But, yeah, Jim and Johnny and Carl were in it, and I think I faced Jim once and didn't face Carl at all. Or Johnny, I faced Jim and Derek Price, but not Johnny or Carl. And so it all depends on who you play and on what game. And you really need to have preferably at least two rounds of playoffs, but a minimum of one just to balance it out for basically the unbalanced qualifying session. We talk about the playoffs. For those that don't know, if there's no direct play, which means when you think of trying to put up your score in a pump and dump, you're not actually playing against anyone. You're playing against other scorers. So the reason in a playoff you need to have somewhere between 10% and 50% of the field in a playoff format. So easy round numbers. If you have 20 people, you can have anywhere from 2 to 10 people in the playoffs. And it has to be in that because there has been no direct play. I think that's a wise decision to enforce that. Yeah, and the 50% is clearly because you don't want to have everybody in there. You've got to at least have some standard. standard and so 50 is kind of a good minimum but the 10 rule basically is in fairness to the people who do well that if you're in the top 10 and you don't make the playoffs that really sucks so you know i i agree that you know 10 is kind of a good number to use there and you know there's a couple of events including our own indisc that you know where the number of people who showed up you started wondering you like are we going to have to take more there's actually been a couple events that did have to increase how many people they took at the very end. The high stakes. Yeah, the high stakes did. And a couple years ago, the Intergalactic in Pittsburgh, they were 40 and they had to move it up to 48 or something. But like I say, if you're in the top 10%, I think you've earned being in the playoffs at that point. I agree. So you've played in a lot of tournaments, but just like in disc, you've also been the TD for several. I enjoy TDing a lot. And let's give a shout out to all TDs, because without you giving up your time, we don't get to play in these tournaments. So somebody has to enforce the rules. Somebody has to check on the times. All those kind of things that TDs do. On Tilt Forums recently, and I go to that certainly more than I do Pinside, it's kind of where players come up with topics and rules and this and that, and I just find it a lot more informative and specific. I mean, certainly Pinside is everything in the kitchen sink, but Tilt Forums is a little more focused. And there was kind of a fairness issue topic that came up. The title of the thread was TDs competing in tournaments that they run. Well, I've never had a problem with it, as long as the TDs are not obviously ruling on their own matches. Somebody else, bipartisan, is doing that, and that is when it's fine. But you can't expect people to give up their time for a day, a night, a weekend, who knows, and not participate in some way. Our buddy, Carl D'Angelo, I'm amazed that he doesn't get to play in the biggest tournament in the world now in InDisc because he's got so much going on. Jim Balsito only got to play in high stakes. You hardly get to play. Like you said, you're TDing that final day when playoffs are going on. That's a big sacrifice for TDs. So when people kind of complain that, oh, TDs are playing, I'm like, well, would you do it? And this is where I have a lot of ideas about things that I like, things I don't like, and things that people can do to make it less of a problem. Part of what my goal in pinball is is to make things better for people, just like Carl with his software and Jim with running tournaments and such. I'll mention that those early tournaments back in the 70s and 80s, TDs were not playing because the tournaments were run by the arcade owner or the route operator or sometimes, you know, you know, Bally or some other business would actually sponsor something and they'd hire somebody on their staff or on location to actually run the event for them. And the people that were basically choosing the rules, choosing the games, and running the event were not pinball players. They were business people of one flavor or another. So this was basically not an issue of any consequence back in the day. Nowadays, a very high percentage of people who still own arcade locations have turned into players. Because with a few exceptions, you can't make the kind of money you could back in the 1980s with a pinball arcade. So the people that are more likely to do it are ones who love it, and that's basically the players. Like you say, it's a big sacrifice to put in your time to put together an event and run it. You don't want to know how many hours Jim puts in for Indus. Trust me, you don't. I can only imagine. Yeah, and it's more a matter of weeks. And then a lot of TDs sacrifice time and sometimes money because, okay, they may have to close their location for an event and make less from the event, if anything. Yeah, if you're an operator and you're taking your games out, yeah, that's lost revenue. So I've thought about this a fair amount over many decades because I have my own personal history on it. So let me just kind of break down the fairness issue into its major components. The first thing you have to deal with really is before the event even takes place, who's choosing the machines, who's choosing the event format, and who's choosing the rules? Back in the day, it was whatever games the operator had on hand, and they would set very loosey-goosey rules. We don't have the total encyclopedia of rules that Papa IFPA have put together since then, which, by the way, was partly inherited from Free State in Maryland when Dave Stewart and I were playing there. I think we actually had the first comprehensive pinball rulebook for kind of general use. Yeah. I know Papa put one together around the same time. I don't know for sure which came first. That would take a little research. But we kind of have a somewhat unified set of rules now that it's all come together. But which portion of the rules do you use? Because not everybody follows IFPA rules at all events. for, I mean, there's, you know, constraints based on your personal location situation. And frankly, you know, the TD's taste, you've got, you know, which machines to use, are you going to do three strikes or herb qualifying or frenzy or whatever? And, you know, the TD gets to choose that, you know, ideally, you know, the TD should kind of not choose their personal favorites for everything. If you like really hate strikes, don't not choose strikes just because you hate it, you should kind of, you know, play to your audience and you're like, okay, what's going to work logistically for my event? And what do the people who are likely to attend, you know, what do they like format wise? You're never going to please everyone. Right. So I think you look at the format, you look at the event and say, okay, that sounds interesting to me, or it doesn't. And you choose to play or not to play. Yeah. What I'm saying is, you know, the TD has to kind of go with what works for them. I'm just saying that you shouldn't, you know, like deliberately bias it in favor of what you personally prefer, unless that's really all that works at your location. Okay. Item two is game knowledge. And basically, this is if the games you have available, for whatever reason, are ones that people don't see too often, and you're the TD, and or they're your games, you have kind of a big edge. And it's possible there's nothing you can do about that because, well, that's what the collection is. But there are things you can do so that people feel less taken advantage of. And I'll give kudos to the guy, Gerald, who ran something I was in over the weekend. He had a couple games that you don't see too often from the late 80s, early 90s. What ones? I know Strange Science was in there. And he had a bunch of Data East or System 11 things that were titles you don't see too often. A lot of people have never played Safecracker. He had Safecracker in there. And so basically he kind of made some suggestions and says, you know, okay, so here's three or four games that you might not have seen before, and here's kind of a basic thing you can try and do on that game, kind of the 60-second quickie version of some tips. And I thought that was, you know, a nice, generous thing to do for the people who hadn't played in too many events and hadn't seen as many machines so that you, you know, at least were somewhat less than clueless. dealing with those games. But you can also go on things like pin tips.net. You can also maybe watch some videos. Right. There are things you can do to help. There are things you can do. However, a lot of those are more effective if you give people the opportunity to do them before the event takes place. Let them know the lineup is what you're saying. Right. So wherever possible, if you're going to have events, you know, if you're going to have an event with a bunch of games that people may be unfamiliar with for whatever reason, It's a good idea to provide a list of games. People will know better than to hold you to it because, you know, things break down or you buy a new one or whatever. But at least, you know, here are some likely games to see. And that way they can consult my classics guide or Bowen's tutorials or pen tips or whatever else. And one of the reasons I put out my classics guide is basically fairness. because I was going to tournaments and they had the more modern Bally Williams games in the 90s in particular and then starting with the Stearns after that. And they'd have side events and classics. And you'd have a lot of people who had gotten into pinball and had never seen a free fall or a sky jump or a Captain Fantastic or some of these older games and had no clue what to do And they were kind of not happy about the whole thing So one way that I could address some of the fairness issue is okay, I'll put my guide out there so that people actually have a clue what to do on these games. Same thing with Bowen and his tutorials. It's like, okay, here's a new machine that you may not have seen because your location hasn't got one yet. Or because it's not a common game. We have one here at Pittsburgh, but you don't have one where you are. So here's a tutorial to give you some clue what to do on it. Those guides are absolutely gold. The videos, the guides, the tips, going on Pinside, going on Tilt Forums. It's kind of the prep work for me going into a tournament. And a lot of the bigger tournaments, certainly the Stern Pro Circuit events, you get a good sense of what games are going to be there. You know if you're going to go to Expo in October, you're going to see all the new Sterns because they're right there. And you probably don't have a lot of experience on something new that comes out. There might even be a new game between now and then. Right. And that's where the tournament director can do something about it to some degree by giving you, you know, like here's our probable list of games that we're going to be using. And that way people, you know, the further ahead you do that, the more people have a chance to do their research. Research alone is not enough, though. And that kind of brings me to the next item, which is knowledge of this particular unit. Okay. Because if you haven't actually played the game until you actually put your fingers on the flippers and get used to the timing and everything, you still are missing something from people who've actually played the game before. And the second half of that is what I call the this unit knowledge. And this is something that I and a lot of the other high level players will jump into when there's a practice session at a tournament. it. There's a lot of games where how you do, you really have to know the settings, the software version, the plunges, the key feeds, and the kickouts. That's kind of how I categorize it. Basically, how is this Attack from Mars or Freefall or Theater of Magic or Banzai Run or whatever, how is it going to play compared to other ones I've played? A classic example of this, okay, the kick out on Adam's family from the chair. What do you do when the ball kicks out? On most Adam's families, you let it dead bounce from the left over to the right, but not all Adam's families is that a good idea. And there's a lot of little subtleties on games where unless you've actually played that unit as opposed to just that title, you don't know for sure what your optimal strategy is when the ball is going from point A to point B. and that's where it's really useful to let people basically test play or practice on a game before the real thing starts i love when you go to big events and i think of the ifpa world championships i think they do it in pin masters too i know that's a big thing for josh and i think even stern pro circuit finals they do let you test for a little bit and and have some flips i use that time to try to find some key shots, find how the plunge is, find how the bounces are. And again, you've only got 30 seconds to do this, so good luck on that. But the last thing I do is try to find where the tilt bob is and what kind of nudges I'll be allowed. Right. And ideally, if time permits, I think people should be able to play basically a full game if they want on every machine if possible. I know there's a lot of events where that's not practical, but if you're having an event at an arcade or a local location that starts at noon, open the place up at 11 o'clock and let people practice for an hour before you actually start the tournament. Or go the day before. I know with Pinberg it was tough. And another thing, too, you have to be careful about is if you do too much practice time, you might actually knock a game out from damaging it for some reason. And, you know, you want the games to be there. So there's that factor as well. Right. Been there, done that. More than once I can tell you. But, yeah, okay. I mean, let's say you're playing in a classics event and you're playing free fall. Okay. Where is that skill shot? That could decide the game. You know, there's a lot of little things that, you know, you need to know. Plunges, kickouts, you know, where does the ball come down, you know, out of the bumpers on some of the, you know, the solid state games. So that's something where it's always good if you're directing a tournament and you have the ability to fit it in time-wise, let people actually test play the games they're going to play in the tournament at least once before the event starts. And this is more important to my mind when you've got a format like match play or strikes rather than something like Papa Ticket or Herb Style. Because in Papa Ticket or Herb Style qualifying, most people are going to end up playing games more than once. So they'll have opportunities during the qualifying period to kind of learn where things are as they go. But if you're in a match play or strikes tournament or something where you may only play a game once during the qualifying, then you're at a bigger disadvantage if you haven't actually had a chance to practice on that particular machine. And so I think it's more important to have practice in those circumstances where you may only play the game once, the whole event, than where you're going to have an opportunity to play it more than once and kind of learn all those little subtleties you need to as you go. Any other tips for TDs, Bob? Yeah, I've got a couple of things I'd like to mention, kind of last items here, although less sequentially but possibly more important in some ways. We haven't discussed rulings, and one issue that some players have is if somebody they're playing against is the one making a ruling in an event. And the easiest way out of that, of course, is to not have the TD playing. But if the TD is playing, if possible, they should have someone else make rulings, either someone who's not playing or someone not involved in whatever match that is. And it's also, I mean, the TD has the option, even before the event starts, to say, okay, you know, I'm going to run the tournament, but as far as rulings go, I'm going to designate player X who's, you know, like maybe considered more impartial or more rules knowledgeable than I as the tournament director am. I'm going to have them in charge of rulings. And, you know, something like that is more likely to minimize the issue. And, of course, you always want to make sure that whoever's making rulings is not involved in whatever the match is where you're making the ruling on. And I also kind of suggest that TDs kind of stick to what I call tournament directing 101. Always rule the same way for the same infraction or the same malfunction. Rule the way your rules say, not what you or the players would like the ruling to be. The reason for that is that players kind of need to learn to accept correct rulings even when they don't like them, even at casual events, because that way they're going to have more respect for the rules when they're at a serious event where they really matter. The thing about, well, we don't like the answer, you should only get into tweaking your result. If you've got a case where you don't actually address the situation in the rules, then you can kind of consider, okay, what's the consensus? But that's really the only time you should do kind of what you like is if it's actually not covered by whatever your rules are. If people don't like the correct ruling, tell the players, okay we'll look at changing the rule for future events but to be fair we need to abide by the rule as written for now i'll give you the world's most famous example of that okay 2012 ifpa9 you probably heard about it kaylee george and daniele acciari were battling for the title kaylee was down three games to one they were playing old chicago it was the tilt through basically yeah kaylee had to win the next three games you know to take the title one loss and he's out and on ball one he tilted through nobody there liked that result kaylee didn't want to lose that way daniele didn't want to win that way josh's tournament director didn't want it to end that way and the rest of us as players didn't want it to end that way so what they now do on ems is right if it's a four-player em they'll play player one and player three so that that tilt through can't possibly happen right and that that's that that exact game is why that new rule exists. This was a case of maintaining the integrity of the existing rules. It's like, we don't like the way it turned out, but that's how it's written right now, so we will abide by that right now. And because we think, you know, that it sucked in this case, we're going to change the rule for future events. And that's exactly what's happened is, you know, future events, basically since then, you now have the player one and three rule. But the integrity of maintaining rules, you know, was what drove us to accept that result, even though we didn't really like it. There is certainly a lot to consider. You should know your rules. You should let the players know which rules you are using, whether it's the IFPA, POP rules, or any kind of things you have laid out there, because things can happen. Game malfunctions, for example. That's a tough one for TDs, figuring out whether it's catastrophic or it's just a minor malfunction. Exactly. And it really, in some cases, depends on who's there and what their repair capabilities are. So one standard doesn't fit all because it really depends on what happened and the technical capability of the people on site and also how long you're willing to wait to get it fixed. You can look at the diner example from the last InDisc. So you have to decide how long it's going to take and are we willing to wait that long and how confident are we we can actually fix it that fast to begin with. So what happened there? A ball got lost. I remember Eric Stone was playing it, and I was shocked. It was finally repaired, but it did take some time, and they had to really get into it to remove. I don't even remember what happened. If it was a piece of plastic that fell. There was a piece of plastic that got jammed in there, and Jim and I, and I forget who the other person were, were spending, it was like 15 minutes to fix the thing, which was longer than we anticipated and really longer than we wanted to take to fix the thing, but it didn't look like it would take that long when we first started. Just a perfect example of things that can happen. Yeah. The other thing I'll throw out is if you know a machine is kind of wonky at the start of an event, let's say you don't have enough machines, though. Okay. Just basically tell them, okay, Machine X has a sticky flipper, and as long as it doesn't fail totally, you just play it as it is. If it fails totally, we'll take it out, but otherwise we're going to leave it in. Something like that. I've played in tournaments where all of a sudden the three bank of drop targets in Space Shuttle that obviously changed the value of the spinner, stopped working. Once they went down, they didn't come up again. And would you consider that major or minor? I would consider that major in that particular case because the scoring on that machine is so skewed toward success with those targets that I think it would be too much of an unfair advantage to people who played with an active to anyone who had to play with it not active. Well, you're talking about a pump-and-dump tournament, but if it was a match play and the both of you were playing, if it's the same state for both of you if it's the same state for both of you and you've played the same number of balls in the same state yes okay lots to consider yep i think of indisc and that huge bank in the main and for that matter in the classics as well and maybe i have my five six games that i love and i have let's say 10 i i don't really want to play those i don't think i can be strong on them once i have a something i feel is a secure ticket i actually go out of my way to play the other machines that I haven't played just for that reason, to have that experience in case I make the playoffs and in case somebody picks that game. So you're right. Being familiar is very important. Okay. Yeah. I'll just second your comment there about if you're in an event, play all the other games at least once. I'll throw a personal situation in here. For about 20 years, I did not go to Expo. And that was kind of a combination of all these issues because I went there in 1990, and the game that they had was the Data East Simpsons, the original one. Please, please, please. Yeah. Anyway, when I got there, okay, I had never played a Data East machine before because they didn't have them, you know, in my part of the country yet. But when I got there okay it like I was thinking well it you know the idea is it a new machine everyone is you know like totally inexperienced It a level playing field And then what I found out was that the people you know from the Chicago area and a few other places actually had a chance to play it for you know like a couple of months and already knew what to do We didn't have any chance to practice on the game before we played it. We only got like one, maybe two tries on it. You got assigned to whichever one of the 10 games they had there, you know, you got. and if yours played funky or was a little tight on the tilt, that was just too bad. And so that's one other aspect of the fairness is, you know, like what portion of the games in the tournament are ones where there's a fairness issue? And in this case, it was like 100% because, you know, there were people who had an edge on the only game that you were playing. And I just thought that that was, you know, like so unfair to people who hadn't had a chance to play the game before. It's like, well, if that's the format they used for the tournament at Expo, screw that. So I didn't go back there for a long time. Luckily, that's changed. Yeah. But, you know, that's the other thing, you know, as far as the fairness is, you know, the fewer games have issues that, you know, like people aren't used to them or they need to get the feel for the kickouts or whatever, the easier it is to deal with that. But, yeah, there was one other issue that I wanted to get to. I've got a beef with all the manufacturers going back to about the late 1980s. Okay.