This is an invitational tournament for the top 16 players from the Capital District of New York, as determined by IFPA ratings for events played within calendar year 2019.

Qualification criteria:

(1) Win a Pinball 518 Sanctioned Event during 2019

(2) The remainder of the field, if any, will be filled out with the top points earners for IFPA-sanctioned events within Pinball 518's list of events

(3) One qualifier will be a Tournament Director's choice (entrance via a charity auction details to be released in November) although the player must have played in at least one Pinball 518 event.

Qualifying events to date are:

Capital District Pinball Crawl
Pinball 518 Knockout Tournaments 001 and 002
Excelsior Winter, Summer, and Fall 2019 Leagues
Wolff's Biergarten Summer (and Fall, if held) Leagues
Monthly Excelsior Champions (Note: non-IFPA sanctioned)
Fall Selfie League
Stomp 2019 2

Others may be added at a later date.

The format will be a 15-round round robin, two players head to head. Machines to be chosen randomly for the round robin. Each player will receive one point for a victory.

At the end of the round robin, the top four qualifiers will advance to the Championship rounds. Ties from the Round Robin will be broken by head to head play record fro the round robin. In the event of a three- or more-way tie for a qualifying spot, the tie will be broken by a single game playoff on a tournament director-selected machine of all tied participants.

The Championship Round will be held using the Page Playoff system:

#1 seed Plays the #2 seed. The winner of this match advances directly to the finals. The loser of this game goes into the repechage semi-final.

#3 seed plays the #4 seed. The loser of this game finishes fourth. The winner of this game goes into the repechage semi-final.

The repechage semi-final is thus the loser of the 1 vs 2 match vs. the winner of the 3 vs 4 match.

The final is the winner of the 1 vs 2 match vs. the winner of the repechage semi-final.

FINALS will be PAPA-style best of 3, if time allows; high seed gets choice of machine or position in first game, loser gets choice of machine or position after that. At the Tournament Director's discretion, if the tournament is running overtime, this may be reduced to best single game on games of the TD's choice. (An assistant TD will be appointed to supervise the championship rounds in the unlikely event the TD is in the finals rounds.)

This is a NO ENTRY FEE Championship. IFPA fees and prizes+trophies will be donated by sponsor(s).