Tournament Date: February 03, 2024

The first round commences at 10am.

Seeding of finalists
The 16 players will be seeded based on their State rankings position at the end of the calendar year. In the event that any players are tied with the same amount of In-State WPPR points, we will look at the overall WPPR rank of those players as of the end of that calendar year. Any players tied on the qualifying bubble with the same State ranking position will result in a play-in tiebreaker game to determine who joins the field of finalists for the State Championship. Game and position will be pulled at random by the TD.

Head-to-Head Single Elimination Format
Players will be placed in a single elimination bracket once the seedings have been completed.

First round pairings are as follows:

1 vs. 16, 2 vs. 15, 3 vs. 14, 4 vs. 13,

5 vs. 12, 6 vs. 11, 7 vs. 10, 8 vs. 9

Second round pairings are as follows:

1/16 winner vs. 8/9 winner, 2/15 winner vs. 7/10 winner,

3/14 winner vs. 6/11 winner, 4/13 winner vs. 5/12 winner

Third round pairings are as follows:

1/8/9/16 winner vs. 4/5/12/13 winner,

2/7/10/15 winner vs. 3/6/11/14 winner

Fourth round pairing are as follows:

Two winners of round 3 play for the State Championship

Two losers of round 3 play in the Consolation Final for 3rd/4th place.

Each match will be a best-of-seven. The higher seeded player in a match will have choice of available machine or position for the 1st game, with the loser of each subsequent game having choice of available machine or order, until someone has won 4 games. A machine is considered "available" if another match is on ball 3 at the time of selection and no other match is waiting to play that machine. However, in the case of an EM or solid state machine it is considered available if there is another match in progress on ball 1, 2 or 3 and no other match in the queue. A System 11 (Williams alpha numeric) machine is not considered a classic for the purpose of this event.

A player may choose only one EM per round. A machine may not be played more than once in the same match unless there are no other available machines unplayed in that match. If that is the case, only after all machines have been chosen can either player select that game to be played for a second time within the same match. Once a player verbally announces their game choice, or chooses position, that decision will be locked in and cannot be changed (except where a player has chosen a machine that is unavailable).

In the first game of the first round the order of machine selection will be by player seeding (ie State ranking at the end of the calendar year). Where a machine is chosen simultaneously by two or more players, the higher seeded player shall have priority and the others must choose another available machine.

Each player will have the opportunity for 30 seconds of practice time before starting every game of every match. This practice may be declined by a player.

The winner of the match advances to the next round, while the loser is eliminated.

The 3rd/4th place Consolation Final will be played as a best-of-three instead of a best-of-seven like all other rounds, using the same rules. No further matches will be played to determine 5th through 16th place.

In the event that 200 unique players play in IFPA sanctioned events in SA in 2023 the field will be expanded to 24 finalists. The top 8 players will receive a bye, with the 9th through 24th seeds playing in an opening round. The rest of the bracket will play out as above.