The IFPA is proud to announce that [player]Jorian Engelbrektsson[/player] has finished at #1 on the World Pinball Player Rankings, thus earning IFPA’s top honor as the 2015 “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 3rd time that Jorian has been crowned the World’s Greatest Pinball Player, having earned it back in 2009 and 2014.

Jorian’s greatest achievement of 2015 was being crowned European Pinball Champion at EPC2015 in Belgium, while finishing in the top 10 of all 4 Major Championships in 2015 (3rd at IFPA12, 5th at PAPA18 and 9th at Pinburgh 2015). Jorian held the #1 nearly wire to wire in 2015 minus a brief stint at #2 after Keith Elwin won PAPA18. Besides his win at EPC2015, Jorian won the 2015 PAPA Circuit and earned victories at the Swedish Pinball Open Classics Tournament and the Swiss Open Main Tournament.

Overall, Jorian won 23% of the 22 events he played in, while placing in the top 4 at 55% of his 2014 events, a truly remarkable achievement. Jorian will be given his award at the IFPA13 World Pinball Championship, scheduled for April 12-14, 2016 in Pittsburgh. Congratulations to Jorian, and best of luck to everyone on the upcoming 2016 season in the race for #1.

The IFPA is pleased to announce that our Player of the Year for 2015 is [player]Steven Bowden[/player] from Franklin Park, NJ. Steve racked up an incredible 1282.34 WPPR points during 2015 moving him from 13th to 2nd in the world during the year.

Steve was the IFPA Player of the Month in May, October and December of 2015 having won 36% of the 55 tournaments he played in during 2015, and finished in the top 4 in 64% of them.

Steve’s highlights during 2015 included 1st place finishes at Pinball Expo’s Flip Out Main Tournament, PPO’s Classics and Pin-Golf Tournaments, Pinfest and the 24 Hour Final Battle at The Sanctum. Steve also won 5 out the 12 Modern Pinball NYC Super League tournaments during 2015, racking up enough WPPR points (538.91) to actually change the course of the WPPR system forever!

Steve will be given his award at the IFPA13 World Pinball Championship, scheduled for April 12-14, 2016 in Pittsburgh. The IFPA wishes to congralute Steve on all of his success throughout 2015.

The IFPA is proud to announce that [player]Jorian Engelbrektsson[/player] has finished at #1 on the World Pinball Player Rankings, thus earning IFPA's top honor as the 2014 "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 2nd time that Jorian has been crowned the World's Greatest Pinball Player, having earned it back in 2009 as well. 

While Jorian's greatest achievement of 2014 was being crowned World Pinball Champion at IFPA11 in Denver, it was actually his 6th place finish in the Swedish Championships in November that pushed Jorian ahead of [player]Keith Elwin[/player] for the top spot. It was the closest race for the World’s Greatest Pinball Player title in IFPA history (7.58 WPPR points, besting last year’s tight race of 7.92 WPPR points between Keith and [player]Zach Sharpe[/player]). Besides his win at IFPA11, Jorian earned victories at the Danish Pinball Open, Pinball Expo Flip Out Tournament, Stockholm Open, Pre-IFPA Pinball Tournament at 1Up Lodo, Lyons Pinball Spring Classic and the Pre-Pinburgh Tournament at Doublewide Grill.

Overall, Jorian won 37% of the events he played in, while placing in the top 4 at 56% of his 2014 events, a truly remarkable achievement. Jorian will be given his award at the IFPA12 World Pinball Championship, scheduled for May 22-24, 2015 in Borås, Sweden. Congratulations to Jorian, and best of luck to everyone on the upcoming 2015 season in the race for #1.

The IFPA is pleased to announce that our Player of the Month for December 2013 is [player]Andrei Massenkoff[/player] from San Francsico, CA. Andrei earned a total 127.23 WPPR points in December, winning the fall season of both the SFPD League and BAPA League. Andrei also swept the Main and Classics divisions at City Champ, and a 1st/2nd place finish in Main and Classics respectively at the Nutcracker Duel.

The rest of the top 5 for the month of December included [player]Eden Stamm[/player] from White Rock, BC, Canada, with 97.19 WPPR points, [player]Tatsunori Naruke[/player] from Japan with 96.06 WPPR points, [player]Joshua Henderson[/player] from Plainfield, IL with 90.26 WPPR points, and [player]Trent Augenstein[/player] from Delaware, OH with 86.23 WPPR points.

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

The IFPA is proud to announce that [player]Zach Sharpe[/player] has finished at #1 on the World Pinball Player Rankings, thus earning IFPA’s top honor as the 2013 “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 8th time that the IFPA has crowned the World’s Greatest Pinball Player, with Zach now becoming the third player in history to earn the honor. [player]Jorian Engelbrektsson[/player] earned the top spot in 2009, while [player]Keith Elwin[/player] captured the honor the other 6 years.

Ultimately it was Zach's European tour in the fourth quarter of 2013 that helped him secure the #1 spot in what was the closest race for the World's Greatest Pinball Player title in IFPA history (7.92 WPPR points). Zach earned victories at the Danish Pinball Open in Denmark, the Dutch Pinball Open in the Netherlands, as well as the Planet Comics tournament in Italy.

Overall, Zach won 40% of the events he played in, while placing in the top 4 at 62% of his 2013 events, a truly remarkable achievement. Zach will be given his award at the IFPA11 World Pinball Championship, scheduled for May 23-25, 2014 in Denver, CO. Congratulations to Zach, and best of luck to everyone on the upcoming 2014 season in the race for #1.

The IFPA is pleased to announce that for the second month in a row our Player of the Month for November 2013 is current World No.1 [player]Zach Sharpe[/player] from Chicago, IL. Zach earned a total 96.39 WPPR points in November, with a victory at the Dutch Pinball Open, and second place finish at the Southern Pinball Festival.

The rest of the top 5 for the month of November included [player]Trent Augenstein[/player] from Delaware, OH, with 89.56 WPPR points, [player]Jon Replogle[/player] from Pittsburgh, PA with 89.41 WPPR points, [player]Roberto Pedroni[/player] from Italy with 88.52 WPPR points, and [player]Marcus Hugosson[/player] from Vetlanda, Sweden with 82.34 WPPR points.

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

The IFPA is excited to announce that the following players have been now qualified for the $tern Rewards Program based on their October 2013 IFPA endorsed tournament performance! These players have until August 15th, 2014 to exercise their reward option.

PLAYER OF THE MONTH – [player]Zach Sharpe[/player]
earned a total 147.76 WPPR points in October, with victories at both the Pinball Expo Flip Out Tournament and the Danish Pinball Open. Zach also finished in 3rd and 2nd place in the Classics Divisions of each of those tournaments respectively.

BIGGEST MOVER AWARD – [player]Ray Boyle[/player]
Ray moved up 7759 spots by earning 3.94 WPPR points from his 8th place finish in the London Ontario Pinball League. This boosted Ray into now being the 3854th ranked player in the world.

BIGGEST MOVER AWARD – [player]Debbie Baiano[/player]
Debbie moved up 7005 spots from her 99th and 88th place finish at the Pinball Expo Flip Out Tournament Main and Classics tournaments respectively, as well as a 58th place finish at the Star Trek Launch Party in Chicago. In total, Debbie netted 3.43 WPPR points from her performances, which has moved her up to a rank of 4097th in the world.

BIGGEST MOVER AWARD – [player]Cory Brown[/player]
Cory moved up 6211 spots by earning 2.69 WPPR points from his 2nd place finish at the ContraFlow Convention IFPA Tournament. This moved Cory into now being the 4205th ranked player in the world..

Detailed rules for the $tern Rewards Program, including an updated list of qualifiers, and updated list of rewards available can be found HERE.

The IFPA is pleased to announce that our Player of the Month for October 2013 is current World No.1 [player]Zach Sharpe[/player] from Chicago, IL. Zach earned a total 147.76 WPPR points in October, with victories at both the Pinball Expo Flip Out Tournament and the Danish Pinball Open. Zach also finished in 3rd and 2nd place in the Classics Divisions of each of those tournaments respectively.

The rest of the top 5 for the month of October included [player]Trent Augenstein[/player] from Delaware, OH, with 114.17 WPPR points, [player]Marcin Kisiel[/player] from Poland with 92.69 WPPR points, [player]Josh Sharpe[/player] from Palatine, IL with 87.23 WPPR points, and [player]Roy Wils[/player] from the Netherlands with 86.35 WPPR points.

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

As the 2013 season winds down, we couldn't help but notice how close the race for the IFPA's "World Greatest Pinball Player" title is between 6-time World's Greatest Pinball Player and current world No.1 [player]Keith Elwin[/player], and IFPA10 runner up [player]Zach Sharpe[/player] currently sitting in the No. 2 spot. How close is it?? The IFPA takes a closer look!

Keith's current 5.61 point lead is deceiving in that it doesn't take into account the points each player will be losing before the end of year (based on our 100/75/50/0 decay as tournaments age). The IFPA did a quick analysis, and based on our calculations using today's rankings, if Zach and Keith sat out the rest of the season, Zach would finish at 849.57 WPPR points besting Keith who would finish at 845.01. This margin of 4.56 WPPR points would be the closest in the history of the IFPA's World Pinball Player Rankings.

A big piece of this puzzle will be solved after Pinball Expo, coming up the week of October 16-20th in Chicago. Beyond that it will be up to the travel schedules of both players to see if there will be any more opportunities to improve their WPPR total before year end.

Will Keith make a trip to Riverside to play in the Pinball at the Lake Match-Play Classic? Will Zach's european tour continue to be successful, with a stop at the Dutch Pinball Open coming up November 2nd?

Best of luck to both Keith and Zach as they play for the 2013 title of World's Greatest Pinball Player! We couldn't be more excited to see how things play out!