The IFPA and Gameworks teamed up to host their 8th Pinball Tournament of Champions from May 4th-6th. PAPA was also in the house for this event, as it was the 2nd tournament on the newly formed PAPA Circuit for 2012. This added $1500 to the prize pool, along with the chance for players to win PAPA Circuit points to qualify for the PAPA Circuit final in March 2013.

53 players participated for the $3500+ in cash and prizes up for grabs, qualifying on Stern's AC/DC, Ironman, Tron and Transformers.

[player]Zach Sharpe[/player] took home his 3rd Gameworks title in 8 attempts, defeating [player]Derek Fugate[/player] (2-1), [player]Jason Werdrick[/player] (2-1) and [player]Keith Johnson[/player] (2-1) to take home 1st place. The deciding game came down to Tron where both players battled to the very end. After the final end of ball bonus from Keith, he fell just short of catching up to Zach's score (45,328,230 to 45,052,540). With the PAPA cameras rolling all weekend, the action was all caught on tape. Check it out HERE.

Other finalists included [player]Keith Johnson[/player] (2nd-right), [player]Trent Augenstein[/player] (3rd-inner left) and [player]Jason Werdrick[/player] (4th-left).

Full results can be found HERE.

The IFPA is pleased to announce that our Player of the Month for April 2012 is [player]Trent Augenstein[/player], from Delaware, OH. Trent earned 96.42 WPPR points in April, finishing in 2nd place at Pinburgh as well as 1st and 4th place at the Pinball at the Zoo in the Main and Classics tournaments respectively.

The rest of the top 5 for the month of April included [player]Adam Becker[/player] of Canada with 91.41 WPPR points,  [player]Franck Bona[/player] of France with 81.11 WPPR points, [player]Zach Sharpe[/player] of the US with 75.83 WPPR points, and [player]Alain Boulieu[/player] of France with 73.20 WPPR points.

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

29 people competed in this year's 2012 Amusement Expo tournament out in Las Vegas. Utilizing the Pin-Golf style format on Stern's latest game AC/DC, players played 3 pin-holes in an attempt to get as few strokes as possible. The top 4 players qualified for the finals, with the next highest 4 finishers ranked under #250 qualified for the Novice Finals.

[player]TJ Beyer[/player](ranked 1435th in the world) defeated [player]David Burrier[/player](ranked 1075th in the world), [player]Shelley Paule[/player](ranked 1013th in the world) and [player]Roger Sharpe[/player](ranked 342nd in the world) to win the Novice Finals. Current World Pinball Champion, and world ranked #2 player [player]Cayle George[/player] defeated [player]Zach Sharpe[/player](ranked 9th in the world), [player]Bob Matthews[/player](ranked 30th in the world) and [player]Nick Zendejas[/player](ranked 215th in the world) to take home 1st place in the Masters Division. Full results of the tournament can be found HERE.

The Amusement Expo tournament is one of the nearly 350 annual IFPA endorsed tournaments where players can earn World Pinball Player Rankings points, and qualify for the IFPA World Pinball Championship.

IFPA Vice President Zach Sharpe was recently featured in an issue of Chicago's RedEye as one of the "Hottest Geek Guys of Winter". Click HERE to read the entire article.