The 8th installment of the most competitive pinball tournament on the planet has officially been scheduled. More details will be added to the official IFPA8 website found HERE. 2011 finds the World Pinball Championship heading back to Europe, where Sweden will play host the weekend of May 27th through 29th.

We will once again have official IFPA Satellite Tournaments in both the US and Europe where you can win an automatic spot into the World Pinball Championship. We will be using our World Pinball Player Rankings as of January 1, 2011 to fill a majority of the tournament spots, so get out there and earn your WPPR points.

With two out of the three events in competitive pinball’s ‘Triple Crown’ still to go for 2010, anyone still has time to qualify for IFPA8. This includes the 2010 European Pinball Championship October 15th-17th in Switzerland, and the PAPA 13 tournament in Pittsburgh next week.

Best of luck to all the players out there!

In April 2006, the IFPA attempted a fun experiment to try and rank the world’s greatest pinball players. A little over four years later, and the World Pinball Player Rankings has truly become a phenomenon within the competitive pinball community. We’re pleased to announce that we just passed 8,000 players ranked. With these players coming from 27 different countries, competitive pinball truly is a global sport that only continues to grow at a rapid pace.

The IFPA wishes to thank everyone in the competitive pinball community for continuing to support everything we do to spread the world about our incredible sport to the masses.

It was a great turnout for this year’s Slabtown Tournament with over 60 people competing in the event. Following the qualification rounds, the top 8 players in Classics, and the top 16 players in Open would battle it out for the respective championships. The Classics boiled down to a 3-way tiebreaker on Aces and Kings between Cayle George, Aaron Nelson, and the eventual winner, Robert Gagno, who put up the HIGHEST score of the weekend on the game to win the title! It was then on to the Open Finals where the top 16 battled on Simpsons Pinball Party, Demolition Man, Whirlwind, Terminator 2, Frontier, and Seawitch. After the 1st round of play, only ONE of the top 6 players advanced to the semi-finals, making it a surprising set of players remaining in the event. The competition was tough, and some of the games were extremely merciless, but 4 players made it through to the finals, and after a hard fought battle, and some excellent and timely play when he needed a win the most, Robert Gagno was able to outlast the competition and take the Open Title as well!! 2nd place went to Ryan Gratzer, 3rd to Steve Lampros, and 4th to Fred Franken. Full results can be found HERE.

While the pinball season still has 5 months left, with PAPA 13 approaching, we couldn’t help but do a quick analysis on the race for #1 on the World Pinball Player Rankings. Similar to last year, the race is extremely tight with Keith Elwin and Jorian Engelbrektsson seemingly hopping eachother following every tournament result that gets uploaded into the system.

Accounting for future decay between now and the end of the year, Keith currently has a slight edge over Jorian (582.14 to 563.16). This does not include Keith’s recent performance at California Extreme in which he captured the Modern Division title. This will surely replace the lowest event currently on his ‘Top 15 resume’ which was previously 22.44 points.

With one of the major championships in IFPA7 now out of the way, it is clear that the year’s second major championship PAPA13 could be a huge factor in deciding who finishes on top. Fortunately for Jorian, he also has the third leg of competitive pinball’s Triple Crown later this year when Switzerland hosts the European Pinball Championship.

Best of luck to both Keith and Jorian on the second half of 2010! Who will finish #1 and wear the coveted Whopper crown?

Thanks to Gary Stern of Stern Pinball and Mauro Zaccaria of Tecnoplay out in Italy, we’re pleased to announce that newly crowned IFPA World Champion Daniele Celestino Acciari just received his grand prize for finishing in the top spot amongst the toughest field of participants in competitive pinball history. His prize was a brand new Stern Spider-Man, to go along with the $1000 in cash he took home back in May. Join us in once again congratulating Daniele on his phenomenal achievement!

“Special When Lit” will be closing the film festival showing at 7pm on Monday, August 2nd

Circle Cinema
12 South Lewis Avenue
Tulsa, OK 74104
Monday, August 2nd @ 7PM

Anyone ranked in the top 500 looking for something to do the weekend of July 8th-11th, the Michigan Pinball Expo will be hosting the 3rd Michigan Pinball Championships. With over $1000 up for grabs, it’s a can’t miss! For anyone ranked in the top 500 going into that weekend, the MPE staff will give you a VIP armband for the entire weekend (a $40 value). Check out www.mipinball.com for more details!

Just like last year, the Open AND Classics tournament were both won by a single individual, and this year that person was Keith Elwin! He started the day winning the Classics: The final four players were all in a position to win the title going into the 3rd and final game, held on Captain Fantastic, but Keith was able to get the highest score, taking the win! 2nd place went to Adam Lefkoff, 3rd to John Kremmer, and 4th to Kyle Seller. Later, in the Open Division finals, Keith was in a position to seal the match on the 3rd and final game played, which in this case was Fish Tales, and seal the match he did with an amazing 2nd ball in which, despite getting a double tilt warning early, he was able to collect all 3 jackpots and follow up with several supers to give himself a finishing score of over 600 million, the highest score on Fish Tales for the entire weekend!! 2nd place went to Robert Gagno, 3rd to Cayle George, and 4th to Zach Sharpe. This year’s Novice Winner was also our 2008 Novice winner, Garrett Dubofsky, and this year’s Women’s Champion was Zoe Vrabel. Full results can be found HERE.

‘Pinferno IV: Summer Tour’ took place on Sat June 12th, 2010. A full day event, involving 32 of the best players from both NY and NJ, was another complete success, and an overall great time! Once again solidifying Pinferno’s standing as one of the best and most challenging tournaments in the NYC area. The Tournament started with a 6 hour round-robin style Qualification Round played on Creature From The Black Lagoon, Hurricane, Dr. Dude, and Doctor Who, leaving the top 16 players to battle for the title of Grand Champion in Round II. The Semi-Finals came down to Sean Grant vs. Alberto Santana, and Jim Fordham vs. Jeremey Bot. Leading to a finals match, which was identical to that of Pinferno III, with Sean Grant battling it out vs. Jim Fordham, who had one of the strongest Qualifying Rounds in Pinferno history. Sean Grant, however, emerged victorious in a 3 game sweep, ending on Doctor Who. Full results can be found HERE.

64 of the top ranked pinball players form around the world came to Cokato, Minnesota for the IFPA7. With players competing form 12 countries, it truly was an international field. This championship was full of surprises, as we saw relative newcomers climb up the ranks, and odds-on favorites take early exits. Current PAPA World Champion Keith Elwin was eliminated immediately in round 1, while reigning back-to-back IFPA World Champion Bowen Kerins was out after 2 rounds. The youngest player to ever play in an IFPA World Championship, 12 year old Josh Henderson, made an incredible finish in 8th place, while current world ranked #1 Jorian Engelbrektsson’s event was cut short with a 5th place finish. In the end there were only 2 players left, and it was Andy Rosa of the USA against Daniele Acciari of Italy for the Title of IFPA World Pinball Champion. Daniele took the lead with a win on Spiderman followed by another on Bow & Arrow. Andy took the win on Getaway, only to be defeated on Pirates of the Caribbean… and with a final victory on Wizard, Daniele Celestino Acciari became this year’s IFPA World Pinball Champion, the first one ever from outside of the United States!! Pictured left to right is Andy Rosa (2nd), Daniele Celestino Acciari (1st), Jorgen Holm (4th), John Miller (3rd). Full results can be found HERE.