Stern Pinball, WWE and the International Flipper Pinball Association are teaming up to sponsor a Worldwide High-Score Tournament on WWE WrestleMania Pro and LE pinball machines.

The tournament is open to players around the world and will begin on July 1, 2015 and end on December 31, 2015.

Players can enter by participating in IFPA-sanctioned King of the Ring events:

• Authorized IFPA members will organize sanctioned tournament events.
• The IFPA will establish the tournament settings for the WWE WrestleMania Pro and LE games used in sanctioned tournament events.
• Authorized IFPA members will submit high scores from each sanctioned tournament event to the IFPA.
• IFPA sanctioned events will take place in commercial locations approved by the IFPA. In-home events will not qualify.
• Authorized IFPA members will post high scores and event photos on the King of the Ring Facebook page.
• All photos must include a picture of the player and their score on the DMD, accompanied by the hashtags: #WWEpinball and #kingofthering and include the name, city and country of the location of the event.
• The player with the highest score will remain the King of the Ring until another player tops the score.
• The player with the highest score as of midnight Chicago-time on December 31, 2015, will claim the “King of the Ring” title, trophy, tickets to a WWE event, and $500 in cash.
• The top ten runner-ups will receive WWE pinball related prizes (signed translites, shirts, and more)

Contact the IFPA for more details, and to get your event involved in the campaign! We’ll be keeping a live leaderboard along with any information on upcoming events HERE.

The IFPA European Championship Series is through Event #6 out of 17 for the 2015-16 season.

A trio of Dutch players sit on top of the current ECS standings, with [player]Paul Jongma[/player] having a 16 point lead over [player]Albert Nomden[/player] for top position. [player]John van der Wulp[/player] sits 21 points back. The current ECS standings are available HERE.

432 players have participated in the 2015-16 ECS so far this season, currently up 15% from the player count through Event #6 from last year's ECS.

The upcoming schedule of ECS events is available HERE.

To celebrate the launch of the KISS pinball machine, Stern and the IFPA are teaming up to host 28 launch parties going on across the globe!

Click on the flyer to find the Launch Party nearest you, or visit the IFPA Calendar HERE!

There will be machines set up at each location on free play, with a cash prize tournament also being held throughout the party. Please see flyer for location information, and contact the IFPA at ifpapinball@gmail.com should you have any questions.

We're looking to round up some volunteers to help us with hosting the Stern KISS Pinball Launch Party tournaments.

The date Stern is targeting is June 19th-21st weekend.

If you are interested in helping serve as an IFPA representative for a launch party in your city, please send me an email (ifpapinball at gmail dot com) including the city you live in. We'll then get that information to Stern to try and find a distributor/operator/location owner in your area to match you up with to get the party set up.

IFPA representative duties would include game setup at the site, along with running the tournament portion of the party.

LIVE Bracket is located here:  http://challonge.com/IFPA12

Click the match to view details of matches in progress

Standings through Session #8 available HERE.

LIVE Streaming available at: http://www.twitch.tv/bitwalktv

Tie-breaker round currently in progress. 8 players for 4 spots for the 32nd place cut line to be played on Shrek. This will be on the live stream.

EUROPE – 112 points
USA – 122 points

It takes 117.5 points to win the Epstein Cup

Team Europe:
Members –> Franck Bona, Mats Runsten, Paul Jongma, Michael Trepp, Jorian Engelbrektsson, Jorgen Holm, Daniele Acciari, Robert Sutter
Game Choices –> Lost World, World Cup Soccer, Scared Stiff

Team USA game choices:
Members –> Zach Sharpe, Josh Sharpe, Trent Augenstein, Cayle George, Bob Matthews, Adam Becker, Jon Replogle, Cryss Stephens
Game Choices –> Xenon, Radical, Metallica

IFPA President [player]Josh Sharpe[/player] (ranked 15th in the world) was recently interviewed by Coast 2 Coast Pinball host [player]Nate Shivers[/player] (ranked 2025th in the world) to talk about the WPPR v5.1 changes, Modern Pinball NYC's Super League and the upcoming IFPA12 World Pinball Championship. Check out the interview HERE.

IFPA President [player]Josh Sharpe[/player] was recently interviewed for the latest edition of the Pinheadz Pinball Podcast out of Australia. Josh spoke with [player]Greg Siegele[/player] on how to host a pinball tournament if you've never done it before. Click HERE to download the podcast.

The IFPA is pleased to announce that the following players saw the biggest jump in their world ranking between December 2014 and April 2015. 

December 2014:
[player]Florian Hipp[/player] from Stuttgart, Germany (up 11,297 spots), [player]Germain Mariolle[/player] from Redmond, WA (up 8910 spots) and [player]Orion Smith[/player] from New York (up 7511 spots).

January 2015:
[player]Ben Tesser[/player] from New York (up 7838 spots), [player]James Hearsey[/player] from Seattle, WA (up 7717 spots) and [player]Jono Sandilands[/player] from the UK (up 6938 spots).

February 2015:
[player]Ace Madjlesi[/player] from Memphis, TN (up 12,262 spots), [player]Casey Cuene[/player] from Milwaukee, WI (up 10,162 spots) and [player]Jessica McHugh[/player] from Denver, CO (up 8181 spots).

March 2015: 
[player]Cameron Austgen[/player] from Seattle, WA (up 3776 spots), [player]Valerie Rader[/player] from St. Louis, MO (up 3755 spots) and [player]Marcus Jeppsson[/player] from Sweden (up 3715 spots).

April 2015:
[player]Robert Smith[/player] from Michigan (up 1052 spots), [player]Brent Stiles[/player] from Cincinnati, OH (up 1042 spots) and [player]Carlos Regis[/player] from Brazil (up 1018 spots).

Our apologies for falling a bit behind on these announcements. We're going to do a quick catch up and then plan on staying current going forward.

The IFPA is pleased to announce our Player of the Month for December 2014 through April 2015.

December 2014 –> [player]Trent Augenstein[/player] (168.33 WPPR points)
January 2015 –> [player]Zach Sharpe[/player] (79.34 WPPR points)
February 2015 –> [player]Robert Sutter[/player] (98.39 WPPR points)
March 2015 –> [player]Zach Sharpe[/player] (294.61 WPPR points)
April 2015 –> [player]Kevin Birrell[/player] (142.68 WPPR points)

Congratulations to Trent, Zach, Robert and Kevin, along with the other top WPPR point earners over these months!