Jason Zahler – New World Ranked #1
With the European Pinball Championships, IFPA Pinball Olympics and IFPA18 World Pinball Championship all being held across an 11-day period out in Germany, we saw a new player move into the top spot of the World Pinball Player Rankings. Congrats to Jason Zahler!
For historical purposes, the IFPA snapshots the rankings as of the 1st of each month in our database, with Jason becoming the 17th player in the history of competitive pinball to be sitting at the top of the World Pinball Player Rankings at the start of a month.
Going into the Germany weekend the #1 spot was definitely up for grabs between Jason and Escher Lefkoff. Escher posted 4 results to his resume during his time in Germany, with a victory at the European Pinball Championship, a 4th place finish in the Classics Division of the EPC, a 2nd place finish at the IFPA Olympics 2023 Pingolf and a 12th place finish at the IFPA18 World Pinball Championship. This netted Escher 661.69 WPPR’s which was the 3rd most of all players in the world over this 11-day span. It just so happened that Jason was one of the two players to actually do better than that during this period.
Jason posted 3 results to his resume during the trip to Germany, with a 2nd place finish at the European Pinball Championship, 2nd place finish at the IFPA Olympics 23 Group Matchplay and 3rd place finish at the IFPA18 World Pinball Championship. This netted Jason 791.41 WPPR’s which pushed him ahead of Escher by 23.27 WPPR points.
Taking a quick trip into our historical records, the first month on record with a #1 ranked pinball player was June 1993. Rick Stetta had earned 2.12 WPPR points from his Pinathon victory, along with 2.12 WPPR points from his IFPA3 World Championship victory, putting him at 4.24 WPPR points earned. Rick Stetta finished 19 of the following 21 months in the top spot before Paul Madison began a #1 run that lasted for 36 straight months. In March 1998, that #1 position was overtaken by one Keith Elwin thanks to a victory at the PAPA6 World Pinball Championships.
Below is the complete archived list of players who have been ranked #1 in the world, along with the number of months they finished in that top spot:
Keith Elwin – 126 months
Jorian Engelbrektsson – 59 months
Raymond Davidson – 49 months
Paul Madison – 36 months
Rick Stetta – 19 months
Bowen Kerins – 13 months
John Miller – 12 months
Mats Runsten – 11 months
Escher Lefkoff – 11 months
Zach Sharpe – 9 months
Jörgen Holm – 8 months
Cayle George – 3 months
Neil Shatz – 2 months
Lyman Sheats – 1 month
Johannes Ostermeier – 1 month
Peter Andersen – 1 month
Jason Zahler – 1 month
