The IFPA is pleased to announce that our Player of the Month for March 2012 is former World Pinball Champion, Daniele Celestino Acciari from Rocca di Papa, Italy. Daniele earned 131.38 WPPR points in March, finishing in 1st place at the Stern AC/DC Launch Party Tournament in Rome, 1st place at the Spring Pinball Tournament, 1st place in both the Main and Classics divisions at Pinb-Owls Nest 2012, along with a 2nd place and 5th place finish at the Les 24H Du Mans Flipper in the Main Tournament and Classics Tournament respectively in France. 

The rest of the top 5 for the month of March included Trent Augenstein of the US with 83.63 WPPR points, Michael Trepp of Switzerland with 79.77 WPPR points, Cayle George of the US with 72.54 WPPR points, and Nick Zendejas of the US with 70.89 WPPR points.

Congratulations to Daniele and the other top WPPR point earners of the month!

29 people competed in this year's 2012 Amusement Expo tournament out in Las Vegas. Utilizing the Pin-Golf style format on Stern's latest game AC/DC, players played 3 pin-holes in an attempt to get as few strokes as possible. The top 4 players qualified for the finals, with the next highest 4 finishers ranked under #250 qualified for the Novice Finals.

TJ Beyer(ranked 1435th in the world) defeated David Burrier(ranked 1075th in the world), Shelley Paule(ranked 1013th in the world) and Roger Sharpe(ranked 342nd in the world) to win the Novice Finals. Current World Pinball Champion, and world ranked #2 player Cayle George defeated Zach Sharpe(ranked 9th in the world), Bob Matthews(ranked 30th in the world) and Nick Zendejas(ranked 215th in the world) to take home 1st place in the Masters Division. Full results of the tournament can be found HERE.

The Amusement Expo tournament is one of the nearly 350 annual IFPA endorsed tournaments where players can earn World Pinball Player Rankings points, and qualify for the IFPA World Pinball Championship.

On Friday March 30th, the first European Stern Launch Party took place in Rome in order to present and celebrate the new AC/DC Pinball machine. The event was organized by IFPA Italia and Tecnoplay in the Arcade Joy Village of the Italian capital. The location was absolutely outstanding, a big and famous arcade with a lot of customers, with a great setup for both the party and the tournaments. The new born Stern was also surrounded by the pinball Rolling Stones, Shrek, Iron Man and Avatar. The main tournament was played on the AC/DC and it was valid for the International Pinball Ranking, while on the other four machines the side tournament

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St. Louis Area Pinball concludes their inaugural league! The passionate and dedicated league players brought awareness of competitive pinball to each other and peripheral patrons, spreading pinball enthusiasm and knowledge to all around. Like any great vice, all it takes is that initial introduction and you are hooked-such

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This month the Seattle Pinball League held a tournament at the house of Todd MacCulloch. During the tournament, Maurizio Gagno, father of Canada’s top ranked player Robert Gagno had a chance to capture about 10 minutes of footage. Check out that video HERE.

This amazing venue will be the place where 64 of the world's greatest pinball players do battle in determining who will become the next World Pinball Champion.

Besides playing host, Todd's miraculous play during the 4th quarter of the pinball season secured Todd one of the final spots amongst the field of 64. Entering the weekend of October 23rd, 2012, Todd was ranked 216th in the world, with little hope of being able to represent Canada at the World Championship. With his victory over six of the world's top 10 players, including a finals victory over former multiple World Pinball Champion, Lyman Sheats at Chicago's Pinball Expo Flip Out Tournament, Todd started his trek up the World Pinball Player Rankings.

Following his trip to Chicago, Todd flew back to Seattle where he captured victory at the Stern Transformers Launch Party that same week. The conclusion of the VRPA League in December saw Todd earn a 2nd place finish, along with over 20 additional WPPR points. Last but not least was the Freezing Fingers Christmas Classic out in Vancouver. Todd finished in 7th place in the main tournament, with a 2nd place finish in the Classics Division, netting him nearly 10 additional WPPR points.

In total, Todd earned over 90 WPPR points in the final two months of 2012, shooting him up to the 103rd ranked pinball player in the world, and earning him a seat amongst the world's best and a shot at the title. With Todd being extremely familiar with home court advantage during his years of battling for an NBA World Championship, will his home court advantage help bring him a World Pinball Championship title?

All these questions will be answered June 8th-10th!

The IFPA is pleased to announced that the following players saw the biggest jump in their world ranking based on their February 2012 tournament performance.

The biggest movers for February 2012 included Steve Ritchie from the US, who moved up 7480 spots by finishing in 27th place at the AC/DC Launch Party in Chicago. Mikael Mammen from Switzerland moved up 6442 spots from his 16th place finish at the Cityclub Flipperturnering. Jenny Möller from Sweden moved up 6062 spots from her 49th and 85th place finishes at the Borås Pinball Classic Open in the Main and Side Tournaments respectively. Victoria Semarjian moved up 5647 spots from her 5th place finish at the Billy Rays Open, 20th place finish at the Ground Kontrol Tournament and 17th place finish at the Slingshot Lounge Tournament. Finally, Martin Stensson moved himself up 5418 spots from his 4th place finish at the Borås Pinball Månadstävling, as well as his 86th and 53rd place finish at the Borås Pinball Classic Open in the Main and Side Tournaments respectively.

Congratulations to Steve, Mikael, Jenny, Victoria and Martin, as well as the other players that saw a jump in their ranking from their February tournament performance!

The IFPA is pleased to announce that our Player of the Month for February 2012 is current World Pinball Champion, Cayle George from Seattle, WA. Cayle earned 55.83 WPPR points in February, finishing in 3rd place at the Pinbrew Tournament, along with a 3rd place and 2nd place finish at the Rose City Showdown in the Main Tournament and Classics Tournament respectively. 

The rest of the top 5 for the month of February included Jörgen Holm from Sweden with 53.52 WPPR points, Michel Dailly of France with 49.51 WPPR points, Robert Gagno of Canada with 48.00 WPPR points, and Aaron Nelson of the US with 47.26 WPPR points.

Congratulations to Cayle and the other top WPPR point earners of the month!

Yahoo! Sports just released an article about competitive pinball, available HERE. Included in the article is the discussion of the nearly 50 IFPA Leagues held around the world, as well as the now over 12,000 players included in the World Pinball Player Rankings. The two World Pinball Championships that the sport has to offer are also discussed (IFPA which will be held in June outside Seattle, and PAPA which will be held in August outside Pittsburgh), as well as the National Pinball Museum which recently moved from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore.

Registration is now closed for IFPA9, and we couldn't be more excited about the field of participants!

12 countries will be represented at the World Championship this year, including the current IFPA World Pinball Champion, Cayle George, current PAPA World Pinball Champion, Andrei Massenkoff, as well as previous IFPA and PAPA World Pinball Champions Keith Elwin, Jorian Engelbrektsson, Daniele Celestino Acciari, Bowen Kerins and Lyman Sheats. No tournament in competitive pinball history has featured more World Pinball Champions under one roof, so the competition will be fierce. Will one of these 7 add to their respective legacies, or will a new World Pinball Champion be crowned? This answer will come in a few short months.

The full field of participants is available HERE.

A reminder that there are 1 more spot is still available at the IFPA Satellite Tournament, the 2012 NW Pinball Championship. Full details available HERE.

The IFPA and Stern teamed up to host the 6th Launch Party in celebration of Stern's latest release AC/DC. 43 players participated in the AC/DC Launch Party Tournament held at Gameworks in Schaumburg. Each player had one opportunity to play the tournament machine in the hopes of qualifying for the final round. The top 4 scores of the night faced off in a single 4-player game to determine the winner. Finalists included Lyman Sheats(1st), Jason Werdrick(2nd), Penni Epstein(3rd) and Joe Katz(4th). Lyman took home $80, a 1hr. Gameworks game card and a custom AC/DC Grand Champion trophy.