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.

Stern Pinball is looking for some feedback from the IFPA player community on their latest designs.

If you have a chance, please check out the survey here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DZF3H6K

Please rank the previous 6 Stern releases, 1 being the best, 6 being the worst.

The first official tourney of 2012 in NY was held at Rock Fantasy in Middletown NY thanks to the hosts [player]Steve Keeler[/player] and [player]Steve Levine[/player]. It was a big success with 31 players and 95 entries which all went to the pot! The tourney started at noon with the entry fee of $10 which let you play the set

of 5 games: Spider Man from Stern, Terminator 2, Cheetah, Nugent and Captain Fantastic. At 6:30 the qualification stopped and the top 16 made to the finals in a single elimination bracket 2 best out of 3 and all games in the store could have been used which included Rolling Stones from Stern, Seawitch, Medusa, Adams Family, Transformers LE, Gorgar, Kiss, Fireball, Meteor, and Countdown.

Note that the top 15 made plus the High score of one of the game who was seeded 16th! At around 7 pm after a little cake for [player]Frank Romero[/player] for his birthday the finals started . In couple of hours and after few great matches ([player]Steven Bowden[/player] vs [player]Steve Zahler[/player] was incredible!) 4 players made to semifinal: [player]Steven Bowden[/player] vs [player]Alberto Santana[/player] where the 1st won the tie break game by less than a million on Transformers LE and [player]Sanjay Shah[/player] took out [player]Ed Zeltmann[/player] also on tie break. In the end [player]Steven Bowden[/player] took the win on 2 classic Stern games: Cheetah and Nugent. Top 8 got money. It was truly a great time by all and we all hope that the AC/DC launch party will be held in here because this place ROCKS!!

The IFPA is proud to announce that registration for the 9th Annual IFPA World Pinball Championship is now open! For more details check it out HERE!

The initial invite list is open for the top 150 players in the World Pinball Player Rankings as of 1/1/2012. Based on the interest of the top 150, we may extend the invite list additional spots so please monitor

the registration page at your leisure. Should you be interested, please send payment to the IFPA as your way of committing to attending the tournament. Should you not be interested, it is equally important that we know, so please send an email to the IFPA stating you will not be available to participate.

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].

One of the 64 spots will also be available at the 2012 NW Pinball Show tournament, to be held the weekend before IFPA9.

IFPA9 is sponsored by Stern Pinball, Jersey Jack Pinball, Betson, Raw Thrills, Planetary Pinball Supply, Pinball Life, Farsight Studios, Zen Studios, Marco Specialties, Pinball Center, Play Meter Magazine and Gameworks.

New for 2012, the IFPA is proud to announce the implementation of 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. For a given player in a tournament, any player finished ahead of them is treated as a loss, and everyone they finish ahead of is treated as a win. Ties are when a player finishes in the same

position as other players. RD is limited to a range of 30 to 350 for a given player. A player's RD increases daily, with it taking about 3 years to drop out of the ratings altogether (similar to the period used for the IFPA's World Pinball Player Rankings).

Right now this rating is unofficial, and will be for all of 2012, however we have plans in the future to hopefully include the IFPA Ratings System as part of the World Pinball Player Rankings formula to help determine tournament strength. Unlike the formula for the World PInball Player Rankings which will not change during the year, the IFPA may choose to adjust the formula for the IFPA Ratings System at anytime during the year as it serves no official function at the moment.

Any feedback, questions or comments about the IFPA Ratings System is appreciated. We're excited to explore the possibilities of making the world's official player rankings system even better in the future!

The last Brooklyn Championship of the year crowned 2 new champions: [player]Alberto Santana[/player] won the tourney and [player]Penni Epstein[/player] became the new Brooklyn Champion while retained the title of Brooklyn Woman Champion. The free tourney played in Williamsburgh at 4^th Down was a double elimination format

with 17 players and 2 very evil machines: World Cup Soccer and Avatar.

[player]Alberto Santana[/player] made it to the final losing only 1 game vs [player]Francesco La Rocca[/player] (organizer ) and got in the final beating a great surprising performance of [player]Seth Zuckerman[/player] who finish 2^nd, [player]Penni Epstein[/player] finish 3^rd and [player]Steven Bowden[/player] end up 4^th. Must be mention that this was the Brooklyn Championship with most woman : beside Penni ,also [player]Dahlia Rowan[/player], [player]Rita Ratner[/player] and [player]Debra Rymer[/player]. Everyone received something and top 4 got trophies. Thanks to all participants .