NACS 2020 Brackets

Has anyone took the time to enter the current NACS attendees in a bracket format yet? Checking before I do it. I know things can change but see how it’s stands now as of current people committing.

I took a look at it. Round 1 has some fun matches, but none I’d call high-profile. Round 2 has a few possibilities, like Alek vs. Tim Street and Byers vs. Poverelli. Round 3 is where it starts to get interesting, if the higher seeds win out, such as Colin vs. DNO, Alek-Adam B, Trent-Rosa and Belsito-Gagno. After that, pretty much everything is interesting, like a possible Colin-Eric rematch of The Open final and a Belsito-Raymond pairing in the quarterfinals, and then perhaps Keith-Bowen in the semis.

Any votes on which two players you’d most like to see in the final, given how the bracket looks? I’d like to see Keith and Eric duel it out - GOAT vs. the hottest player right now.

My favorite question, though, is who outside the top 64 (current cut line) has the deepest run and gets themselves into the IFPA in Florida. My money’s on DNO. Colin’s excellent, but I know what Donovan can do when he’s on, and he’ll be on his home turf, too.

So many people to root for … usually both sides of a match.

Can you explain this? Highest finisher who isn’t already going to IFPA gets an invite?

You just explained it!

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Can you post a picture or upload the file?

Go Sean Davis!!!

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It’s a standard 55-player bracket; Josh posted a link to it on the IFPA site. I just did the math rather than type it all into the form. For instance, just as if you have all 64 spots filled, the #1 seed starts by playing the #64 seed and 32 vs. 33 [sum of the two seeds adds up to 2^N + 1, or 65 in this case]. For the next round, it would be #1 vs. #32 if both win and 16 vs. 17, etc. The problem with filling in the names is as soon as one person drops out, everyone below them in the rankings gets reshuffled in the bracket [or higher if their runner-up replacement happened to be ranked above them]. For a bracket X people short of 2^N, where 2^N=64 and X=9 in this case, the top X players get a bye and the highest-vs-lowest first round match is now X+1 vs. 2^N-X or 10 vs 55 in this case. All of the slots in the bracket are the same as in a full 64 bracket, just with matches involving players 56-64 missing.

Here’s the form:

Standard procedure for the last several years has been that the highest finisher at the Nationals who didn’t make the 62-player cut for IFPA gets invited, as does the highest finisher outside the cut in the European Championship Series. Note the two players must not have turned down the opportunity to be an alternate for IFPA, i.e. they must be “Committed to Attend” if they were high enough up to get asked.

Here’s the verbiage from the IFPA17 rules:

“Additionally, 2 of the 64 spots will be made available at the 2019-20 IFPA North American Pinball Championship and the 2019-20 IFPA European Pinball Championship. These spots will go to the highest finisher of these events who did not qualify for IFPA17 through the automatic bid process. Contact the IFPA for these details.”

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We’re still waiting on the following players to confirm/decline, so the bracket is definitely still up in the air:

Mark Pearson
Ryan McQuaid
James Scott OH
Aleksander Kaczmarczyk
John Greatwich (Matt Whalen has already declined for Nova Scotia)

In the improbable event that everyone from a state/province declined, what would happen then?

The first and second place finishers from each would have to decline. If they all did, no nationals that year. Or there would be a default winner as the one that declined last. Haha

Oh sorry! I should have clarified a small bit there, meant if both first and second from an area (let’s say Nova Scotia since the first place already did) decline, would that just cut the number of players down at NACS?

Oh. Haha. Sorry. I knew I was missing something there. Yeah. Then one less player will be in nationals. Doesn’t go past second.

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Yes, only the winner and runner up are eligible. If neither of them choose to attend, then that jurisdiction’s spot goes unused and there’s one less player in the bracket.

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https://challonge.com/2020nacs

Nova Scotia won’t be represented. 54 finalists in total.

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Generally, when does the game lineup get released?

https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournament_pages/pinmasters/games/

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So will this list be narrowed down before the event? Or is it just kind of show up and see which 18 of these will be used?

Only 18 will be used for Pin-Masters for sure. We’ll likely use as many games as we can for NACS just to keep things running along as quickly as we can.

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