WPPR bonus for tournament directors – starting 2016
Throughout the history of competitive pinball there has been a negative perception towards tournament directors participating in events that they also organize.
While competitive pinball is at a stage where many events wouldn't even exist if organizers weren't allowed to play, there is no doubt a perception that conflicts of interest have the potential to impact the results of the tournament.
The IFPA has gotten a ton of feedback pushing for tournaments where organizers do participate to not be endorsed for World Pinball Player Rankings points. We feel this is completely unrealistic, however we have created a bonus structure that we plan to launch starting on 1/1/2016 to help motivate organizers to find neutral non-participating parties to handle the organization and rulings of the tournament.
All calculations of WPPR points will continue to use the same WPPR v5.0 formula, however, an event organized by someone who does not participate will receive a 25% increase to the total points distributed to all players of the event.
We understand many events are already organized for the 2015 season, which is why we have pushed this back to start for the 2016 season.
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April 2nd update . . .
This was an April's Fools joke! However, we do have some changes to WPPR v5.0 coming soon that will address some concerns we've seen with exploitation of the current system. Details of WPPR v5.1 will be up soon on our ranking-info page.
Douglas Polka has just become a very valuable commodity.
April fools!
Aaron Steele Nelson looks dejectedly towards floor while muttering
Hmm, how can I bribe my girlfriend to get involved?
No, you should provide a 50% bonus to whomever eliminates the TD from the event. 75% if they’re lower-ranked than the TD. 80% if they’re younger than the TD. And 100% if the TD had choice during the match.
My cat will be the next TD. The rest of us will just ‘help out’. Kidding aside, it usually takes a player who has been in a lot of events to effectively run a tournament/league. And locally we may have one person listed as the TD, but there really is a full team of people who make it all happen. Many of the players step up to help wherever things are needed, like tournament structure, rulings, scoring, reporting results, malfunctions, etc. I don’t think labeling a non-participant as a TD should warrant a 25% bonus. You might run into more poorly run events which may turn people off in the long run.
haha, nearly bought that!
Good one Josh!
Any Tournament director that can run the tournament, handle all the logistics (food, marketing, cleaning the bathrooms, stuck balls, soldering ball trough optos between rounds) and some how manage to win at the same time should get a 25% increase in WPPRs 🙂
I’m always amused when people fail to “Be Aware of the Day”. Funny how these fanstastical ideas seem to show up on only one specific day of the year….
I certainly hope this is an April fools joke because the thought that a tournament director should not compete IS a joke. As someone who is hosting an upcoming tournament, I agree totally with KenR. The amount of logistics which goes into an event along with the stress of trying to ensure all goes smoothly AND play well enough is very difficult and there is certainly no advantage. I will probably do worse as a result!
The only tournament I have EVER been to where the organizers do not play is Pinburgh and Papa. That is not even the case for the IFPA world championship!
It is of all times that people think of things unfair where they have no clue what it is all about. I would most certainly not respect those views in any way. And to speak for myself: I do run the two main tournaments in the Netherlands and I do not participate to be able to run it all the time. If you have to decide over matters during a tournament it is simply very inconvinient. However, if you have others who know what it is about, why not play yourself. In smaller tournaments with little logistics it should not be a problem at all. If others are worried it would not be fair for a tournament director to compete simply make shure the set-up of the tournament is fixed before the first game is started. Then it will not be possible for the TD to have any advantage.