As we come to an end of another season, the 2018 season brings us some additional challenges with the changeover to our WPPR v5.5 system.

Up first is closing the books on 2018, and in order to do that we are asking that any organizer that has open tournament results submit those to us by Friday, January 4th. Furthermore, any corrections to player misspellings, incorrect results, improper scoring issues, etc, all need to be addressed by January 4th as well. Please take some time to review your own personal results to see if anything looks out of place.

Our plan is to lock down 2018 on January 4th, and use the standings at that time for IFPA16 World Championship qualifying purposes, as well as the other Championship Series purposes (North American Championship Series, European Championship Series, etc). Any errors caught after that point in time will NOT impact the 2018 standings, although those changes will be reflected in the 2019 rankings going forward.

Any questions please contact us at ifpapinball@gmail.com, and remember that if your profile doesn’t say ‘Registered’ with a green check mark, that we do NOT have your email address on file. Players that don’t have their profile ‘Registered’ are ineligible to participate in any IFPA Championship Series.

With the State and Provincial Championships planned earlier on January 19th, 2019, registration process for SCS is going to be QUICK (not quite Pinburgh fast, but fast). Players will have until the end of January 7th, 8pm CST to declare the state they wish to compete in. Contact your IFPA State Representative to make sure you are registered for the state you wish to play in.

The first interview in the IFPA Tournament Director Stories series takes us to Lubbock, Texas. Louis Marx interviewed Daniel Halpain and Tony Smitherman.

To read the interview, click HERE.

In conjunction with Stern Pinball and PAPA, the IFPA is proud to announce the Stern Pro Circuit event list for the 2019 season. 15 events from the 2018 season remain on the tour, with 5 new events joining the ranks for 2019.

Check out the list HERE.

Just a reminder for anyone eligible to claim their $tern Reward, the deadline is December 31st, 2018 for anyone with a 2017 reward available.

The $tern Rewards Program provides IFPA players who qualify the chance to purchase one new Stern Pinball, Inc. (SPI) pinball game directly from SPI at the IFPA Price plus shipping and any applicable taxes. All sales are subject to SPI’s standard terms of sale. Game selection is subject to availability, and no guarantee is made that any particular game will be available.

Qualifying participants will also be eligible for discounts at the Stern online store which features a wide range of Stern and $tern Rewards Program merchandise exclusive to the IFPA rewards program.

Detailed rules for the $tern Rewards Program, including an updated list of qualifiers, and updated list of rewards available can be found HERE.

Going forward, Louis Marx, a long tenured IFPA Tournament Director, will be conducting an interview series for the IFPA website intended at sharing the stories of tournament directors in the United States. The intent is to continue this series quarterly although that could change as needed. Biographically, Louis is married with four children, part of the ownership group at BOS Pinball, and runs the DFW Pinball League out of Dallas. If you are interested in telling your story or you have suggestions for questions that you’d like included in the interviews, you can reach out to Louis on Facebook, at LMA574 on Pinside, or through the IFPA.

Since the release of WPPR v5.4 for the 2018 season, the IFPA has continued investigating ways to make the World Pinball Player Rankings more accurate for how we rank players across the globe.

These latest changes will be incorporated into WPPR v5.5 which will be implemented starting January 1, 2019.

Please note that for all 2018 IFPA related activities (qualifying for 2018-19 NACS, 2018-19 ECS, IFPA16, etc), version 5.4 will be used for that qualification process.

Below is an overview of changes for the updated 2019 formula:

• TGP Guide has been updated for Strikes events. Fair Strikes and Progressive Strikes have been added. Standard strike knockout events have been updated to more accurately reflect the meaningful number of games played. This updated grading will NOT be retroactively calculated for events prior to 1/1/19.
• Flip Frenzy formats, also referred to as Pinball! Pinball! Pinball! format will graded based on the AVERAGE number of matches played by all players in the field. The IFPA recommends using MatchPlay Events software for this format. The software automatically calculates this average for IFPA submission purposes. This updated grading will NOT be retroactively calculated for events prior to 1/1/19.
• Official IFPA Championship Series Finals will now receive a 25% boost to the WPPR points awarded. This includes the IFPA North American Championship, IFPA European Pinball Championship along with the countries that have officially registered IFPA Country Championships. This updated grading will be retroactively calculated.

For full detailed information on the 2019 TGP Guide, click HERE. Any questions please don’t hesitate to contact us at ifpapinball@gmail.com. Please check back when we announce that WPPR v5.5 has been implemented for 2019 as the details may always change prior to launch.

blog post (and app) courtesy of Ed Giardina

The IFPA Companion app offers a mobile-friendly display of much of the data found on the IFPA website. See tournament results and player versus player records, as well as quickly view the top of the WPPR rankings. The app gives you the ability to view upcoming tournaments quickly from the IFPA calendar based on your mobile device’s location, and add tournaments to your local calendar. The app can be configured to alert you when your IFPA Rank changes or tournament results are posted in which you participated.

To download:
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ifpa-companion/id1441736303?mt=8
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.edgiardina.ifpa

For questions and feedback, follow the conversation on Tilt Forums (http://tiltforums.com/t/ifpa-app-now-available-on-the-app-store/4543) or email ed@edgiardina.com

The IFPA is excited to announce that the dates have been set for the 16th annual IFPA World Pinball Championship. IFPA16 will be held June 7-9, 2019, with the 6th edition of the Epstein Cup scheduled for Thursday, June 6th, 2019.

Our host will be Double Pinball in Assago (Milan).

We will continue to update details on the event HERE.

The IFPA is excited to announce that Stern has added Deadpool Pro and Premium models to the rewards program. A reminder that the 2017 rewards earned by players expire December 31st, 2018.

The following games are now available under the program: Batman 66 Premium, Deadpool Pro, Deadpool Premium, Iron Maiden Pro, Iron Maiden Premium, Ghostbusters Pro, Ghostbusters Premium, Guardians of the Galaxy Pro, Guardians of the Galaxy Premium, Metallica Pro, Star Trek Vault Pro, Star Trek Vault Premium, Star Wars Pro, Star Wars Premium.

Detailed rules for the $tern Rewards Program, including an updated list of qualifiers, and updated list of rewards available can be found HERE.

Sponsored blog post courtesy of Pin Stadium

Pin Stadium, based out of Cincinnati, Ohio, and IFPA located in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, are excited to announce that they are working together to help to grow the already rapidly expanding community of pinball worldwide. Josh Sharpe (the President of the IFPA and also top ranked player) reached out to Pin Stadium for sponsor and partnership for their amazing organizations, which hosts over 4600 events worldwide. These numbers are astounding and Josh and a large group of supporters have done an out-of-this-world job to make this happen.

This was a huge opportunity for Pin Stadium to be able to assist this incredible organization and to help bring improved visibility to the playfields for the IFPA players.

With the technology and performance of our lighting systems they will now provide 100% playfield lighting coverage for potentially thousands of players worldwide. This will help to assist them with improved shot accuracy, and as a result, better scores. Ball tracking is the most important aspect of competitive pinball, and so are high scores. No longer are the pinball machines going to struggle with lighting.

With the Pin Stadiums being successfully introduced officially to the competitive market in 2018 at PAPA’s Pinburgh for the “Final Twelve”, where Doug (the head of PAPA) said that he received very positive feedback from the players and also from the viewers of the stream. From that event, Pin Stadiumreceived the honor of being “PAPA  Approved”

With that said, it only makes sense for us to work with IFPA, who continues a long standing tradition of tournaments which fuel the industry of pinball. The vision we have with IFPA is to not only support them financially but to also offer special discount programs for tournament organizers to be able to elevate the experience for their players and the viewers of their streamed events, while also providing prize giveaways and gift cards to add to the prize pools at certain events.

The future is bright with Pin Stadium and IFPA. “See Better, Play Better.” It’s that simple. Here is what Josh Sharpe had to say about this partnership:

“We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Pin Stadium on enhancing not only the playing experience for participants, but also the viewing experience for people that are finding the sport through the ever growing streaming of events all around the world. We look forward to connecting our pool of players, tournament directors and tournament streamers with Pin Stadium for the betterment of the sport going forward.” – Josh Sharpe, IFPA President