After publishing a story leading up to the IFPA9 World Pinball Championship a month ago, RedEye Chicago just released a follow up piece on the growing popularity of the sport. Featured in the article is [player]George Gomez[/player] (ranked 4321st in the world), Vice President of Game Design at Stern Pinball. Also featured is [player]Bowen Kerins[/player] (ranked 4th in the world), [player]Josh Sharpe[/player] (ranked 12th in the world), and [player]Mike Miller[/player] (ranked 2156th in the world). Click HERE to check out the article.

The IFPA is pleased to announce that our Player of the Month for June 2012 is current IFPA World Pinball Champion, [player]Daniele Celestino Acciari[/player] from Italy. Daniele earned an incredible 251.33 WPPR points in June, winning not only the IFPA9 World Pinball Championship, but also the NW Pinball Championships Open Division. He also finished in 4th place in the Classics Division at the NW Pinball Championships, and earned a 2nd place finish at the Pre-IFPA tournament at Full Tilt.

The rest of the top 5 for the month of June included [player]Bowen Kerins[/player] of the US with 226.35 WPPR points, [player]Cayle George[/player] of the US with 187.41 WPPR points, Jorgen Holm of Sweden with 161.55 WPPR points, and Lyman Sheats of the US with 154.34 WPPR points.

Congratulations to Daniele and the other top WPPR point earners of the month!

New for 2012, the IFPA started the IFPA Ratings System for all players. Currently the IFPA Ratings System uses an unmodified version of the Glicko rating system. Rather than focusing on head-to-head play we are using tournament finishing results as the data for the calculation.

Using over 3.8 million pieces of match data, the IFPA Ratings System really focuses on how players are performing RIGHT NOW, compared to the World Pinball Player Rankings system that focuses more on the overall body of work for players over the last 3 years. As we've been tracking the player ratings for the last 6 months, we have yet to see a player hit a rating of 2000 . . . until now!

The current sole member in the 2000 Club is IFPA5 and IFPA6 World Pinball Champion, [player]Bowen Kerins[/player], with a current rating of 2003.34. One only needs to look at Bowen's recent tournament performance to recognize that he may currently be the hottest player out there on the competitive pinball tour.

In 2012, Bowen has compiled a record of 486 wins, 25 losses, and 1 tie against his competition, including a top 4 finish at the IFPA9 World Pinball Championship, and both Pre-IFPA Pinball Tournaments out in Seattle, with a victory at the Full Tilt event.

For a look at the other top rated players, click HERE.

64 of the top ranked pinball players from 12 countries came to Bainbridge Island just outside Seattle to compete for the chance to become the new IFPA World Pinball Champion.

The Battle in Seattle was truly a battle of champions, as 3 of the top 4 finishers were the 3 previous IFPA World Pinball Champions. IFPA5 and IFPA6 World Pinball Champion [player]Bowen Kerins[/player] survived a 3-0 deficit to [player]Steve Zahler[/player] in his first round of the playoffs to come back and take the match 5 games to 3, and then knocked off 3-time PAPA World Pinball Champion [player]Lyman Sheats[/player] 4-1 to advance to the Final 4. [player]Andy Rosa[/player], who was the runner up at IFPA7 took out current world ranked #1 [player]Keith Elwin[/player] 5-4 in a match that went the distance on his way to the finals. Defending champion [player]Cayle George[/player] had the toughest road in the playoffs, surviving matches against [player]Josh Sharpe[/player], [player]Donavan Stepp[/player], [player]Jim Belsito[/player] and [player]Bowen Kerins[/player] that all went into sudden death.

In the end, it was IFPA7 champion [player[Daniele Celestino Acciari[/player] from Italy, who after defeating [player]Frank Romero[/player] (4-2), [player]Jason Werdrick[/player] (4-2) and Jorgen Holm (4-0), was faced with a rematch of his World Championship match at IFPA7 against [player]Andy Rosa[/player]. After jumping out to a 3-0 lead, Acciari eventually defeated Rosa 4 games to 2. His reward was a matchup with the IFPA8 World Pinball Champion [player]Cayle George[/player]. After splitting the first two games on The Shadow and Grand Prix, Acciari took control of the match by holding serve on Medusa followed by a victory on George’s pick Attack From Mars. The players then headed to Bally’s Old Chicago, where just a round earlier, Acciari put up an incredible 245,240 points rolling the game twice against [player]Andy Rosa[/player]. Unfortunately following a tough ball 1, [player]Cayle George[/player] tilted not only his ball, but also ended up tilting Acciari's ball 2. This interference, albeit unintentional, resulted in George's disqualification from the game, and ultimately the match.

With that, Daniele Celestino Acciari became this year's IFPA World Pinball Champion, bringing the title back to Italy where it will be for the rest of 2012, along with $1350 cash and a brand new pinball machine from Stern Pinball. Acciari's World Championship victory capped off an incredible week of tournament performance in Seattle. Starting with a victory at the NW Pinball Championships, along with a 4th place finish in the Classics Division, Acciari then took a 2nd place finish at the Full Tilt Pre-IFPA Tournament. In total Acciari racked up over 250 WPPR points for the week, which will likely propel him to becoming the #1 ranked player in the world depending on how the rest of 2012 plays out.

Full results can be found HERE.

Registration is now closed for IFPA9, and we couldn't be more excited about the field of participants!

12 countries will be represented at the World Championship this year, including the current IFPA World Pinball Champion, [player]Cayle George[/player], current PAPA World Pinball Champion, [player]Andrei Massenkoff[/player], as well as previous IFPA and PAPA World Pinball Champions [player]Keith Elwin[/player], [player]Jorian Engelbrektsson[/player], [player]Daniele Celestino Acciari[/player], [player]Bowen Kerins[/player] and [player]Lyman Sheats[/player]. No tournament in competitive pinball history has featured more World Pinball Champions under one roof, so the competition will be fierce. Will one of these 7 add to their respective legacies, or will a new World Pinball Champion be crowned? This answer will come in a few short months.

The full field of participants is available HERE.

A reminder that there are 1 more spot is still available at the IFPA Satellite Tournament, the 2012 NW Pinball Championship. Full details available HERE.