With the new rankings calculation now in effect, we’ve seen some changes in the World Pinball Player Rankings. This can be seen as high up as the top spot, where Sweden’s Jorian Engelbrektsson is now the player to catch for the World’s Greatest Pinball Player award for 2009. With a full calendar of events ahead of us, we’re excited to see how the season unfolds.

If you take a closer look to the right, you’ll see that the rankings have changed somewhat. The system itself has had a complete overhaul and there have been many rule changes in regards to what — and how — something is counted in the rankings. The site itself has had some tweaks done to make presenting the data easier and to help prepare for the full redesign of the site I have planned.

Going live with these rankings took longer than expected and for that, we apologize. The new system required testing various possibilities and we soon discovered some flaws that needed to be addressed.  Read on for a more detailed list of changes to the system.

For the new system, we wanted it to be based in mathematical formula and not just some prefixed set of points. The original system had all players bringing a ‘value of strength’ to a tournament they played in. We quickly discovered that this allowed large tournaments to overrun the rankings. Unfortunately this issue, plus many others required changes from our initial plans and the end result is sort of a hybrid of the old system with something that is actually calculated.
Changes to what is and is no longer counted:

• Leagues are now included in the rankings. They are treated as a annual event.
• Team based tournaments are no longer counted.
• Monthly tournaments are rolled up by the year they are played in and are worth the same as a normal annual tournament.

Summary of calculation changes:

• Each tournament is worth at least 25 points. PAPA, IFPA and EPC are at least worth 50.
• Each player is worth “x” amount of points based on the ranking when entering a tournament.
• Only the top 64 of each tournament are used to determine the strength of the tournament. This value is added to the base value.
• Points that are rewarded are much more distributed from top to bottom. 10th place at PAPA is now worth something.
• Except for PAPA, IFPA and EPC, events are capped at 50 points.

The end result is something we feel is fair to everyone and does more to separate those who play and those who only attend one or two events. We can go into more details later and if you have any questions, please send them to ifpapinball@gmail.com.

Yeah, we know Keith is not #1, but if you look at Jorian’s record — it’s pretty impressive too!

The third Balacs Pinball Party event was with 68 players, featuring most of the top Swedish players and 3 top players from the Netherlands. Everybody qualified 2 attempts on 6 different machines (Attack from mars, Dirty harry, Banzai run, Pinball magic, NBA fastbreak & Indiana jones).

24 people advanced to a single elimination cup, where each match was played best-out-of-three. Mats Runsten beat Karl Brostrom (winner from 07 & 08) in the final and Jorian Engelbrektsson beat Markus Hugosson for third place.

In the classic tournament Jonas Henriksson beat Martin Tiljander in the final and Richard Nauta beat Frans Bergbom for third place. Picture left to right, Markus Hugosson (4th), Mats Runsten (1st), Jorian Engelbrektsson (2nd).

Great job everyone!

The IFPA is proud to announce it will be teaming up wtih GameWorks once again for the 2nd Pinball Tournament of Champions the weekend of February 13th through the 15th at the Columbus location (Easton Mall). This is one of the first tournaments of 2009 where players can earn world rankings points and a chance to compete in the IFPA 7 World Pinball Championship to be held in 2010. Email the IFPA at ifpapinball@gmail.com for more details.

The IFPA is proud to announce it will be teaming up wtih GameWorks once again for the 2nd Pinball Tournament of Champions the weekend of February 13th through the 15th at the Columbus location (Easton Mall). This is one of the first tournaments of 2009 where players can earn world rankings points and a chance to compete in the IFPA 7 World Pinball Championship to be held in 2010. Email the IFPA at ifpapinball@gmail.com for more details. 

In a year that saw Keith Elwin drop out of the #1 spot for the first time since the World Pinball Player Rankings began, Keith stepped it up at PAPA XI where him and then #1 player Bowen Kerins both battled it out in the finals. After claiming victory at PAPA XI, Keith solidified his 3-Peat in finishing the year as the World’s Greatest Pinball Player yet again. Highlights for Keith in 2008 included a top 4 finish in both World Championships (PAPA and IFPA), while also winning an unprecendented 6 tournaments in a row between April and September.Congratulations to Keith from the IFPA on another solid year! Keith will receive his award at the IFPA 6 World Pinball Championship in London held July 31 through August 2, 2009.

In a year that saw Keith Elwin drop out of the #1 spot for the first time since the World Pinball Player Rankings began, Keith stepped it up at PAPA XI where him and then #1 player Bowen Kerins both battled it out in the finals. After claiming victory at PAPA XI, Keith solidified his 3-Peat in finishing the year as the World’s Greatest Pinball Player yet again. Highlights for Keith in 2008 included a top 4 finish in both World Championships (PAPA and IFPA), while also winning an unprecendented 6 tournaments in a row between April and September.

Congratulations to Keith from the IFPA on another solid year! Keith will receive his award at the IFPA 6 World Pinball Championship in London held July 31 through August 2, 2009.

To all players interested in competing in the IFPA 6 World Pinball Championship, once the 2008 rankings are officially closed, the IFPA will be sending out invites to the tournament which will be held July 31st – August 2nd outside of London in the UK. It is very important that the IFPA has your email address on file if you are interested in receiving an invitation. Please update your player profile, or email the IFPA directly at ifpapinball@gmail.com to add your email address to our player database.