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Episode 167: Josh Sharpe. Older, Wiser, Better

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·39m 19s·analyzed·Dec 6, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Josh Sharpe on IFPA 5.5 updates and tournament format evolution toward fairer, more inclusive competition.

Summary

Josh Sharpe discusses IFPA ranking system updates (version 5.5), tournament format evolution, and his role leading IFPA rule changes. The conversation covers fair strikes vs. standard strikes formats, the rise of timed group play and Flip Frenzy tournaments as alternatives to elimination-based competition, and broader trends in how pinball tournaments are structured to improve player experience and reduce long qualification grind times.

Key Claims

  • Fair Strikes format minimizes disadvantages from inconsistent player group sizes (2, 3, or 4 players)

    high confidence · Josh explains Fair Strikes allocates 0 strikes for 1st, 1 for 2nd/3rd in 4-player groups, 2 for losses, creating fairness across group sizes

  • Three-strike standard format remains the most popular tournament format despite Fair Strikes being fairer

    high confidence · Josh states 'Three-strike group play has been the most popular form that I've seen' but acknowledges Fair Strikes will grow organically as organizers encounter issues

  • Timed group play formats with no elimination are increasingly popular and improve player satisfaction

    high confidence · Josh describes switching his monthly event to timed group play where 'Everyone gets to play the same amount' regardless of performance, calling it 'met as a huge success for our player base'

  • 25 meaningful games was chosen as the IFPA TGP (Tournament Grading Points) standard by analyzing winner game counts at major events

    high confidence · Josh explains they tracked games at Texas, Expo, and Papa events to ensure 'great events graded out to 100%' and settled on 25 as the meaningful games threshold

  • Pump-and-dump tournament formats with 12-14+ hour qualifying days may be reaching diminishing returns for player satisfaction

    medium confidence · Jeff expresses concern about endless grinding and suggests limited-entry formats may provide better experience, though Josh notes data shows growing attendance contradicts this

  • Free Play Florida 2018 had record attendance and quality players partly because it avoided scheduling conflict with OBX

    medium confidence · Jeff states 'Because it didn't coincide with OBX. Last year they were on the same weekend' as explanation for record turnout

  • Pop-it ticket format (used at Papa) has high dropout rates due to psychological pressure and anxiety among casual/mid-level players

    medium confidence · Josh describes format as 'nothing but high anxiety for people' and notes most players don't enjoy 'high anxiety, high pressure situations with their vacation time'

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm not going to say one disparaging comment. So I realize listenership will go way down, but it's my gift to you, Josh.”

    Jeff Teolis @ Opening — Sets comedic tone; Jeff commits to birthday niceness but immediately breaks it with passive-aggressive humor

  • “The fair strikes format is meant to help balance those issues with the player group numbers not being consistent.”

    Josh Sharpe @ Mid-episode — Clear explanation of Fair Strikes' core mechanic addressing a real tournament fairness problem

  • “My crusade this year: get rid of three-strikes tournaments and go to a fair-strikes tournament. It's not about picking one or the other. They just don't get it.”

    Jeff Teolis @ Mid-episode — States Jeff's advocacy goal for 2019; reveals frustration that TDs don't understand Fair Strikes value

  • “I'm just saying, what is the amount of time? Like, if you're playing every game 10, 15 times, and you and I both know people, and myself included, would do that... it's just an endless grind over and over and over and over again.”

    Josh Sharpe @ Mid-episode — Expresses concern about pump-and-dump fatigue; acknowledges he still participates despite recognizing the grind

  • “I love that situation. There's nothing better than having three great games, two to go, dumping the fourth one... That pressure of having to perform at that moment is the best. I live for that.”

    Josh Sharpe @ Late-episode — Personal philosophy reveal: Josh thrives on high-stakes pop-it pressure that most players find anxiety-inducing

  • “If people really hated waiting in line that much, the numbers wouldn't continue to grow.”

    Josh Sharpe @ Mid-episode — Data-driven counter to Jeff's speculation about tournament dissatisfaction; suggests attendance trends validate current formats

  • “The only problem there is the number of games that you need. If you only have 10 games available, there's not much you can do outside of pump and dump or limited.”

    Jeff Teolis — Identifies practical constraint limiting tournament format diversity at venues with limited machine inventory

Entities

Josh SharpepersonJeff TeolispersonColinpersonIFPAorganizationKeith JohnsonpersonDave Stewartperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Tension between competitive high-pressure formats (pop-it, pump-and-dump) that appeal to elite players vs. casual-friendly formats that prioritize enjoyment for broader player base

    medium · Josh acknowledges pop-it format has 'high dropout rates' and creates 'high anxiety' for most players; Jeff advocates for format changes; Josh personally thrives on pressure formats but recognizes minority position

  • ?

    community_signal: IFPA actively updating tournament rules and TGP system to address player fairness concerns, with Keith Johnson's simulation modeling enabling data-driven format design

    high · Josh explains Fair Strikes, Progressive Strikes, and meaningful games metrics were added to IFPA 5.5 based on simulations and analysis of major event data

  • ?

    community_signal: Technology adoption (MatchPlay, Never Drain software) enabling more sophisticated tournament formats and mechanics; standardization around software solutions

    high · Josh identifies MatchPlay and Never Drain as 'two best, hands down' tournament management platforms; MatchPlay now includes Fair Strikes, Progressive Strikes, and Flip Frenzy format support

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Tournament scheduling conflicts (e.g., Free Play Florida vs. OBX) impact attendance patterns; event timing has business consequences

    medium · Jeff attributes Free Play Florida's record 2018 attendance to avoiding OBX scheduling conflict that occurred in prior years

  • ?

    design_philosophy: IFPA tournament rule design prioritizes fairness across group sizes and player experience over competitive purity; data-driven methodology replaces intuitive rule-making

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.118

0:00
1 dollar at a time, time, time, time, time. It's time now for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teoles. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at pinballprofile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. And please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. It's that special time of year when we celebrate Hanukkah and also Josh Sharp's birthday the same day. So, that being said, I am going to be completely nice to Josh. I'm not going to say one disparaging comment. So I realize listenership will go way down, but it's my gift to you, Josh. Hello, Josh. How are you? That was like a passive-aggressive disparaging comment right there. Did you just hear that? Did you hear all the people just turn off their phones and their iPod, their pod catchers?
1:14
Now everyone's listening to it at 3x speed. For your family alone, this is for you and no one else. So first of all, happy birthday. Thank you. Last of the 30s, buddy. Yeah. You'll be coming over to the dark side next year. Although I think the gap between you and I both being in the 40s might be a month.
1:34
I'm just happy that my son is December 2nd. Since he's been around, my birthday's been kind of irrelevant with my family, and I kind of love that. Okay. It just sort of comes and goes, and nobody pays too much attention to it anymore, and I'm perfectly fine with that, especially with 40 coming up. Well, that being said, I always feel sorry for those people, whether it's Christmas, whether it's Hanukkah, when you have to celebrate a birthday the same time of year as when you might get presents. I know your kids are certainly getting presents for these eight days. I know how to deal with that with Colin. I think between Hanukkah, we celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas and his birthday, that I think he gets more gifts. There's more days in December of which he's receiving presents than he's not. because we have the family party for his birthday, then the kids party.

  • Flip Frenzy format uses 'net win' (win differential) as the fairest scoring method for IFPA grading purposes

    medium confidence · Josh states 'my suggestion to the Australian guys was to just do net win as the most fair way that I saw' and confirms this is default in Andreas' MatchPlay software

    • @ Late-episode
    Free Play Florida
    event
    OBXevent
    Texasevent
    Expoevent
    Papaevent
    Andreasperson
    Carl D'Angeloperson
    Vancouver Classicsevent
    Logan Arcadevenue

    high · Fair Strikes format developed to address disadvantages of inconsistent player groups; meaningful games set at 25 based on analysis of existing 'great events' to maintain grading consistency

  • $

    market_signal: Major pump-and-dump tournaments (Free Play Florida, Cleveland-Penn, Indisc) continuing growth despite concerns about qualification grind and player fatigue

    medium · Josh cites attendance data contradicting Jeff's concerns: 'If people really hated waiting in line that much, the numbers wouldn't continue to grow' and Free Play Florida had record 2018 participation

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Shift away from elimination-based formats (strikes, pop-it) toward timed group play and limited-entry formats to improve casual player satisfaction and retention

    high · Josh switched his monthly event to timed group play and reports 'huge success'; Flip Frenzy gaining adoption; Jeff expresses concern about pump-and-dump long-term viability

    • 2:22
    He'll feast during December, and then he goes dark for the next 11 months. Well, speaking of Colin and Charlotte, are they playing a lot of pinball? They are, man. They had such a fun time at the Power 100 in the basement that for Colin's kids' birthday party, which is December 15th, so a couple weeks away, we were talking about where to go and what he wanted to do for his party, and he wants to run a pinball tournament with all the kids in our basement. We went down to the basement, and he wanted to write up a list of rules similar to the list we had posted. Somehow he came up with the idea that one of the rules is no Jeff Teolas allowed. So the guy is on the money. I can't even come back. It's your birthday. I said I wouldn't. Well done. Are you charging each kid a dollar, by the way?
    3:13
    So he's making the list, and then the last thing, It talks about, and he's turning seven, so the list is full of like, now everyone will go to the red chair. The next step is everyone will go here. The next step is whatever. And then his last thing was, and the tournament will last six hours long. And I just started laughing that his birthday party is like 90 minutes long. But he was very used to the fact that we had all those guys in our basement for that long. Some tears were shed when we told him that it couldn't be six hours. We had to do sort of an expedited version of the Power 100. Well, I blame you for teaching your kids how to tell time. See, if you're like me, you ever meet Carson or Brady, they have no clue. So time's irrelevant. Colin taught himself, man. He's crazy. You know, we teach kids things differently nowadays. I have to think my younger sister actually taught me how to tie my shoes, as that is told to me by my parents. She's two years younger. I like to think of it as she was excited by doing it. Why do I need to do it? This is great. I've got my little sister tying my shoes. This is awesome. He's still rocking the Velcro, so he refuses to learn anything about laces at this point. Don't give in, Colin. I know, right? I don't wear, I have like little slipper things at work. I hate laces. There goes an endorsement for IFPA if a shoelace company was just ready to cash you a check. Damn it. Way to go, buddy. Let's talk about some of the changes. We just saw the recent 5.5 upgrade for IFPA for the Whopper points, the ranking points. There are three significant changes. Let's go through them, and you can explain again as I like you to do. Dumb it down for the rest of us, okay? TGP for the strikes events and fair strikes events and progressive strikes have been added. Can you explain that, please? So I prefer for you to explain it. That way I know that the lowest common denominator of person can understand what's going on. So why don't, as you believe you understand it, give it a shot, And I'll fill in the gaps with where you go. Because if you don't understand it, then I need to do a better write-up. Because the whole idea is that people should be able to read this and hopefully get an idea of what we're doing. Teal-less ease isn't a language, my friend. Come on. Okay? Come on. I can't even come back. It's your bloody birthday and Hanukkah. This sucks. I know. Okay. So tell me. Tell me about these changes, Jeff. The strikes events. Let's look at the fair strikes events. First of all, I'll let you explain what a fair strikes tournament is. Because that is different than a regular three strikes tournament. Correct. I think it might have been Keith Johnson brought up the idea that the whole development of that format came from the normal strikes event where you either get a strike or you don't. And in four-player groups, you know, there's no difference between first and second place, and there's no difference between third and fourth place. When you run into a situation with three-player groups, depending on how the strikes are structured for three-player groups, there's a big disadvantage if they're giving strikes for second and third place in three-player groups. You really have to win your match or you're kind of screwed. The fair strikes format is meant to help balance those issues with the player group numbers not being consistent. so really you get zero strikes if you win you get two strikes if you lose and you get one strike if you don't win or lose and finish second or third in a four-player group or second in a three-player group so it sort of minimizes the impact of the difference in group size and like two-player groups is which i didn't know until we were just about to start our 100 but that also goes for two-player groups where if you finish in last in a two-player group which is second, you still get two strikes. I like everything you said up until there. I wonder why we even still have the three-strike format where it's top two get zero strikes, bottom two get one strike, or in a three-player group, the bottom two get a strike. I think that should be eliminated altogether because the fair strikes is much better, with the exception of when you get down to two, because let's say it's a six-strike tournament and somebody, you're in that final group, somebody has five, somebody has four. So the winner takes all. You need to make the Teolis strike format and have Andreas just copy all the rules from Fair Strikes except for the two-player group rule. You don't have to do that. Just get rid of the three-strike tournament. I don't know. It is by far the most popular form. Three-strike group play has been the most popular form that I've seen. And so, I mean, I think it's just the evolution, right? It's one of those things where, I mean, that format couldn't be more embraced. And I think as more people learn about the fair strikes and go through their own issues of dealing with those three-player groups and standard strike tournaments, like, things will organically fall where they fall, right? I mean, there'll be some communities where, like, they don't care. It's fine. The standard strike format works for them and nobody complains. But I know that in our monthly that we were doing standard strikes, we ended up switching the three-player group and the strikes allocated in three-player groups was a big deal. People were complaining about how it wasn't fair. We would switch back and forth whether second place got a strike or not. And if you didn't give second place a strike, now it's easier to be in a three-player group because now you didn't have to not finish unless. So the fair strikes have definitely helped as an option, as has the progressive strike format. Now, the progressive strike, is that where, if you're in a four-player group, you win, you get zero strikes, then that's it? It's just however many people you lose to is how many strikes you get. So the changes to 2019 aren't really changes, it's just more, here are the tables to calculate that. Yeah, I mean, our guide is there to help calculate an expected number of meaningful games played. that any player will play in that format.
    9:10
    So Dave Stewart for years was keeping up with a giant Excel spreadsheet that helped calculate the number of rounds that every format would take in every different iteration of that format. And Keith Johnson helped us this year by creating some program. I mean, I think he could probably do it with one hand while he's coding pirates in the other hand, But it could run tens of thousands of simulations of the exact format we want and spit out these meaningful game metrics based on the exact format and how many players are participating and how many strikes you setting the event for And we migrated our guide to Keith whatever Keith numbers based on his simulations that he ran for us. And Keith was able to, with Fair Strikes and Progressive Strikes, just include that in his model so we can add it to our list. Well done, Kiefer. Yeah, man, he killed it. So that's my new crusade. Last year it was less action buttons, which by the way, I just played Beatles, no action button. Iron Maiden, perhaps the game of the year, no action button. So I think it's obviously getting heard. But anyway, that's a sidebar. My crusade this year, get rid of three-strikes tournaments and go to a fair-strikes tournament. It's no different. I just don't think tournament directors really understand it. It's not about picking one or the other. They just don't get it. And it needs to, like you say, have happened in your own league where people are like, this three-player thing really sucks. It's really a disadvantage. And it's not done on purpose because it's a random program that picks us in match play. It's just not really fair. I'll take one step further for 2019. And I mean, I see it with our monthly. You know, while we were fighting over what kind of strikes event we wanted to run, there was feedback from the player base that I work with here that strikes events are still elimination events. So you end up with, whether you have 20, 30 players that are starting, you fast forward an hour in, an hour and a half in, and 70% of the players are eliminated. And we've since switched to just a timed group play format, where we'll just play as many rounds as we can in a given amount of time. And no matter how poor or awesome you're playing, you get the same experience, sort of a Pemberg experience. Everyone gets to play the same amount. And that's been met as a huge success for our player base. My mom now gets to play an entire two and a half hours worth of pinball for the night instead of showing up, getting her two strikes, and going home in two games. So I see that as a trend that I think keeping people playing and giving them more competitive pinball experience, I see that happening whether it be just group play formats or people dipping their toes into the flip frenzy for that, which is what we'll be doing tomorrow night with our monthly. Well, I want to get back to the flip frenzy and talk about some of these TGP changes that you're doing, but you just mentioned something about maybe a trend. I ran a tournament on the weekend, and there was a concern. It was an eight-round tournament, four-player match play, with top 12 going on to the playoffs. Top eight in the A, nine through 12 in the B. And then you do pop a format to get to the finals with the top two advancing in the 4-2-1-0 format. The one thing I changed, and I noticed this on Match Play when I was setting it up, I'm like, okay, we have enough players that I can do balanced because that way no one will play the same person more than once. Sure. I was okay with that. I thought that was kind of neat. There were going to be a couple of people that never got to play anybody, but it would either be zero for a couple of people, one for everyone else. I like that idea. The other thing I changed, because I noticed in Swiss, it's always that top group that everyone's waiting for to be completed. So that's another reason I did balance. But the other thing I did was I changed the order of being picked based on how well you were doing in the tournament. So if you were leading the tournament, you got to choose order in your next round. And I did that for a time purpose because, again, I didn't want people waiting. If the best players are going last, they're more likely to be able to just drain their last ball. That's it. And guaranteed it moved up. It definitely helped time. Nice. Now, is it fair? Well, I guess if you play well, it's fair. If you don't, you would think it wouldn't. But everyone has the same playing feel when you begin. I tried it, and it helped with time because time is always a concern. I know you're doing these timed events. I think the match play thing is going to be more relevant in 2019 versus maybe pump and dumps, maybe some other tournaments. I think what we're seeing with the growth of pinball in these pump and dumps are the lines are getting longer and longer and longer. Sure, the cash is going up for the prize pots, but it's still nothing that really anyone's going to sneeze at. And how many people really go to play for cash? It's just the longer lineups unfortunately mean the experience might not be as great. so maybe we'll see more limited entry formats. I know Vancouver Flipout does that, which they have kind of a good number. I remember Bob Matthews saying, if you can play every game two to three times, that's a good number for limited entry. Texas does that. It's not quite two or three times, but it's like that. I think that might be a better experience. And you know what? Just charge more. If you want to build up the pot, just charge more, if that's what the goal is. But you and I were both at Free Play Florida, which is a spectacular event. I do not want to say a bad word about that. I'm just using this one as an example. like many pump-and-dump tournaments. Cleveland-Penn would be another example that I had a lot of fun at, but here's the problem with those and other pump-and-dumps of this nature. It's a lot of time to qualify, almost too much. It was three days for Cleveland, two for Florida, which seems to be the norm. It'll be like that for Indisc as well. Let me ask you this. Okay. If that's the case, why was this the biggest year for the Free Play Florida event in terms of not only the number of players that participated, but the quality of players that showed up. I'll give you the answer. Go ahead. Because it didn't coincide with OBX. Last year they were on the same weekend. But even years before when it hasn't. But you're comparing two years ago to when the growth of pinball wasn't what it is now. So that's your answer, in my opinion. And it's also a spectacular tournament and show and great venue and city and everything else. So it's going to do well. It's going to do better next year. If I'm Dan and I see the trend of where my tournaments are going, Don't change it. I wouldn't change a damn thing. I get that. I'm just telling you, I think at some point you're going to reach the peak where you're going to get people that aren't satisfied. And I'm not saying we're there yet. I'm saying it's something to watch out for with pump and dump tournaments. So a perfect example to me, I played not bad at Freeplay Florida. After day one, I think it was third and fourth in the main and classics. I'm like, this is great. I looked at my scores. I'm like, what do I really need to improve on? Not much. I'm going to go sit by the pool for a couple hours and get a couple freckles in this 80-degree weather before I hit the snow back in the frozen tundra of Canada. I then watch my scores go down, down, which makes sense, right? That's going to happen. But forget that I went to the pool. I was already up there. Why would I keep playing, though? It's just an endless grind over and over and over and over again. Go check out the show. Oh, I definitely did that. It was a great show. But I'm just saying, what is the amount of time? Like, if you're playing every game 10, 15 times, and you and I both know people, and myself included, would do that. Maybe it's, you know what, there is a different mindset of playing because when you play in match play, you're not going for a grand champion score. When you're playing in a pump and dump, you're having a lot more risk and reward challenges too. You're like, okay, I'm going to blow this up. When I'm playing Dracula at Free Play Florida for qualifying, I'm only going for the triple stack. It's worth just waiting to get everything set up for ball three and then doing your three-way love and getting your billion and being done. Whereas you would never be all in no matter what in a heads-up match or a group play match. So if free play was a set amount, a limited, you're saying it might decrease? Maybe. It's all about the people that are willing to go and show up and support that tournament. If you have a bunch of people that happen to be a group that don't mind playing over and over and over again, then you would be doing yourself a disservice by changing away from that because of your own hunch. Oh, sure, sure. Listen, I'm using that as an example. Free Play Florida is spectacular. Go to it. It's the best. I love it. You'll see me there next year. I was there last year as well. I'm just using a pump-and-dump tournament as an example of what I'm talking about. So for those who don't play in tournaments, here's what we're talking about. So qualifying starts on, let's say, I think it was Friday. Is that safe to say? Friday? It wasn't Thursday. It was Friday at, let's say, noon. It might have even been 10 a.m. And you play until midnight. So at least 12, if not 14 hours, one day. Do the same thing the next day. That's a lot of playing, 28 hours for the same games.
    18:17
    I'm just saying, me personally, I find the experience of pump and dumps becoming less and less, whereas I definitely look forward to match play. I love... The only problem there is the number of games that you need. If you only have, you know, 10 games available, there's not much you can do outside of, you know, pump and dump or limited. Limited is maybe the road to go. Texas seems to be doing quite well with that. Or here's another thing, too, that I look forward to whenever I hear of these, the old pop-it ticket system. Now, pop-it themselves changed from that, and I'm not sure the reason, I don't even want to speculate. Due to overwhelmingly not support of that format by most people. Because that format is hard and it sucks. Unless you're a glutton for punishment, which most of the high-level players are, it's a level of frustration that most players don't even know they can hit until they show up. And you're left with, I mean, I know this from my friends and Zach's friends that used to go to Papa with us. Like, they're spending all of their vacation time and all this money, and they weren't enjoying themselves. You know, repeatedly, you know, one in every five games, finding a way to mess up your run. And then you just feel like a schmuck. And you know after how many years of just continuing to go and not qualify and feeling bad about yourself you know they stopped it wasn fun With HerbStyle it opens the door for people that aren consistent good players that, hey man, if you give me 10 or 15 times on that Dracula, I'm going to do it. And there's no pressure to have to do it right now. I'll just try my best, and I know that I'm $3 away from being able to just try it again. I'm not concerned about the dollars, Josh. I'm not concerned about the dollars. When I go to one of these events, I realize, okay, this is the most I can spend. I'm not. I'm just saying, like most people don't enjoy high anxiety, high pressure situations with their vacation time. And the pop of format is nothing but high anxiety for people. Fair enough. You're right. The pool of people that are willing to put themselves into that situation. I love that situation. There's nothing better than having three great games, two to go, dumping the fourth one, and it's like, here we go, here's game five. I'm either done for the weekend if I can blow this up, or it's as if those three first great games are all meaningless. That pressure of having to perform at that moment is the best. I live for that. But the number of people, if you polled 100 pinball players, the number of people that would live for that moment, I would say is probably five out of 100. You're right. It's definitely the hardest format to get in, And I say that having, I think, only once ever gotten through on a pop-a-ticket format, and it was Vancouver Classics. It's tough to do, but it really does make the better players shine. So I guess there's some, I think that is a good analogy of the dissatisfaction that people may have had. I'm trying to find a way to reduce the sometimes unpleasantness that is in those long, long lineups that you see at pump and dumps. And, you know, in one breath, you're like, wow, this is great. Look at the number of people here. The nice thing about the waiting is, thank God Carl created that great software. You can put yourself in queue, run off for half an hour, and come back. So that is the one saving grace of this. I'm a huge fan of following the data. If people really hated waiting in line that much, the numbers wouldn't continue to grow. Listen, you think I hate tournaments? You think I hate pump and dumps? Look at how many I've been in. 6,400 in the last week alone. You're hating it all the way to the back? No, I'm not. No, hardly. You, on the other hand, I looked at your little IFPA stats for 2018. You only played in... Hang it on the front page, brother. Find it away. You've used it enough. Still, 22 as of today. You only played 13 tournaments and leagues in 2018. Now, you did very, very well in eight of those. The other five are just not big point leagues or events. So you made it worth your while when you had to. But is that, again, just a case of young children? and I ask because I think of Zach and Benson, and is this going to be the pattern for Zach? Probably. I mean, if I look at my profile, this year I traveled to Vegas, I traveled to Toronto, I traveled to Pittsburgh, and I traveled to Florida. Four trips. That's about right for me. And eight of those made your top 20. So, again, you did very well when you had to. Make them count, man. Make them count when you're out there. I mean, it also helps that, like, I still have a couple of, like, single-digit. It's easy for me to make something in my top 20 because I'm battling decaying events that are worth like eight points now. Got to get Colin and Charlotte in more events. Colin's getting into it, man. Escher probably had four championships at Colin's age.
    23:06
    No doubt. No doubt he was already beating me at that age. Let's go back to what we were talking about, the TGP changing 5.5 on IFPA. What was the basis for 25 meaningful games being played? Why did that number come about? I think there was a lot of analysis of, I mean, existing formats and just tracking how many games did the winner play at Texas? How many games did the winner play at Expo? How many games did the winner play at Papa? And you just sort of find, at least when we were modeling, it was trying to find and make sure that what we considered sort of, quote-unquote, the best events out there, graded out to 100%. and that sort of established, you know, if we wanted to make sure a great event graded out to 100%, then our meaningful number of games had to match sort of the lowest great event we knew. You know what I mean? Makes sense. I remember you talking about playing a 10-person tournament, five games, was getting 25 points versus somebody who was playing 100 games and there were 100 people. There had to be some balance, and I guess with all the stats you had, 25 was the number. Okay, makes sense. It worked. I mean, I think the easy number was assigning some percentage of value per game. So something that could easily be divided by 100%. So it was probably going to be 4% or 5% per game. So that would have been either 25 or 20. Okay. We went with 25. The flip frenzy format I've played in, it is so much fun. I love it. That's all I hear. I've never played it. I've never run it. That's all I've heard. I haven't heard a single person complain about it at all. The only people who will complain will be the TDs, because it is sometimes difficult to be a TD. You certainly can't be a TD and play. I don't know how you would do it. It would require a lot of... Yeah, I'm definitely not playing tomorrow night, especially with it being the first time that I'm organizing it, but I'm looking forward to just see how the flow goes for the night. So, this is a new table that you're adding to IFPA. I think it's great. Well, it's in there now, is it not? Flip Frenzy? You get points for it. It's just how you have to calculate. You get points for it. It's anything that isn't a part of the guide. It defaults to the actual number of games played that the winner played. So, right now, that's the default way it gets graded for 2018. We have no rule in place. So, it's just count the number of games the winner played. That's it. The end. I know this is going to be your first experience, but what is the best way to calculate flip frenzy in your eyes? Now, I've seen tournaments that did total number of wins, which I didn't think made the most sense because not everyone played the same amount of games, so it was a little unfair balance. I've seen win differential. Again, it depends on the number of games. I've seen maybe two points for a win, minus one for a loss. There's all kinds of variations that can be done in flip frenzy. What do you think is the best? I mean, my suggestion to the Australian guys was to just do net win as the most fair way that I saw. And I think that's the way that it's defaulted for Andreas and Matchplay. So I think that's what we're doing tomorrow night. So how does it work? I haven't seen Andreas' great Matchplay. Again, if you're not using Matchplay or Carl D'Angelo's Never Drain software, those are the two best, hands down. So with Andreas and match play, I haven't seen the flip frenzy format or formula in there. I've seen the progressive strikes we talked about and the fair strikes. I think that's great that he's got those in there. But the flip frenzy, for those who haven't played it, it's a two-player match play game. Somebody wins. Somebody loses. When you lose, well, I guess it really depends. I don't know how to explain this to somebody. I don't know. Like the winner, do both people get a new game? The winner stays but can't stay for more than one? More than two games, yeah. You cannot be on the same machine more than two games. So if you win... Some I know the winner stays. Some I know the loser stays. Some both get reshuffled.
    27:14
    We're not really doing a good job explaining it. No, I don't know. We're recording this on Wednesday, or whatever. We're recording it on Monday, so technically it hasn't happened. But by the time we're pretending it is, it would have happened already. Way to pull back the curtain, Josh. Way to pull back the curtain. I know. I wanted it to sound fresh, like, wow, he's talking to Jeff on his birthday. But, no, thank you very much. I can't even make fun of you. Well, if the cat sat in the bag, I would have run this format already. I could tell you all about it, how great it was and how much fun it was. And, yes, the winner does stay. Or you could have lied and said the tournament was Thursday.
    27:48
    Oh, good point. Damn it. Yeah, thanks a lot. Oh, there'll be a next time. I've got to make up for all this niceness. So plan early January for me to come on and just beat the living. Anyway, let's see. Okay, so the flip frenzy format. Yeah, let's say you've got 25 people. There are five people sitting on a chair waiting to play on these 10 machines. There are two people lined up on the 10 machines. That's 20. You've got five waiting. They play. The loser goes to the back of the line, and then the next person goes up there. Now, once you've got that first game done, that original person can't stay on the machine. They have to go anyway because whether they win or lose, they have to go. All right, so if they've won their second in a row, then both people go to the back. No, no, no, no. I've never seen that. Oh, okay. You can lose and stay on. Oh, okay, okay. Oh, your tournament's going to be a mess. Oh, you should show up and videotape it. Wow.
    28:43
    Okay, thanks to the president of IFPA for explaining that for everybody. That's great. Fortunately, there's some local Chicago players that played in it at Logan Arcade in the city, so I'll rely on them if I start sending people to places that make no sense. But I'm just going to follow the software, and Andrea should hopefully queue people up on where to go and we'll all learn together tomorrow night. Boy, oh boy. The last one's easy. You've got certain events that are going to have a 25% boost. And those events are? It's all of the IFPA country championship finals. North American, European, they'll get a boost as well as the series finals? Australia Austria Germany Hungary Italy New Zealand Spain Switzerland and the U You didn do the pro circuit I noticed I did not Did you not do it because you won it last year No I didn do it because it not an IFPA country championship Okay. I know the reason you did the country championships. Did I not do it because I won it? No, no, no. Oh, man, I need the plump. Well, ask me after I dip off the front page if I need a little assistance. You never know. No, no, no. What will happen when you drop below 25? All of a sudden the front page will be top 50. Right. Smaller fonts. Ed's app shows the top 50. I think we just need to change that to match his app. Yes, Ed's app, even in beta mode, is still pretty cool. There is an IFPA app. I don't know a whole lot about it other than they check out their profile to see if they've moved up or down or whatever, or like to find out, keep rechecking to see if an event posts. And his app offers a friendly way of letting you know when that happens. So really, all I'm doing is cutting down on the number of website views that we're getting. So Ed's destroying my website.
    30:33
    I need everyone to keep F5 and refreshing their profile page for events. Ed has made it super convenient for people to be able to just put the app on their phone and then let them know. Don't worry, the F5 button will get its use on February 23rd when Pimberg tickets won't sell. Yeah, don't F5 at the wrong time or you're out. I see it's another great year of growth for pinball I'm wondering what is your biggest measuring stick is it the total number of new players is it number of tourneys or is it the number of cargo shorts sold I mean for me there's always the two biggest metrics the number of events out there being organized and the number of players that are out there playing right now and both are already ahead of last year with a month to go with the dollar fee was maybe this was the first year I was slightly nervous that we were going to actually continue to go up. I was fully prepared for it to decrease, but hopefully not by much. So having to worry about it decreasing is no longer something I have to worry about. Well, I've seen some of the suppressed players come back. I don't know what their reasoning is, and I don't know why they suppressed in the first place, but maybe the concerns aren't there anymore. Have you heard anything? Are there still a bunch of people that are suppressed? I mean, you don't have to give names by any means, but just wonder what the stats were on that. Let's see.
    31:53
    Suppressed players. There's 44 suppressed players. The reason for each of those 44, I'm sure, varies very greatly from player to player. I have no idea. You know, why people suppress, people come back, everyone has their reasons, some more public than others. And, I mean, for us, you know, we don't have to allow people to suppress. It's just a service that we've always followed at players' requests because I just want people to get whatever they want out of competitive pinball enjoyment-wise. If suppressing themselves off of our website allows them to enjoy their competitive pinball experience more, then great, I'm here to support that. But players who suppress themselves were still paying the dollar fee if they were in North America tournaments, correct? Well, their placement was accounted for with the dollar fee, unless there was an opt-out available from the tournament director. Okay. Yeah, I mean, none of the events I run, I'd never charge an extra dollar for the events that I run. And by suppressing yourself, that limits you to certain events, correct? Yeah, I mean, pretty much you just give up all of the IFPA-related perks that we have to offer. So the rewards program, qualifying for state or provincials, or if you're in Europe, you know, the ECS final, qualifying for worlds and whatnot. Which for a lot of people that aren't really competitive, none of that really makes a difference to them. So, you know, outside of just having your own personal archive of events, you know, you also, that disappears when you suppress. So you lose the ability to sort of have your own little personal companion of your event history. Have you cooked up anything new for 2019 that we can expect maybe on April 1st that you've been kind of sampling? I mean, this was a pretty big change in 2018. I can't imagine it would be something like that in 2019. Well, yeah, but I mean, this big change in 2018 was announced in 2017, right? So by the time April hits for 2019, whatever I have cooking would be for 2020. Which would be bonus points for those over the age of 40. Admit it. Could. You could. With all these kids winning, we need to do something for us, old farts. And you'll be there soon. We'll figure something out. I got a few months to plan, and then, yeah, maybe it'll be the $2 fee, man. I don't know. Depends. Whoa. It usually depends on how I'm feeling that week before, of my level of snark for the week. Comparing young and old, I'm curious. You, earlier this year, bought the new AFM game and sold Adam Becker your old one. Yeah, I did. So you played both. You've had a few months on it now. Is there one you prefer? Is there major differences? Give us your analysis on both. I like the new one is in way better shape than my old blown-out one. So, I mean, it's really nice to have a very high-quality version of that game compared to the, you know, the craptastic version that's now sitting in Becker's barn. You know, it plays great, but it's certainly not a looker. So you sold Becker a lemon is what you're saying? I didn't sell him a lemon. If anything, he could see it played a lot better than it looked, which I think is like the opposite of a lemon, right? Yeah, yeah. So, I don't know. It's great, man. It plays awesome. My kids love it. Flippers, LEDs, what do you think? The topper is amazing. Oh, yeah, the topper is amazing. Oh, it's crazy. And I have to say, someone was asking me about the Monster Bash remake. What a great game. I think that's whatever version you get, like all three. Duba and crew and the price points that they're hitting, it's a viable business for them, and that's pretty clear that they keep going, and people seem to be enjoying the purchases. So kudos to them for finding the niche. And I know you've had a lot of time on Beatles. That is a fun game. I got my first crack at it this weekend. I enjoyed it. I've always liked Sea Witch. I really like Beatles a lot more and still learning it. And if it's this good this early and it shoots that well, that's always a good sign. Yeah, man. It's solid. I was telling Zach yesterday after I was watching his footage of him playing out at Modern that it's a fun game. And it's one of those, no matter how much a game costs or the theme or what you're interacting with, you sort of don't know how everything's going to come together until you play it. And then there's really only one question that I ever have to ask myself after I play a game, and it's just like, was that fun? And Beatles is pretty fun to play. I can't doubt that. Finally, Josh, before you celebrate your birthday, some of the highlights you've seen over 2018. I mean, the biggest highlight is IFPA not collapsing from dollar gate. We survived. And I mean, at this point, this is as bad as it gets, right? This is the most money we've collected. We still haven't paid out a dime. And we seem to be doing okay. It'll be, I'm really looking forward to, you know, the other end of that process and pushing all the money back to all the states and the provinces and seeing how everyone feels about qualifying for their state or province and getting paid for doing so. So I don't know, it's more of the, this year's kind of been a big anticipation year of seeing, you know, by far the biggest change we've ever made, which was the endorsement fee, sort of seeing that through for the first year and seeing how it all comes together, you know, with the year wrapping up and all the qualifying coming to an end and then, you know, having all the championships happen in January. I mean, it's like six weeks away. It's funny because on the IFPA website, you had an example that you put up for the national championship. And think of when you did this way back. You said, if there is $15,000 in the prize pot, here's the breakdown for the 50 people playing. Well, you're just over that. You're almost at $17,000. So what a crazy estimate. Good for you. I can't believe we hit it. It's going to be a fun Vegas trip in March for sure. I'll be abandoning my newborn baby at home for that trip. So I look forward to the number of times I have to sneak away to get yelled at by my wife. Well, Continental is going on? I don't even know what to call it. North Americans is going on? North Americans. I'll call it Nationals, but plural. Going on. Okay. Not an apostrophe. It's a plural. I got it. Okay. Josh, happy birthday. Good talking to you again. It's a different conversation that we've had, but I still think it was meaningful, and I appreciate you coming on. We'll get back to our bread and butter soon enough. Have a great birthday, bud. Thanks, Jeff. Take care. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. And please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. I'm Jeff Teold.
    38:54
    My wife won't let me play. I'll never win a major. Flamenerias, Flamenerias, Flamenerias