They will lose money. No way they are flying there staying in a hotel and what not for less than $300
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The point is that this could be done by someone who lives in North Dakota. And i can absolutely see someone taking five seconds to setup a tournament if they knew that it was a free ride to a big prize pool.
How is it a free ride? They would pay way more in expenses than the $300 they stood to make for getting to nationals.
But this also has to happen:
Assuming there is a ND SCS, why would all the other finishers drop out, leaving the last-placed player to go to nationals?
I suspect if there is enough interest in ND to eventually get an SCS, good players are going to show up to try winning an âeasyâ state, which suddenly makes it less easy.
Moot point. Only first or second place can go to nationals.
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Well how many people will go an small drive bar with pinâs to an monthly more then 1 time to get into an easy state and hope that the points they get can out rake the bar fly who play each month?
HI or AK where you not flying in to just play in 1-2 monthlys + flying in for finales for an easy state.
and if there are only 2-3 people at SCS?? people who say I donât want to take out someone who wants to go nationals. This is just my local bar BOB you can have fun at nationals
Still seems IFPA says the only people allowed to go onto Nationals from States are the actual winner and the second place finisher. From what I can tell, there is no requirement of a minimum number of players in a 16 player field (or 24 in a superstate) to actually show up to play.
So if only 3 people showed up, then it seems the two lowest seeds present would play their best of 7 match and then the winner would play the top seed present for the title.
Coming soon:
âAny IFPA sanctioned tournaments must have ball saves turned off.â
that will not work on games like Bram Stokerâs Dracula where turning it off is bad for the software or other games where it canât be turned off.
So many people wanting change but no idea what they actually wantâŚ
You want regional finals? Go ahead and set it up! Nothing is stopping you⌠You could in fact coordinate with your regional neighbors and name the tournaments in such a way to easily track yearly standings! (Doesnât NY do this for the northern part of the state?)
If it works out you can even propose it to @pinwizj!
There has been a lot of this âvirtual campaigningâ where you simply throw out ideas but have little desire to make it happen on their own - you know the NACS rules and format, participate or donât (if you feel strongly enough) - the problem with all of the ideas is that you likely donât even have a majority vote of the people on this thread backing you up (good luck getting people to agree on most anything) - most of the suggestions add either too much: complexity or restriction or confusion or abstraction etc.
Is the current NACS setup really ALL that bad? Remember, your idea has to be applied across the continent, some regional ideas really donât work nationallyâŚ
I am all about discussion and ideas, but it seems like people also donât like hearing âthatâs not a feasible (or good) ideaâ.
My $0.02
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Great idea.
I keep seeing this sentiment and Iâm wondering if we didnât already see it happen? How many people outside Florida had ever heard of Eric Stone before he blanked the field in Nationals? Now you donât talk about big events without mentioning him. Sure it wasnât Alaska. Or Hawaii. It was Florida, but the concept of the unknown player coming to Nationals and wiping the floor with all the great playersâthat happened.
On a side note - when I lived in Hawaii for 3 years I found one game on location, a busted up Rolling Stones that I played once.
I think someone said it best earlier - this event is like the Senate. Not the House or the Electoral College. The Senate. Once you are a State, you get one representative. Thatâs it. And you as a player are welcome to try to game the system however you want. My guess is Josh doesnât want to impose citizen requirements or minimum tournament requirement, because he doesnât want to police it. The system works for what heâs trying to do with it.
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$300 is feasible for a trip to some locations.
Assuming you stay in a glorified Cabelas tent, rely on your friend to get a ride to/from the airport, and book your flight early on a budget carrier. 
Youâre still making zero dollars at best on this scheme. It will never happen, hence my comment. The concern makes no sense to me.
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I donât make enough to go on vacation but once a year. I would absolutely take advantage of this system if I did not live in central Texas. Sure 300 bucks is not an all expense paid, lavish vacation, but it is a very nice chunk to have knocked off. And at the rate pinball is going, soon this convo will be about 400 dollars, then 500 etc. if the nationals ever were in Austin. I would absolutely 100% travel to another state to game this system.
Iâll let you guys beat each other up over this because Iâm just thrilled that after playing my first game of pinball 4 years ago, I made the finals for Pennsylvania. 
I was contemplating not going since Iâll probably make an ass out of myself, but my buddy said âIâd rather be in the arena getting my ass handed to me, than sitting on the sidelinesâ
Good luck to everyone!
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As someone who played in St. Louis before moving home, I was going to chime in saying I thought that having CP Pinball be a MO location was a good idea I hadnât consideredâŚ
âŚuntil I realized that subtracting the points I earned there this year from my IL points would drop me 4 or 5 seeds and give me a round one matchup against Keith, so now I officially abstain 
I do think handling it as Keefer suggested seems appropriate, and as he said, it essentially is a STL venue. I believe Chuck was even one of the founders of St Louis Area Pinball. That said, I understand this makes things hard to track on the back end, and could become a slippery slope (if a scene pops up a little bit away in Belleville, is that MO? IL?)
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This would be fun the year I have Chuck host the IL SCS finals
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