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.

Current World's Greatest Pinball Player, [player]Keith Elwin[/player], and current World Pinball Champion, [player]Cayle George[/player] were both featured in Willamette Week out in Portland, Oregon. Both players will be participating in the upcoming Rose City Showdown starting tomorrow.

For the full article click HERE.

For more details on the Rose City Showdown tournament, click HERE.

Back in early November the IFPA reported on the race for #2 in the World Pinball Player Rankings for 2011 between [player]Jorian Engelbrektsson[/player] and [player]Cayle George[/player]. As the year now comes to a close, it's looking like Jorian will finish slightly ahead of Cayle in the world rankings.

What we didn't see coming was Switzerland native [player]Robert Sutter[/player] exploding in the final 6 weeks of the season to overtake the #2 position! Robert participated in three tournaments within Switzerland since November finishing in 1st place twice and 2nd place once.

In addition to finishing #2 in the World Pinball Player

Rankings, the IFPA is proud to announce that Robert is the 2011 IFPA Player of the Year! This award is based solely on WPPR points earned during 2011, rather than the 3 year rolling period that the World Pinball Player Rankings are based on.

Congratulations to Robert for his spectacular 2011 season!

A few months back in Sweden, the IFPA set a new record with the most countries represented at a World Pinball Championship in competitive pinball history. 64 of the world's best pinball players traveled far and wide from 16 countries to battle one another in the most mentally, emotionally and physically taxing pinball tournament format ever created. After the final ball drained, [player]Cayle George[/player] from Seattle became the new World Pinball Champion.

We are proud to announce that the 9th installment of IFPA's World Pinball Championship has officially been scheduled. More details will be added to the official IFPA9 website as they become available. 2012 finds the World Pinball Championship heading back to the USA, where Seattle will play host the weekend of June 8th through June 10th.

The Northwest Pinball Championships will be an official IFPA9 Satellite Tournament, 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, 2012 to fill a majority of the championship spots, so get out there and earn your WPPR points.

With two months left on the calendar, there are still plenty of qualifying spots up for grabs! Best of luck to all the players out there!