blog post courtesy of Bob Matthews

The Womens Rankings don’t get a lot of attention, but I thought it was time to point something out. As far as I can tell, Helena Walter, currently ranked 82nd (352.67), has been the top-ranked woman pinball player since some time in 2004. With their performances at the Vancouver Flip-Out, both Robin Lassonde at #100 (331.57) and Louise Wagensonner at #117 (316.26), both from California, are now within striking distance of claiming the top spot. Helena’s record over the years speaks for itself (played in 4 IFPAs, won PAPA B, 1st in Swedish Championship Classics, etc.). Both Robin and Louise have made great strides recently; in fact, Robin is #2 in the California SCS as of today.  For the first time in a long time, the race is on!

Once the domain of the Sharpes, then Joshua Henderson, it’s now a 4-way race for top youth.  Escher Lefkoff (now 144th), with his 3rd place finish at Expo [knocking me out 2-1 in the winner’s bracket semifinals; ouch, nice job, Esch!], will leapfrog Colin Urban (now 118th) by a couple of points to #1 youth for the moment.  Frederick Asher (138th) and Aleksander Kaczmarczyk (142nd) are only about 30 points behind those two.

The portion of the top-ranked players that are from the US and Canada has increased in the past 4 years.  At the beginning of 2013, 12 of the top 25 and 27 of the top 50 were Europeans.  Just over a week ago, only 4 of the top 25 and 16 of the top 50 were European.  (Marcus and Julio jumped back in this past week, so it’s now back up to 6 Europeans.)  Most of the Europeans who used to be top 25 are now in the 26-50 range, and their former 26-50 level players have dropped further.  No, we’re not that much better, but the US is definitely out-eventing Europe when it comes to earning WPPRs.  The US has not just more events, it has more players per event, too.  That makes all of the non-first-place positions worth more, since the WPPRs scale down slower as the player count rises.  Circuit Events and large shows like Northwest, Expo and Florida are behind much of it.

As an example of the impact of more events and more players per event, look at the NYC Modern Pinball SuperLeague.  You earn 30 points just for making the top 4, 20 for making the top 20, and you can do that 12 times a year.  It really adds up.  We have a few players now in the top 100 who have earned almost all of their points without leaving NYC.  Let’s take a deeper look.

blog post courtesy of Bob Matthews

Pinburgh had a big impact on player rankings, as it always does, including on the 2016 World’s Greatest Pinball Player race.  I’ll take a look at all of this and give you some statistics on Pinburgh that I hope some of you may find interesting and or useful benchmarks in the future.

First, the winners:

Pinburgh 2016 – Top Four by Division

A:  Keith Elwin; Karl DeAngelo; Cryss Stephens; Raymond Davidson

B:  Preston Moncla; Todd MacCulloch; Greg DeFeo; Tim Sexton

C:  David Daluga; Heath Ashley; Tim Zollner; Larry Scott

D:  James Emanuel; Scott D’Agostino; Eugene Gershtein; Eric Priepke

Qualifying Statistics

So, you want to know how many points it took to make the cut for each division each round, or to be in the top 40 within a division?  Here it is.  Note that these include ties; if you want to be in tie-breaker-free, add half a point to each.

Divisional Cutoffs	A	B	C	D
1	8	6	4
2	15	16	9
3	21	18	15
4	28	24	21
5	34	30.5	27
Top 40 Cutoffs	A	B	C	D
1	10	8	6	4
2	18	15	12	9
3	25	21	18	15
4	32	28	24	21
5	39	34	30.5	27
6	45	40	36	8
7	52	46	42.5	14
8	59	53	49	21
9	65	60	56	28
10	71	66	62	34

Yes, it’s a fine line.  Let’s say you had 26 points after game 1 of round 5.  There are now just three games left to play before the divisional cuts are made.  You could still end up in ANY of the 4 divisions! Get 8 or 9 of the remaining 9 points and you’re in A; 5-7 and you’re in B; 1-4, you’re in C; 0 and you’re in D.

Note that the spread between divisions moved very little between round 2 and round 5.  Adding more rounds, as some have suggested, will not widen the spread much.  Only a change in format, divisional restrictions or scoring will accomplish that.

Player Restriction Stats

There were 42 “A” restricted players; 36 made the divisional cut on points, 6 players were forced up [none by much].

There were 113 “B” restricted players; 89 made the cut on points, 24 players were forced up.

There were 121 “C” restricted players; 109 made the cut on points, 12 players were forced up.

I’ve heard many complaints that the divisional spreads are too narrow.  I’ve also heard comments that some non-A players who look like they might get into A entering round 5 sometimes sandbag a bit that round to drop down into B to avoid getting into what to them is a no-win scenario.  If true, that’s unfair to the rest of the field, since the players they sandbag against get more points than they should in round 5.  One way to address both of these issues is to allow players to be upside-restricted by choice, subject to reasonable constraints.  Right now, players in the top 50 must play in A, those in the top 200 must play in A or B, etc.  Perhaps players could be allowed to play no more than one division above their restriction, e.g. a “C” restricted player could choose to play no higher than B and an unrestricted player could choose to play no higher than C.

Performance in rounds 6-10, especially round 10

Everyone who made the “A” finals went at least 30-30 in rounds 6-10.

Due to the narrowness in initial point spread in the other divisions, everyone in B, C and D who made the playoffs went 32-28 or better in rounds 6-10.

Very few players in any division were “locked in” before round 10.  Here’s how things stood after Round 9 by division – – how many players had enough to make it in already and how many still had a chance, i.e. they were within 12 of the eventual tiebreaker.

A:  6 locked in; 100 others of 175 in the division were within 12 of the tiebreaker score.

B:  4 in; 106 of 163 within 12

C:  3 in; 116 of 170 within 12

D:  2 in; 103 of 157 within 12

Overall, 64% of the players in Pinburgh were still “playoff status undetermined” going into round 10!  [Yes, that’s by design.]

The players who made the biggest round-10 moves to make the playoffs by division were:

A:  Trent Augenstein – 10 points; finished tied for 20^th

B:  Tyler Sutton – 10 points; finished 39^th

C:  Jay Steinberg – 10 points; finished tied for 11^th

D:  Kendall Van Pool – 9 points; finished tied for 20^th

Playoff Stats

The “A” finalists included 23 “A” restricted players, 8 “B” players, 7 “C” players and 2 unrestricted players.

In “B,” 20 finalists were B restricted, 13 C restricted and 7 unrestricted.

In “C,” 14 finalists were C restricted, the other 26 were unrestricted.

There was significant disparity in the strength of the different playoff groups in the A division [it was also present in the other divisions, but not as pronounced].  Group 2 was the most brutal in round 1, with an average rank of 25 [been there, did that]; the other group averages ranged from 94 to 474.  Round 2 had groups 1, 4, 5 and 6 ranging from average ranks of 71 to 141, while group 2 was at 370, and group 3 had no one from the top 100 in it at all, with an average rank of 526.  In Round 3, group 4 was the tough one, averaging rank of 17, while the others ranged from 85 to 164.  By the semifinals, everything was tough.  But it does show that for Pinburgh, more so than for PAPA, what group you get seeded in makes much more difference in your potential fate.

Strength of Field

Pinburgh 2016 came in at 138 WPPRs for first, just a hair behind last year’s figure and 4 points shy of this year’s PAPA-A.  While this year’s Pinburgh had the most players ever, PAPA-A had more high-ranking European players in it, giving PAPA the higher value.  Only 3 of the non-North Americans in the top 50 attended Pinburgh this year; last year, we had 6.  PAPA-A had 13.

Frequent A Qualifiers

Qualifying in A is hard to do; doing it regularly is even harder.  Only three people have qualified in Pinburgh A each of the six years it has been held so far.  I’ll show each with their best finish in parentheses:

Keith Elwin (1^st – 3 times);

Keith “Keefer” Johnson (3^rd);

Jorian Engelbrektsson (5^th).

Adam Becker is next best; he has made it five times (1^st).

Eleven players have made four out of six:  Zach Sharpe (1^st), Karl DeAngelo (2^nd), Cryss Stephens (2^nd), Robert Gagno (3^rd), Andrei Massenkoff (4^th), Sean Grant (4^th), Steven Bowden (5^th), Bob Matthews (5^th), Josh Sharpe (6^th), Andy Rosa (6^th) and Roy Wils (11th).

It’s tough.  Really tough.  Any questions?

Frequent qualifiers in B and C are subject to being pushed up to a higher division if they make the finals, so I have not looked at the stats for those.

World’s Greatest Pinball Player Race 2016

Keith’s win at Pinburgh gives him a lead of just over 60 points on Zach and about 100 points over Jorian and Daniele.  He earned 138 WPPRs for the event, while Zach got about 70, Jorian just under 22 [not enough to make his top 20 results], and Daniele did not participate.  Two other recent events had impactful results:  Keith’s win at California Extreme, worth 58.62, and Jorian’s win at the pre-Pinburgh Pingolf event, worth 61.22.

As Josh previously posted, each of them has significant point decays pending, Jorian’s being the largest.  After crunching the decays, Keith will still lead Zach by 50, Daniele by 135 and Jorian by 160.

The key now is what will everyone do in their remaining events.  Based on past participation, Jorian still has at least three opportunities for big points:  EPC, the Swedish Open, and the Danish Open.  Daniele has EPC, Austria and Hungary.  Zach has Expo and Free Play Florida.  Keith hasn’t played in any high-point events after Pittsburgh the past two years, so unless that changes, his total is locked in.  Keith, Jorian and Daniele have all attended Expo at one time or another, though, so any who do could pick up some points there.

If Jorian, Daniele and Zach each replicate their previous performance at their remaining events, each would come up short of Keith.  Zach has the best shot, if he can win a couple of circuit-level events.  For Jorian and Daniele, even winning EPC would still leave either of them short; they’ll need to do more than just that.  And if either of them fails to make the top 4 at EPC, the task becomes much harder for them:  all three chasers have their low-end [18^th-20^th] results in the 30 point range.  Nabbing a 60 pointer [e.g. winning CalEx, pre-Pinburgh or a typical US or European circuit event] only nets 30 points of progress.  Thus, making up 100 points is hard to do that way; you either need a lot of those or the kind of big score you can only get with a high finish at a major.

Pinburgh Ranking Big Movers

Three other high Pinburgh finishers made nice moves into or up the top 25:  Cryss Stephens and Karl DeAngelo jumped in, and Jason Werdrick moved up 8 spots.

Jumping into [or back into] the top 100 were Levi Nayman, Todd Rafacz, Eden Stamm and Andrew Lee.

Fred Richardson and Jack Tadman made nice moves within the top 250.

Derek Thomson moved up about 200 spots, from the low 400’s to the low 200’s.

Jack Danger rose from 1002^nd to 668^th.

Steve Dunham moved up more than 500 positions, from 1408^th to 887^th.

Just making the A division got you a minimum of 10.22 WPPRs, enough to get you into the top 4,000.  Several players did that.

Congratulations to everyone who did well!

Major Comparison – both players present:

IFPA:  JOE 1st, KME 2nd
Pinburgh – JOE 5th, KME 6th

 

Where will the cut lines be?  Can you still get in, you ask.  Let's take a look.
 

 

6.  No major shifts in rankings balance between North American and non-N.Am. in the remaining 3 weeks.
 

Marcus Stix [318 to 204]
Vincent Carlier [287 to 206]

 

Two obvious measures of the success of the IFPA – WPPR program are the Sharp[e] increase in the number of ranked players and in the number of events. But there's another side to the story, one that affects players with aspirations to higher rankings. This is … how many WPPR points does it take to reach a specific goal? As the number of events has increased, many players are entering more tournaments than before, and collecting more points than they used to. In addition, with all the new players, more people are competing with you for those points in each event. What's it all mean?

 

 

Most of the big changes in "how many points does it take to …" have taken place in the past few years. The changes are more pronounced the further down the rankings you look, largely because here, fewer players have actually had 15 active events in the last 3 years to be counted until recently. Change is slowest at the top, since most of the top players have been attending several events each year for many years. Also, since the rankings take only a player's top 15 results, the point total for a top player won't change as much when they add one more event, since they're generally replacing a good result with a slightly better one. In the middle ranks, though, one more good result is likely replacing a result of 3 points or fewer, and so has more impact. This is even more true because the point gap between positions is much smaller as you go down the chart. Right now, if you're in the top 50 and add 10 points, you'd typically move up 2-5 spots in the ranks; in some cases, none at all. If you're #100 and add 10, that's good for 10-12 spots. At #250, 10 points more is good for a jump of 20-25 positions.

 

While the points needed for any given goal are still increasing, the pace has slowed in 2012 for most goals. [See the table below.]

So, let's get to the two specific questions we posed at the beginning. The Stern question is the easier of the two to answer. Right now, the cutoff for position #250 is at about 92 WPPR points. The points needed to be in the top 250 have still been rising at a steady pace this year, and we'd project that it will be close to 100 by year end. So, if you want to make the top 250, plan on having at least 100 points as of then. That's no guarantee, of course; we don't know what players will do in the next few months, but we do expect the cutoff to continue to rise. Also, in figuring out, "am I there yet," remember that any points you earned in the latter part of past years still have to "decay." That may reduce your total to something less than what it is now. Remember that once results become more than one year old, they are reduced to 75% value; to 50% after two years; and to 0% after three years. So, if you earned 20 points at an event in November of 2011, that result will only be worth 15 points on 1/1/2013 when it counts towards Stern and IFPA.

Let's do an example, using data for Joe Generic, who's now in 264th place, just outside the Stern cut number.

 

8/28/2012		<– Current Date
Date	Points	Value Now	Event Rank		Count Now	Value 1/1/13	Event Rank 1/1/13		Count 1/1/13
8/1/2012	15	15	1		Yes	15	1		Yes
6/1/2012	8	8	4		Yes	8	4		Yes
4/1/2012	5	5	7		Yes	5	7		Yes
3/1/2012	6	6	5		Yes	6	5		Yes
10/1/2011	11	11	2		Yes	8.25	3		Yes
8/1/2011	3	2.25	14		Yes	2.25	14		Yes
7/1/2011	5	3.75	10		Yes	3.75	10		Yes
6/1/2011	4	3	12		Yes	3	12		Yes
5/1/2011	13	9.75	3		Yes	9.75	2		Yes
3/1/2011	5	3.75	10		Yes	3.75	10		Yes
10/1/2010	2	1.5	16		No	1	16		No
8/1/2010	10	5	7		Yes	5	7		Yes
7/1/2010	12	6	5		Yes	6	5		Yes
6/1/2010	3	1.5	16		No	1.5	15		Yes
4/1/2010	9	4.5	9		Yes	4.5	9		Yes
3/1/2010	6	3	12		Yes	3	12		Yes
11/1/2009	1	0.5	18		No	0	17		No
10/1/2009	4	2	15		Yes	0	17		No
Total of top 15 Events		88.00				84.75

 

If the cutoff remains at 92 points, Joe remains out of the hunt, of course. Joe also needs to play again just to offset the decay on his 10/1/2011 result. Say Joe plays on 10/1/2012, and gets 10 WPPR points. For the year-end calculation, that will replace his then-15th-rated score of 1.5 from 6/1/10, raising his total to 93.25. That's good enough right now, but Joe probably still needs one more good result to get in. If Joe plays again on 11/1/2012 and gets 9 points then, that result will replace the 14th-rated score of 2.25 from 8/1/10, giving Joe a new total of 100 points. That's got a much better chance. Of course, if Joe gets more points in the 10/1/12 event, he may not need the other event on 11/1/12 to get in. Also, if the final cutoff is 95 or 97 points instead of 100, Joe needs fewer total points the rest of this year to get in. Note that the 6/1/2010 is not one of Joe's top 15 results now, but becomes one as of 1/1/2013 because of the decay of the 10/1/2009 event result.

 

The IFPA 10 question is harder to answer. It will probably take around 170 points, but it depends on a lot of things.  As with the Top 250 cut line, it's affected by who earns what the rest of the year and whose points decay how much between now and then.  The added complication here is, how many IFPA-eligible players will choose to attend or not attend IFPA 10 in Frankfurt?  History shows that people are more likely to attend an IFPA when it's on the same continent they are [~80%], and less likely when it’s overseas [under 30%].  So now, the mix of players in the top 100-150 that are from North America vs. Europe vs. elsewhere comes into play.  This shifts back and forth during the year, in part because more of the high-value European events take place later in the year than U.S. events, so the U.S. mix in the ranks rises through PAPA, then drops through New Year's.

 

Based on past non-U.S.-located IFPA events and the projected mix of countries of origin of the players, we project that the cutoff position may be around a rank of 110 to 115. Last year, low person in on rank had just under 140 points; right now, at rank 110, the cutoff would be 163 points. Given the current WPPR point trends, position #110 is likely to be at least 170 by year end. We don't suggest cutting it that close, of course. If everyone now eligible were to choose to attend, it would take around 300 points to get in, so the further you are above 170, the better your chances.