Epic event - thanks to all!
Seconded! Thank you to all the volunteers and in particular the techs who made this a great event. Was happy to qualify for finals even if I stunk it up once I got there 
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That was fantastic! Thanks to everyone who made it happen. I had an absolute blast!
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I want to mention the absolute happiness and general happy vibe on Sunday during the womenās tournament. That was one of the most positive tournaments Iāve watched. Everybody just had a great time there and the play was great. @bkerins and I were talking about how much fun the competitors were having and how universally positive all the comments were from the players. Great event.
@Lam Congrats on the top qualifier and top 3 finish!
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Agreed. Please be sure to thank Elizabeth Dronet and Raleigh Palis the next time you see them (both from Houston Belles and Chimes, and I donāt believe theyāre on this forum) for organizing and running the womenās championship on Sunday. They did a fantastic job!
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Just wanted to say thanks to all of the organizers for the TPF hell of a job and thanks for putting on the tournament.
This was my first year at the event so wasnāt sure what to expect. Here is my feedback take it or leave it.
The Good:
- Wizards overall prize pool and trophies were outstanding
- The techs did an amazing job all weekend fixi g machines (wait for the improvements on this one).
- The TD rulings were fair, quick and on point all weekend.
- The stream was great, thanks to all of those who participate to make that happen from the creators of the stream to the commenters that execute it.
- The 30 second one hour warm up period was great and should be the norm for limited entry tournaments well done!!!
- The format loved it, love the uniqueness and was the primary reason I came in the first place.
- Machine selection, there were some awesome titles really enjoyed playing the variety of games and the different skills levels you need to execute on them.
- The crowd, it was absolutely electric for the finals, the players got into it as well and didnāt complain about the crowd noise, it was awesome to see!!!
Some Suggestions (note I didnāt say the Bad)
- Classics was not great, had zero fun participating, it should have been limited entry and provided with your Wizards entry. Have no issue with pump and dump format just with ques that got up to 20 at one point it was pretty deflating participating in it.
- Machine shape, for a world class show, we didnāt get world class tournament machines. It is what it is and sympathize for the organizers as it isnāt easy to get donor machines and you never know what you get but I wish the shape and setup was better.
- Room setup was not great, would have been better off to use the entire wall for machines, stream booth in middle, registration desk outside and chairs on either side of the booth for waiting and watching IMO.
- I heard there was a local tournament the day before, not a big fan of this, I get the testing aspect, feel you should have used that time to work on setup of machines instead of playing a tourney on them. The optics of this is not great for local players. I believe you have to put yourself at a higher standard when you are running home events, to the point where sometimes you almost disadvantage yourself. Just to keep the event squeaky clean as people can have bad perceptions and leaves a bad taste in their mouth. I want to celebrate a local player winning not left wondering how much advantage this had on playing those games even before the event started.
Again take it as it is, thanks for putting up with a crazy Canadian and glad I helped to bring the WOW movement to life in Texas I will always have those memories!!!
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I believe the open practice was added to try to reduce this concern. Worth reading last yearās thread on this.
http://www.tiltforums.com/t/limited-qualifying-and-practice/3750
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Oh I read this but do you really think 30 seconds of practice makes up for a full day worth of all local players getting to play on machines. Personally just for optics I would never do this before a major tournament. Game testing is one thing, a full blown closed ended invite only tournament before not something I wouldnāt ever do.
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Definitely something we consider and will continue to reevaluate. Hard to find a balance between satisfying the growing number of competitors that want to participate, the number of games available, the person-hours needed to service the event.
Thank you for your feedback.
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In particular, we talked about how positive it might be for the main tournament to use that format, along with shifts / flights like NWPAS does. I heard from many people saying that the deep lines and waiting at TPF tournament were a lowlight, and from several who had to choose between the tournament and the show.
Match play is fun!
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Main division didnāt really have many line problems due to limited entry, especially if you got your entries in early Friday.
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Exactly why I donāt even try the tournaments anymore at an event if Iām primarily going there for the show. Qualifying is a HUGE time sink in a limited schedule. Things like virtual queuing make it better so youāre not locked down ball and chainā¦ but it basically āone or the otherā in these big events and Iām not trying to be the big winnerā¦ so itās the show for me these days. I donāt know the solutionā¦ but I can say the consequences have changed how and where I compete.
Those Belles did a phenomenal job and Ms. (Brittney?) Torres deserves a mention as well. She spent countless hours volunteering during the tournament and was one of the most fun people I worked with.
@jeff_rivera took a selfie with me as part of his project this year, that was pretty special. Such a nice guy. Wish I had more time to talk with everyone.
Many, many people thanked the team for running the event and I appreciated every one of them. Looking forward to TPF next year! Next up is the Bat City Open in June.
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Thanks yāall! Raleigh and I truly appreciate the support. We had lots of fun making plans and making trophies and were absolutely thrilled that it not only sold out but had a waiting list! Iāll be sure to pass on the comments to Brittany, who is also one of our Space City Belles.
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This is simply not the case. Not only is it not a full day, it is in fact only the finals of a larger tournament. The most one could play is four rounds of matchplay. Not only is it not all local players, it is only 1/5th of the entire field of participants in the TPL. So its really more like: 1/7th of the field, got at most four rounds more of matchplay than others. I wont even go into the fact that a number of the games werent even set up yet by the time TPL was being played, or that 100% of the people in TPL whom ive talked to felt the need to mention that āit was kind of a B@#$% to have to play during load inā.
I understand the issue here is being given the extra time to practice and not the quality of the practice itself, and i would agree that the time frame of practice should be equal for all. I just wanted to clarify that just because youre from Texas doesnt mean you were given free range to flip away āall dayā at your leisure on the tournament machines.
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Thanks Jeff! You were my angel on Sunday!
Iād like to add to the accolades already given.
When I first heard about TPF in October, it was too late to sign up for the Wizards tournament, but as it turned out, Classics seems more my speed. Having only played in one other Classics event at INDiSC this January, I didnāt notice any difference in the queue length, to be honest. Of course, INDiSC is primarily a pinball tournament ā not a pinball show ā so thereās less going on outside the tournament area. Still, I was very tired at the end of qualifying at both events. Then again, Iām oldš¤Ø.
Having said all that, I had a fantastic time competing and really respect the selfless hard work required to put on such an event. Keeping 40 year old pins working well through 300+ hard plays per day requires a Herculean effort to be sure.
I am continually impressed by the people Iāve had the opportunity to meet and to compete against. Getting helpful pinball advice from a great player during a competitive event is just humbling to be honest. And yet itās happened during the two big events Iāve attended.
Thanks again!
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Mike,
I enjoyed meeting and competing with you. Congrats on your excellent performance! And youāll find that most players are willing to share machine tips with others, so if you encounter a game you donāt understand, just ask. Hope to see you again soon.
Bob
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Iāll add that over half of the games played in TPL finals were from the classics bank and even 1 was from the kids bank because Main event games were coming in late. The good news is that we also found several major issues during TPL that we were able to fix Thursday night before the main event happened. Playing in TPL finals, it did suck to work so hard to qualify for it and to basically beta test games (not complaining as that is how it goes) but I mention it as it really limits āthat advantageā. In fact it hurt me as one of the games I played in TPL was changed quite a bit overnight and when I played it for the main event I was caught more off guard than someone walking up to the game for the first time. Serves me right for not taking my 30 seconds on it in warm-up.
One other thing on TPL Iāll mention is that several people in TPL finals didnāt play in the main event either because they didnāt want to or they didnāt sign up before it was full. Itās really a non-issue IMHO.
As for the games. I FULLY appreciate people bringing their games for this (I didnāt this year but brought MET LE last year). As one of the techs Thursday I just keep it short and say I share your opinion thereā¦ I felt bad leaving at 11pm Thursday night but after 8 hours of working on games and being sick I just couldnāt keep going any longer. Thanks goodness Jessie came as I saw he was working Friday and heās and amazing tech.
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P.S. - Cleopatraā¦ Iām STILL cussing at you for what you did to me in the first round of finals.