Forming Fox Cities Pinball League

[TomGWI]

Hi Everyone,
I am planning on starting a pinball league in the fox cities area if anyone is interested please post here or send me a PM.
Tom.

[ralphwiggum]

That is awesome! If you want to host it here, it is completely free and you have total control. I can set it up however you want it, create a separate forum for you, and you can do whatever you want with it. (including members only section, etc.).

Good luck, the leagues are a ton of fun!

[TomGWI]

Thanks Tim. I will definitely do that once I get things setup. I think a league in my area is well overdue and I just have to setup and start one. Should be fun once things get going.
Tom.

[ralphwiggum]

Being involved with the infancy of both of the leagues down here, I can offer up the following to help you-

1) Setup a concrete start and finish time (from which month the league starts to which month the league ends).If the date floats, getting it started will be a challenge (it is always a challenge getting the ball rolling).

2) Overcommunicate- it is going to sound like pestering/hounding, but someone(s) needs to be very active in keeping the discussion going and turning discussion into action.

3) Get new blood involved- You would be surprised how many newer people are actually better players than they give themselves credit for.

4) Make sure you have at least 5 hosts (if you are going to host in homes) for a 20 member league. games don't need to be perfect, just available to play

5) Set a concrete cap (it can float 1-3 people or so) of 20 (if hosting at homes) and expect between 14-17 to show up every month. This size is important because as the number grows, the number of hosts with avilable space shrinks.

6) Keep it free/low cost. Both leagues down here pay 10 to the host and the host provides food and drink (nothing crazy)

I am sure others can chime in that are in the leagues with their experience so far as well.

[TomGWI]

Great. Thanks for the tips Tim. I want the league to be fun and competitive. I have received a few responses from people in my area so far already.

[Hilton]

Tim covered all the important stuff and he is really the reason the Madison league is alive and kicking. Thanks again TIM!

League is my favorite thing going currently! I will say that opinions are varied in our league, but I think the most important thing is setting the people cap at 20 and getting enough hosts. Then properly vet any unknown people so hosts can feel comfortable with inviting strangers into their homes. It really takes a leader to make it all happen and Tim did a great job of getting the ball rolling. Things seem to be going smooth now that inertia took over.

IMHO, try and get your hosts committed to a month for hosting but leave exact date and time up to them (I know the MKE does the opposite by setting up all dates and then the hosts fill in?) since it gives more opportunity for people to host with what fits their schedule. 4 working games are all that is needed to host along with the room to have 16-20 big dudes and not have the house fall in (I was afraid my old house might not be able to handle it).

If you want to make the league IFPA then all you need is a website (this forum works great) and to tell them dates at least 30 days in advance. You will need to report the league results every month (now along with IFPA player number). Each night of league is worth 2.08 pts as a base value (25 base/12 months).

[jpolfer]

Traditionally, an IFPA league is something that doesn't report monthly results. MadCity does (if you look at the IFPA calendar, its the only event named a "league" that does this), but this a departure from the norm if you look up leagues on the IFPA website. (http://www.ifpapinball.com/top-menu/ifpa-leagues)

Usually an IFPA league:
- is setup for a "season" of a number of meeting days
- need a contactable president (In TwistedFlippers, that's Neo)
- can have any format that the League President / League Director decides.
- at the end of the season, the league reports one set of final ranking results from the season to the IFPA

There are other aspects too (usually fixed number of players, rules around missing days, having results carry over one month to the next for seeding matchups, etc), but the above are the required bits.

TwistedFlippers operates under this model, which is the way that leagues are listed off on the IFPA website. You don't have to submit results to the IFPA every month, which can be a positive or negative - MadCity results counted for 2013, whereas TwistedFlippers results (whose season started in July 2013) won't be ready till June/July 2014 but you'll get a larger amount of points at one time. If you setup your season appropriately, you can meet deadlines.

[Hilton]

For clarity>>
IFPA gave the option of reporting results on a monthly basis or once. Since the MadCity Flipper season started in 2013 but is mostly in 2014, Josh and I talked it over and it was deemed appropriate to report results on a monthly basis. This has pros and cons but given the establishment of the SCS starting with 2013 and that it is based on the calendar year it only seems logical to have events in the calendar year stay within the calendar year.

This obviously had a negative impact on some people who were cut off from the 2013 SCS due to Madcity league results from 2013 counting towards the 2013 SCS. It also ended up as a positive result for a few Madcity flippers that made the 2013 cut for SCS because we opted to have 2013 months of league count.

The real point being that you have an option with how you want to report league results.

Tim/Neo came up with (modified?) a nice league night competition standard which they can probably explain much better han I could. Basically each player will play 4 games ona given evening. The first game is a randomly drawn 3 pack or 4 pack. Your finishing position on game 1 decides who you play with the next game >> all the 1st places play with each other on the next game, 2nd places with each other, and so on. This shuffling repeats for 4 total games and points are awarded for finishing place each round. Cumulative points are added up to determine the monthly winner and also to add up the yearly winner.

A side benefit of reporting results on a monthly basis to IFPA is that due to the exponentially diminishing point value as you slip further in place by reporting monthly results you can spread out the points by someone having a hot night and taking first that night gets more points for their yearly total than if the annual combined finishing place is dead last. This provides a more friendly environment and allows things to 'reset' for IFPA points on any given month. It also rewards those who consistently play well each month with less punishment for those that have a few bad months but still manage a few good months. Hope that makes sense. Another way to think of it is monthly reporting treats the league similar to a monthly tournament with 12 distinct monthly placements. Yearly reporting treats the league like one big main event with 1 big final placement. I personally really like the way Madcity has opted to run and find it to keep things more social and less stress. I think it also has the added benefit of keeping attendance higher than it would be if we opted for the traditional way. I could see some people having less motivation to attend if they start off with a few bad months and their main concern is IFPA points. That said, the min motivation behind Madcity Flippers appears to be about having a good time and socializing.

I was under the impression that the Milwaukee League has separate divisions? Doesn't that exclude if from IFPA status? How are you guys going to reshuffle the deck to report the end of league placements? May be fun to have a round robin tournament to end the season and you could just determine that the whole year leading up to it was to determine seeding for the playoffs???

[Ken]

I was under the impression that the Milwaukee League has separate divisions? Doesn't that exclude if from IFPA status? How are you guys going to reshuffle the deck to report the end of league placements? May be fun to have a round robin tournament to end the season and you could just determine that the whole year leading up to it was to determine seeding for the playoffs???

Hilton

Posts: 227
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2013 6:18 pm

This is a very good question. I'm not sure how often Neo comes here but maybe we can direct him here to get his take.

[TomGWI]

Thanks Tim, Hilton, & Jon,

Thanks for all the info. The more I get, the better I'll be able to handle our league.

Tom.

[Methos]

I will admit that I really look forward to league weekends.

Good luck Tom - Assume you got Eric signed up?

[captainneo]

The way we have it setup is that we have a A and B division. Certain players are restricted to A. newer players are put into B. The way IFPA works, since people dont' have the option to move from A and B, IFPA gives points for A division only.

And the top 4 in points at the end of the year, are in the finals for the playoff games. Which I think we will have a 5 game playoff at a neutral location, so there isn't any homefield advantage. playoffs for both A and B divisions. We have trophies for 1st and 2nd place and money payouts for places 1-3 in each division.

[TomGWI]

Well our first night will be Feb 15th