I find it a little odd that nobody ever mentions a few things in regard to this discussion:
Generally, playing more = improving as a player. The people that are playing in tons of events are getting better and better as players as they accumulate more experience. Which means:
Generally, those players are having increasing success at all tournaments they attend. Which means:
The increasing ratings strength of those players is also increasing the value of the tournaments in which they play (which encourages attendance). Even so, merely attending a high number events doesnât even come close to guaranteeing you a qualifying spot in the SCS, because
Success at a most of these events is HARD, because all that experience is constantly raising the talent level of those players. You still have to perform consistently well against those players to place anywhere that will actually earn you a meaningful amount of points. Youâre usually lucky to earn more than 1 or 2 points for anything below 3rd-5th around here. Come try to win any weekly event in Cleveland! Most of the time, youâll be hard-pressed to earn a meaningful # of points. Which is why
Just attending lots of events doesnât actually matter much unless you play well. Right now you need over 120 points just to get into the 16th spot in OH SCS rankings. So someone that shows up at 100+ weeklies, but never actually plays very well, arenât qualifying for the state championship just because they were there.
TL:DR
Capping SCS events possibly = Discourages event attendance
Lower event attendance = Less competitive play in general
Less competitive play in general = Less experience for players
Less experience = Worse players
Worse players = Lower rated players
Lower rated players = Decreased average event point value
Decreased event point value = Discourages event attendance
Lower event attendance = Less competitive play in general (you get the picture)
If anyone feels like making âcontribution to the SCS prize poolâ part of the qualifying process . . . please speak up in support of Michael here, because I donât.
Some issues I see:
What if an event has the endorsement fee sponsored by the location? Does that player still capture the equity associated with that dollar even if they didnât actually fund it themselves?
What if the winners pay the endorsement fee? So my mom enters the $5 tournament, and I win the event and out of my $50 winning I owe the IFPA $10 for the 10 players that participated. Do I credit for all $10? Do I credit for just $1? Does my mom still get credit for her $1 even though I funded it?
How many spots out of 16 do you reserve for these âequity basedâ spots, assuming you find a way to properly account for scenarios 1 and 2
Whoâs tracking all of this throughout the year to ensure the money is appropriately designated to the associated player?
It already is going to be part of the process next year. To earn points towards the SCS, you have to pay the $1 entry fee for the event.
And no matter if the event is sponsored by a location / other entity, paid by the player, or paid by someone else so their mom can be part of the rankings, the $1 is still being paid. And to place more restrictions on the ability of local players to play for a state championship doesnât help to have more events being run, and up the prize pool, making the SCS more prestigious.
Another solution I proposed, is to drop the idea of states, and just go with cities or pinball map regions? That solves the problem of a state being dominated by a single city. As it stands now, âstateâ is just being used as an arbitrary geographical section anyway.
If youâre leaning on time and money advantages to support your points, I donât think competitive pinball is ever going to satisfy what youâre looking to achieve.
Iâm all ears if there is a large group of people that agree with this opinion. Restrictions should be placed on the top players to ensure that âlocal playersâ get to play for a State Championship.
Again, Iâm all ears on scrapping the âState Championship Seriesâ altogether, and starting up the âRegional Championship Seriesâ instead, based on some different arbitrary map that isnât state line based. If there is a large group interested in this change being a positive direction to take things, speak up!
to be clear, the super state idea still only gives each state one rep to nationals, itâs just that there are 24 entrants in the state championship rather than 16. I have no idea what this is trying to acomplish
Just wanted to note that there is nothing stopping anyone from developing their own city or regional championships. We do it in portland every year based on WPPRs won in our weekly tournaments.
My impression is that there are a lot of players with the goal of playing in a state championship. This change makes this goal more reachable for more players.
As stated above, it also opens the payouts from the SCS pool down to the #24 spot, which Iâd think would keep even more players interested in playing SCS events.
It doesnât make sense why top 16 players in âSuper Statesâ should be essentially punished for playing somewhere that has a lot of tournaments. So now I have to play more people in the SC than someone in Idaho to secure my national championship spot just because we have a lot of tournaments in Oregon? If the expanded field doesnât come with an additional Nationals spot it is unfairly targeting top players in these states. Itâs already hard enough to get top 16, itâs not my fault the IFPA is set up to make you grind out 80 tourneys a year in Oregon.
My point stands that even if youâre top 8 you have to play a wider field of people who may be âonâ that day that you wouldnât have to otherwise. And then you would have to play someone who has warmed up on the machines for an additional round where you werenât able to.
Iâm going to qualify in the top 8 in my state and would love to see it expanded to 24. There are a lot of great players here, many of whom play in areas with fewer events and struggle to make the top 16. I say open up the field, give more players a fighting chance and may the best player win. This especially holds true going forward to next year when there will be more money on the line, paid in by the players, so Iâd like to see more of them have a shot at it!
I donât think the decision would be arbitrary at all though. It would be based on hard data as to which states are more highly contested with lots of events and lots of players pushing to qualify. As it stands some states barely fill 16, so it wouldnât make sense to change to 24 qualifiers across the board.
I see your point. Personally to me, this seems like a bandaid fix for the fact that tourney grinders are getting in ahead of more skilled players with less tournament volume. I think if that issue was addressed this expanded field wouldnât be particularly necessary. If weâre concerned with rewarding players in highly active states in the current system, I believe it should be with an additional nationals spot along with an expanded field. If we have x percentage of active tournament players in the US, shouldnât we receive x percentage of the slots for nationals? I can see why others would disagree with me though and admit that Iâm biased. Just one guys opinion
