited entries to players to qualify for this Limited Plus status. That’s a LOT more limited entries than were previously offered. Doesn’t seem reasonable, IMHO.

Are there other Limited formats that come close to the 4x requirement?

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Let’s try this again . . . we’re creating a new class of event called UNLIMITED MINUS!

It is meant to serve all the same purposes that unlimited qualifying does, but limit the ability for players to play an excessive amount in order to give themselves an advantage over the field.

Here’s a couple of flawed data points (flawed because people obviously would have changed their behavior based on the rules - but it does show that there are absolutely levels of excess above and beyond this 4X level that we’re seeing in Unlimited Best Game events).

Expo Classics (9 qualifying games available):
34 out of 218 players went beyond this proposed 4X rule in number of attempts (22 qualified).
11 out of 218 players went beyond DOUBLE the 4X rule in number of attempts (10 qualified).
4 out of 218 players went beyond TRIPLE the 4X rule in number of attempts (4 qualified).

YEGPIN Classics (18 qualifying games available):
36 out of 263 players went beyond this proposed 4X rule in number of attempts.
18 out of 263 were above 100 attempts.

This rule is NOT about trying to pull in Limited Best Game events. This is about curbing the wild variance of opportunity/privilege that Unlimited Best Game events have.

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Statistically, the more games everyone plays, the higher the probability that the best players will qualify. But when there’s a significant differential in game count, those results are weaker. I’ve also seen many Main events where top players spend not for qualifying ability but rather to get the “drive the bus” advantage of game selection in the playoffs. Northwest this year looked like that; I’ve seen the dueling for #1 seed by people already qualified many times. So put that way, yes, there’s merit in rewarding a “capped” version.

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other sports have salary caps / other limits on equipment.

capping is good to say stop sponsored players from coming to an event playing so much that they lose / don’t make much $ even with an 1st play win.

Do you want events to be about who is the best at grinding on games? Or do you want it to be about over all skill and not being an to play each game 30 times and have that lucky game on each where you kill it.

also stops people from slow playing games to lock them up to kill time as well.

opportunity/privilege so that big city teams can’t just load up with all of the best players and overrun small town teams that just do minimum salary

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That’s exactly where we’re trying to land. Finding the goldilocks zone of making sure everyone has the opportunity to play enough games that the best players will qualify (where Limited can fail), while limiting the differential to ensure the results are as strong as they can be (where Unlimited can fail).

Totally agree here as well, which is why 4X may seem like an unreasonably high amount of entries to cap things at first glance . . . but I think it’ll help us hit that goldilocks zone quite well.

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Frankly, I think it’s at least as important to have a differential between “no repeat game picks” playoffs vs. those allowing repeats. (Applies mostly in Main where there are usually far more games to choose from.) I’d rank both “must select a bank, not individual games” and “no repeats” versions as more worthy than repeat game playoffs. Having someone keep picking their favorite go-to games round after round says less about their overall skill than making them mix it up in the finals. “Ok, Kid X, you qualified high by crushing 4 or 5 of the 16 games in Main, now you just pick them over and over to win the finals. Could you beat the rest of the attendees on the other 11 games?” Maybe, maybe not. If so, prove it. It’s possible for someone to win a big event while never even learning to play half the machines there if they can crush some of the ones that are. Doesn’t seem right.

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Any additional restrictions for limited plus or for limited plus certified? Expecting someone to run a 5 game limited plus bank with each game counting three times.

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First off, throw “Limited Plus” in the garbage. Here’s the new naming convention we’re workshopping (Limited Plus is now Hybrid):

LIMITED BEST GAME (worth 1X)
UNLIMITED BEST GAME (worth 2X)
HYBRID BEST GAME (worth 3X)

No additional restrictions regarding how much data a TD can keep vs. throw away (outside of requiring a minimum of 5 games to be included in the standings to be Certified).

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Is there a definition of what IFPA considers “buying your way in?” When I did some research into this through past results at INDISC (this year and in years past), I was a bit surprised to find this wasn’t actually happening at any level I would describe as meaningful.

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INDISC is card where some amount of consistency is required to qualify.

I would rerun those INDISC stats but allow everyone to take the best score they had on any machine at any time during qualifying to get a more apples to apples comparison with Best Game.

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I like this proposal.

I’m attempting to summarize the current proposal as I understand it. Please let me know if I’ve gotten anything wrong here. I’m structuring this how I think it would be worded and organized to fit into the existing WPPR rules document.

In the “QUALIFYING COMPONENT” subsection of the TGP section:

Tournaments that offer a limited number of best game qualifying attempts exactly equal to 4x the number of available machines, will be considered HYBRID Best Game.

Tournaments that run a HYBRID Best Game qualifying format with a minimum 20 hours of qualifying time, will have those qualifying games counted at 3X value (12% increase to TGP for each game included in the qualifying standings).

In the “IFPA Certified+ events” section:

<new bullet between current c and d>. Hybrid Best Game Qualifying – minimum 20 hours of qualifying time, minimum 5 games being counted, number of available attempts limited to exactly 4x the number of available machines.

Question 1: In both of those proposed additions I used the phrasing “exactly 4x the number of available machines.” Is that “exactly” wording correct? Best Game with available attempts limited to a number that’s less than or greater than 4x available machines don’t count as Hybrid?

Question 2: Do you need to count at least 5 games to get the 3x or is the 5 game restriction just for the Event Booster requirements?

Question 3: In a Hybrid Best Game tournament that uses up to 2 scores per machine, how many attempts should be allowed to count as Hybrid rather than Limited?

You already said:

I’m pretty sure that covers it, but I feel like I could be misinterpreting that sentence.

Example 1
Available machines: 15
Total scores counted: 10
Maximum scores counted per machine: 2

For this to be a Hybrid Best Game qualifying there should be (I think) 60 attempts allowed (15 x 4).

Example 2
Available machines: 15
Total scores counted: 5
Maximum scores counted per machine: 1

Also 60 attempts allowed to make this into Hybrid Best Game.

Right?

Question 4: What should happen if a game is removed and not replaced?

Expo Classics is a good example. They advertised having 9 games, had 9 games when they started, but within the first half of qualifying the game had an unrepairable catastrophic malfunction. There wasn’t a backup game. So the tournament players only had the opportunity to play on 8 games for scores that counted. If this were to be a Hybrid Best Game event they would have started with 9 x 4 = 36 attempts. Would the number of attempts have changed when they made the decision to pull the game and not replace it?

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For sure. And I’ve looked at both before and after the switch the cards.

I guess I should elaborate. I only recall finding one instance, in the pre-card days, of someone buying their way in as I would define it. It’s been at least 5 years since I did this (I think it was during the debate over switching to cards) so memory not clear but they would have fallen well outside the mean in entires used and pretty sure their finals performance was reflective of their qualification struggle.

For the card days, I can only think of one or two people we found who played well outside the mean and qualified and one was a very highly ranked player nobody would think twice about who went on to perform well in finals. The latter may well have been in an attempt to improve qualification position versus qualification. This is a bit more difficult to quantify in the allotted time (not a lot of time) unfortunately.