People are welcome to continue to run two 80 point events instead of one 96 point event. For almost everyone in the world, it is better WPPR ROI.
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“Tournament directors can apply to have their tournament certified by emailing the IFPA after their event has been sanctioned.” but “Tournament must have 64 or more rated players that participate.” and no one can be certain before the tournament that 64 rated players will show up, so is IFPA Certification something that takes place before the tournament is played with the caveat of “if 64 rated players show up”?
And the IFPA website uses the term IFPA endorsed. Is this different from IFPA sanctioned? Does sanctioning and endorsing take place when a TD submits a tournament to the calendar? Then after it’s on the calendar the TD emails to ask for it to be IFPA Certified?
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Endorsement/Sanction is the same level of “approval”. Certification is the next level above this.
You have the process correct. Events get approved for endorsement/sanctioning the same way they do now. After that part of the process is completed, that organizer can reach out to me if they feel like their event meets the criteria to be certified.
I’ll be able to view that calendar submission which would have already been approved as part of my certification review process.
So much this . . . It’s really only the top 10-25 players that actually stand to gain in a meaningful way by playing in 1 event for 60 WPPR’s versus two events for 50 WPPR’s each.
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No offense taken. It’s like that “No lowballs; I know what I got” meme. I’m very well aware that PinFest isn’t a PAPA-level event but despite that we’ve been able to take the pieces/variables given to us and make our way onto the Pro Circuit through a combination of hard work and luck.
What’s frustrating for me is seeing a line in the sand drawn and being JUST on the outside of it. If we were so far off the line that would be one thing, but right now I’m currently in the “bargaining” stage to see what flexibility, if any, the IFPA is willing to offer around these new rules.
Point taken, but thinking about it like a Venn diagram, we were able to “run events because you love organizing events” and “be on the Pro Circuit”. We were able to do both, so please excuse my disappointment when I don’t see a path forward under the current constraints. It just stinks that a two-day Best Game event that drew in a couple hundred people isn’t good enough for the new elevated status, but I could instead cram together a capped single-day Match Play event together for a 20% boost. (EDIT: I see the “Finals cannot start on the same day that Qualifying starts.” rule now. Let me change that to “a capped Match Play event with a 12:01am Finals Start”.)
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For the certification can this not be done when you submit the results, you would put this in the comments that you believe the event is a certified event, upon review of the tournament it would then get awarded?
We plan on having a page on our website dedicated to promoting the list of events that are certified. This is why we want the certification process to occur after the calendar submission has been approved for sanctioning.
When we approve the results, we’ll then verify that the metrics for certification were actually met.
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You’d probably want pre-certification in order to help draw people to the event as well.
They gotta make sure that it setup to help their friends at the top.
I miss the days of:
“They gotta make sure that it’s setup to help THEMSELVES at the top.” 
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If you’re giving players 20 tickets, with the expectation that there’s enough qualifying time available to actually play those 20 tickets, why not just take the best 12 scores out of the 15 machines available?
Seems like that wouldn’t put any additional burden on the organizers based on the constraints you’re working with. It just forces you to keep more of the data you’re getting rather than tossing it.
Ok, help their friends, and themselves, at the top 
I’m not going to lie. My first thought when I saw the WPPR revisions was, “It looks like Josh is sick of getting passed by the Wisconsin folk.”
But all kidding aside, even though there’s only one tournament in my neck of the woods that would be Certified, I like this move. It always felt like large, Circuit-level events should be considerably more valuable than a local, single-day tourney that had a good turnout. And this rewards those TD’s and players participating in a Circuit-level event.
But I did have several questions about certification:
- Are all tourneys that choose a qualifying format of group match play, pingolf, flipper frenzy, or anything that isn’t an unlimited herb or card format considered “Limited” qualifying?
- Assuming the answer to #1 is “Yes”, does this statement mean that the 12-game minimum is a count of the actual games played, and not a TGP calculation? So it would take 12 rounds of group match play, not 6 rounds, correct? So would 12 rounds of head-to-head match play qualify? Or a 12-hole pingolf course (assuming an average score is at least 36 strokes), or a flipper frenzy qualifier that averaged over 12 games per player? Or were you really looking for a qualifying round that was at least 96% TGP all by itself?
I wonder because, depending on the answer, the main tournament at NWPAS isn’t close to being certifiable, but the Pingolf side tourney might be Certified by merely adding 3 more holes. But on the other hand, if you’re looking for a 96% TGP qualifying round, then PinMasters would not be Certified.
Finals portion of the tournament must consist of one of the following approved formats:
PAPA style match play rounds (minimum of 3 games per round).
- Is the “PAPA style match play” format defined simply as any format of 4-player groups on 3 or more machines, with the top 2 advancing to the next round? Is this true regardless of the scoring system used, whether it’s 4-2-1-0 match play, or pingolf scoring, or even the unique scoring system used by NWPAS that includes bonus points for doubling the opponent’s score? Again, I ask because the answer to this question determines if PinMasters would be considered “Certified” because it uses pingolf for its finals format.
Thank you in advance. 
Yep.
Correct. When we say “ACTUAL” meaningful games played, there’s no 1.5X or 2X bonus associated with playing games in 3-player or 4-player groups. This means 12 rounds of match play is fine. 12 rounds of head-to-head play is fine. 12-hole pingolf course that grades out to 100% PGM is fine.
I wouldn’t even call top 2 advancing to the next round necessary. TD’s would be welcome to do it the “old school PAPA way” if they wanted (which were the top 8 point totals advanced out of all 4 groups).
The scoring system is also something that can be TD discretion (4-2-1-0, 3-2-1-0, 10-5-1-0, golf scoring, bonus points, etc are all fine).
Pretty much we want to see a minimum of 3 rounds, where the rounds go 16 players → 8 players → 4 players.
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Oh, those were the days
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Thanks for the clarifications. One more clarification about the 12-game minimum:
Some formats with a variable number of qualifying games can be tricky here. I assume the format must make it impossible to qualify in less than 12 games, correct? For example:
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PATL qualifying was a race to 25 points. They ended up with 14 rounds of group match play (15 if you count B qualifying). But theoretically, someone could have qualified on 9 games, and @raydaypinball did it in 10 games. In all other ways, it would have qualified for certification. Am I correct that PATL would not have been Certified because it was possible to qualify on 9 games (even though most needed 14)?
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Similarly, a flipper frenzy qualifier might have an average of 13 games played, but those at the top usually play a lot less due to their longer playing times. So someone might finish in the Top 16 by going 8-0. To qualify, would EVERYONE in the top 16 (or however many that make finals) need to have played at least 12 games for the tournament to be Certified (assuming all other conditions were met)?
We would look at how we calculate meaningful games played, which for Target Match Play is:
“The number of rounds counting towards TGP are the number of rounds it takes for the first player to reach the target.”
So PATL would not have qualified because that number was 10. If Karl wanted to ensure certification, he could set the target to “The player in first place after 12 rounds sets the target point total for qualification”.
Same situation . . .we go to the TGP Guide here:
“Flip Frenzy formats, also referred to as Pinball! Pinball! Pinball! format will be graded based on the AVERAGE number of matches played by all players in the field.”
If that average is above 12, then you’re fine. If that average is below 12 then it’s not.
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Since Lonnie is getting in the weeds here, i’ll join in
Not that I have seen lots of them but what about a top16 finals using multi-matchplay? They would be 3 rounds from 16->8->4 with 4 games per round, the only main difference is the games are played at the same time instead of one after the other.
I assume it wouldn’t be but it wasn’t clear from the description on 16 to 8 to 4 with at least 3 games a round that they couldn’t be in parallel 