Every once in a while we have to let Adam Becker out of his cage to keep him from going insane. We know how anxious tournament directors and players are to see their calendar submissions approved and results posted quickly, especially with the end of the year approaching.

Here at the IFPA we believe the holidays are a time to be with your family and friends . . . even for Adam Becker (reluctantly).

If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard back from the IFPA regarding your event, that’s why.

Adam will be back January 2nd, so please let him enjoy his last two days of freedom before we lock him back up.

The IFPA is pleased to announce that our Player of the Year for 2018 is Trent Augenstein from Delaware, OH. Trent racked up an incredible 1578.18 WPPR points during 2018. This beats the previous record of points earned during a year of 1425.50 (also by Trent in 2017). Trent currently sits as the #6 ranked player in the world having held that spot from the start of the year.

Trent was the IFPA Player of the Month in June, July, August and September of 2018 having won 32 of the 90 tournaments he played in during 2018, while finishing in the top 4 in 58% of them.

Trent’s highlights during 2018 included a 3rd place finish at the IFPA15 World Pinball Champinoship, along with 2nd place finishes at the Texas Pinball Festival , 24 Hour Final Battle at The Sanctum, Buffalo Pinball Summer Open (Classics), 1st place finishes at the Pincinnati Matchplay Tournament, The Amazing Pinball Race and Pinball at the Zoo. Trent earned his 3rd career top 4 Major Championship finish with that 3rd place IFPA15 finish.

The IFPA wishes to congratulate Trent on all of his success throughout 2018. The IFPA posts this with the caveat that there are still 71 sanctioned events left on the IFPA calendar, and it’s likely that Trent will play in most of them.

The IFPA is proud to announce that Raymond Davidson has finished at #1 on the World Pinball Player Rankings, thus earning IFPA’s top honor as the 2018 “World’s Greatest Pinball Player”. No single tournament victory will ever secure this title for a given year. Only consistent play at the highest level over the course of multiple years leads to players reaching the pinnacle of the World Pinball Player Rankings. This is the 1st time that Raymond has been crowned the World’s Greatest Pinball Player and the 4th player in history to receive this award (Keith Elwin (7), Jorian Engelbrektsson (3) and Zach Sharpe (2) being the other three).

Raymond’s greatest achievement of 2018 was defending his IFPA World Pinball Championship title with a victory at IFPA15, along with a victory at the IFPA US National Pinball Championship. Raymond also collected bones at INDISC (Classics), Portland Pinbrawl, Western Canadian Pinball Championships, NW Pinball Championships, Vancouver Flip-Out, Seattle Pinball League, Shortys Annual Pinball Tournament and City Champ and the IFPA Washington State Pinball Championship.

Overall, Raymond won 43% of the 28 events he played in, while placing in the top 4 at 71% of his 2017 events, a truly remarkable achievement. Congratulations to Raymond, and best of luck to everyone on the upcoming 2019 season in the race for #1. Raymond will receive his WGPP trophy at the IFPA16 World Pinball Championship in Italy in June.

The IFPA is proud to announce the return of the IFPA Heads-Up Pinball Championship for 2019! A new twist on competitive pinball, players will be battling head-to-head simultaneously on two different machines of the same title attempting to complete challenges the fastest.

The winner of the tournament will receive a brand new Stern Pro Pinball Machine.

Registration for the 2019 IFPA Heads-Up Pinball Championship is now OPEN! For details on the IFPA Heads-Up Pinball Championship, check out the Overview page HERE. To register, click HERE!

The 2019 IFPA Heads-Up Pinball Championship is scheduled for Sunday, March 10th, 2019 at the Bottom Lounge in Chicago, IL. The Heads-Up Pinball Championship coincides with the Stern Pro Circuit Final held the Saturday of that weekend.

Should you have any questions about our qualifying process or to find out more information about the tournament, please contact the IFPA at [email protected].

Qualifying for the 2018-19 IFPA North American Championship Series has just over a week left, but we wanted to take the opportunity to open up registration in advance to give players more time to respond to their invitations.

44 different IFPA State Championship finals (plus Wash DC) along with 8 different Provinces in Canada. These finals will all be held simultaneously on January 19th, 2018, with 832 finalists competing for their share of nearly $70,000 in cash, a State or Provincial title, along with a spot in the IFPA North American Pinball Championship.

View the qualifying standings HERE.

IFPA State/Provincial Representatives should be sending out emails shortly, although most have already done so with our short registration period. Important to note that if you do not have a registered IFPA player account, you are INELIGIBLE to participate. If you feel you should have received an invitation to one of the IFPA State Championships and did not, contact the IFPA immediately at [email protected], or Click HERE to register your profile.

Registration closes on Monday, January 7th at 8pm CST. Any player that has not accepted their invitation by that time will be ineligible to participate.

Remember that no player is allowed to compete in multiple IFPA State/Provincial Championships. Players that qualify for more than one IFPA State/Provincial Championship will have to make their choice during this open period of registration. This will mean that many states/provinces will go far past the top 16 players in order to fill all 16 spots (or 24 players for any Super State/Province).

Any questions about the SCS, or anything IFPA related, please contact us at [email protected]

As State/Provincial Representatives alert us to who is attending, we will be updating the registration page HERE.

Spectrum News NY1 dropped by Sunshine Laundromat is New York City for a meeting of the Sunshine Pinball League. Check out the piece HERE.

Here are the September, October and August 2018 IFPA winners for Player of the Month and Biggest Movers:

Player of the Month:
September 2018 – Trent Augenstein (171.48 WPPR’s)
October 2018 – Johannes Ostermeier (175.18 WPPR’s)
November 2018 – Drew Cedolia (175.23 WPPR’s)

Biggest Movers:
September 2018 – Scott Macias (+22,605 spots), Scott Miles (+21,024 spots) and Michael Orrin (+19,753 spots)
October 2018 – Chris Dobell (+24,902 spots), David Davenport (+12,388 spots) and Ben Luttrull (+12,023 spots)
November 2018 – Christophe Berry (+29,277 spots), Gerald Kirchner (+25,721 spots) and Michael Ridgeway (+14,659 spots)

These players have now all qualified for the Stern Rewards Program for 2018. Congrats to everyone!

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 [email protected], 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.