It’s that time of year again: time to start planning your spring pinball event and tourney plans! Registration and ticket sales for TPF 2018 Wizards tournament is now open as of 7pm Nov. 2: http://texaspinball.com/tpf/tpfstore/
Make the trip to the Dallas area for a Stern Pro Circuit event and to experience one of the best shows in the country!
The tournament is capped at the first 160 players who register, and as of this posting, 60 spots have already been claimed. It sold out the last two years prior to the event, so don’t delay.
$70 one-time entry fee (this does NOT include entrance into the Show, which is required)
Estimated total cash prize purse of over $8,000 if all 160 spots are filled
Awesome custom-molded trophies from Double Danger pinball for winner of each division.
Four different division finals: A, B, Novice, and Women’s.
neverdrains software for scores, standings, and queuing.
All this, and around 400 pins in ridiculously good quality in a 40,000 square foot game room!
Changes from 2017:
Adding an unlimited entry best-game Classics side tourney! ($70 Wizards entry fee does NOT include entries into the Side tourney)
A division will take 24 players (instead of 16)
Women’s division will take 8 players (instead of 4)
Novice division will take 8 players (instead of 4)
Qualifying will begin on Friday morning (instead of Friday midday)
Wizards Limited Entry multi-era format:
20 entries (games played) maximum per player, best-game format.
Your best 8 pins out of the 12 will count toward qualifying, but your best 8 pins will require at least 2 pins from each of the three eras: Modern, Solid State, and EM.
B division finalist remains unchanged at 8 players
PAPA-style finals, but each group’s 3 games must include one pin from each era.
I hope to see many of you at TPF March 16-18, 2018!
Alright, got my ticket, I had a blast last year so I’m definitely returning. Last year I got the hotel kinda late in the game, so I had to stay nearby. I was hoping to snag it early this year but its already sold out, does that mean I’m SOL, or will more rooms magically “open up” later?
Room reservations in the TPF block this year required a non-refundable one night deposit if I read the booking correctly. I’m expecting this means even fewer last-minute rooms available than prior years.
For TPF, snagging an on-site hotel room means booking within a couple weeks after of the prior year’s event (!!). There was a post about the room block being available for 2018 on April 4, 2017 – and the block was sold out quickly, even with the deposit that @Law noted. Yes, it’s that popular a show that the on-site hotel rooms get booked nearly 12 months in advance.
The TPF staff continues to work with nearby (some walking distance) hotels to get more room blocks. Be sure to stay plugged into the TPF Facebook page and the TPF website:
Only 45 left around 12 hours later. Wow! Thank you to all of the players who are excited to play competitive pinball and putting their faith in the team to organize a great tournament.
** NOTE: similar to the last two years, the Main (Wizards) finals will be held on Saturday evening. **
Some revised schedule information that isn’t on the website yet that incorporates the side tourney aspects: I highly recommend being there for all of Friday.
Friday qualifying from 9am - 12am, both Wizards and Classics.
Legit question. Ignoring the implementation detail of electronics vs relays and switch stacks (which are not relevant for game play), Pabst is derived from an actual EM game, retaining most of the original game’s playfield elements and general rules, albeit tweaked a bit. I think it’s fair to call this one an EM-era design.
Would you call a Capcom Breakshot an EM-era game? It portrays itself that way.
TNA was designed from scratch within the past couple years. It may be “retro” styled, but is not based on any existing SS playfield, and has no SS pedigree except the 7-digit scoring displays. Sorry, I can’t justify this one as anything but “modern”.
The only thing that might push Can Crusher into the EM category is its score reels. As others have mentioned, there are a few games with solid-state electronics and score reels, and they’ve all ended up in the EM sets.
