The IFPA is pleased to announce that our Player of the Month for April 2012 is [player]Trent Augenstein[/player], from Delaware, OH. Trent earned 96.42 WPPR points in April, finishing in 2nd place at Pinburgh as well as 1st and 4th place at the Pinball at the Zoo in the Main and Classics tournaments respectively.

The rest of the top 5 for the month of April included [player]Adam Becker[/player] of Canada with 91.41 WPPR points,  [player]Franck Bona[/player] of France with 81.11 WPPR points, [player]Zach Sharpe[/player] of the US with 75.83 WPPR points, and [player]Alain Boulieu[/player] of France with 73.20 WPPR points.

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

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

The biggest movers for March 2012 included [player]Charlie Gehlhaus[/player]from the US, who moved up 8864 spots by finishing in 31st place at the Texas Pinball Festival. [player]Matt Brown[/player] from the US moved up 6679 spots from his 21st place finish at the Louisville Arcade Expo. [player]Russell Willoughby[/player] from the US moved up 6572 spots from his 7th place finish at the Louisville Arcade Expo. [player]Cameron Spohn[/player] moved up 6557 spots from his 98th place finish at the Texas Pinball Festival. Finally, [player]Nick Campbell[/player] moved himself up 5983 spots from his 19th place finish at the Midwest Gaming Classic in Milwaukee, as well as his 21st place finish at the 1up Monthly Tournament in Colorado.

Congratulations to Charlie, Matt, Russell, Cameron and Nick, as well as the other players that saw a jump in their ranking from their March tournament performance!

The IFPA is pleased to announce that our Player of the Month for March 2012 is former World Pinball Champion, [player]Daniele Celestino Acciari[/player] 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 [player]Trent Augenstein[/player] of the US with 83.63 WPPR points, [player]Michael Trepp[/player] of Switzerland with 79.77 WPPR points, [player]Cayle George[/player] of the US with 72.54 WPPR points, and [player]Nick Zendejas[/player] of the US with 70.89 WPPR points.

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

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

is the allure of competitive pinball, and the robust growth of WPPR ranked players (over 13,000 now!) is a perfect testament to the enthralling nature of the sport.

With participation from over 35 players the season provided an amazing opportunity for competitive pinball and generally great times. The large field allowed for full A, B and C divisions, providing tight races for playoff spots and consistently well matched groups. Many games along the way were decided by a single shot, made or missed. Others saw glorious, crushing victories, like getting Mystery Spot and Alien Invasion in a playoff round, or new league highs being set while under pressure of elimination, and of course the antithesis-house balls; all the greatness that is pinball.

Congratulations to all participants who made this a weekly highlight. Shown in the photo is the A division podium: [player]John Miller[/player] 1st (center), [player]Brian Bannon[/player] 2nd (left), [player]Chuck Sanderson[/player] 3rd (right). With ever growing interest and plenty of developing talent, the next season is sure to supply worthy challengers at all levels (like B division winner: [player]Andy Maurer[/player], and C division winner: [player]Alec Gleason[/player]).

Incredible thanks to [player]Joe Schober[/player] and the Free State Pinball Association for their well developed rules, organizational tools, web hosting and stats programming. The access to current standings, player stats, machine stats and other fun accoutrement were an amazing bonus to our first time through, and we benefitted from their tremendous experience and generosity.

Our league was rotated weekly between 3 venues (The Silver Ballroom, 3rd Rail, and CP Pinball) which can boast, in total, around 100 machines! Jet Spin, Frontier, Eight Ball Deluxe, Twilight Zone, Tron LE and AC/DC only begin to allude to the amazing breadth of games accessible for our league play. All three venues are open to the public, machine status is routinely updated on the pinball rebel locator map and all are star attractions on the St. Louis pinball tour (info on each can be easily found online). Look for annual or biannual tournaments at these venues as SLAP continues to grow.

We will be cheering on four of our own as they make the wonderful pilgrimage to PAPA for Pinburgh at the end of the month, and will be rooting for our winner to make another great impression on the IFPA World Pinball Championships in June.

Join your local league or try to start one up. For those already in a league-next meet, stop and observe your surroundings. Reflect on the sights and sounds, stretch your fingers and wrists; enjoy the fact that you are hanging out with the coolest people around. Enough chatter, there is a ball to plunge, “Let’s Go.”

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 [player]Steve Ritchie[/player] from the US, who moved up 7480 spots by finishing in 27th place at the AC/DC Launch Party in Chicago. [player]Mikael Mammen[/player] from Switzerland moved up 6442 spots from his 16th place finish at the Cityclub Flipperturnering. [player]Jenny Möller[/player] 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. [player]Victoria Semarjian[/player] 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, [player]Martin Stensson[/player] 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!

New for 2012, the IFPA is proud to announce the implementation of the IFPA Ratings System for all players. Currently the IFPA Ratings System uses an unmodified version of the Glicko rating system. Rather than focusing on head-to-head play we are using tournament finishing results as the data for the calculation. For a given player in a tournament, any player finished ahead of them is treated as a loss, and everyone they finish ahead of is treated as a win. Ties are when a player finishes in the same

position as other players. RD is limited to a range of 30 to 350 for a given player. A player's RD increases daily, with it taking about 3 years to drop out of the ratings altogether (similar to the period used for the IFPA's World Pinball Player Rankings).

Right now this rating is unofficial, and will be for all of 2012, however we have plans in the future to hopefully include the IFPA Ratings System as part of the World Pinball Player Rankings formula to help determine tournament strength. Unlike the formula for the World PInball Player Rankings which will not change during the year, the IFPA may choose to adjust the formula for the IFPA Ratings System at anytime during the year as it serves no official function at the moment.

Any feedback, questions or comments about the IFPA Ratings System is appreciated. We're excited to explore the possibilities of making the world's official player rankings system even better in the future!