Another summer is upon us, and with it comes the annual IFPA World Championship: a battle of titans that sees the very best players from across the globe all flipping under one roof. This year's tournament, IFPA21, was held at District 82 in De Pere, Wisconsin, and was a notably exciting competition from start to finish. On this special edition of The Score Card, we're taking a quick dive into IFPA21, tracking the close calls, surprise finishes, and of course, this year's big winner. 2026 Steve Epstein Cup: Team USA vs Team EU The night before the big IFPA21 tournament, District 82 hosted the annual Epstein Cup, a competition that pits the best players of the US and EU against each other in a unique three-game battle. The entire tournament was broadcast live on Twitch by Fox Cities Pinball, with replays available soon on their YouTube channel. Held in memory of Steve Epstein, a storied operator, game designer, and co-director of the IFPA, the Epstein Cup is always an entertaining and unique element of the World Championship weekend. This year, Team USA was represented by Gregory Kennedy, and Jared August. Conversely, Team Europe was represented by Escher Lefkoff, and Andrew Foster. Despite the large number of players per team, the format of the Epstein Cup is relatively simple. In each of the three games, every player gets one ball to play, and teams are split further into two teams of four players. At the end of each game, scores are tallied, and overall points are awarded depending on placement and total aggregate score. In Game 1, Supersonic (Bally, 1976), the strategy was mostly the same for every player: plunge the center lane to light the spinner, then rip the spinner as many times as possible. To that end, Team EU soared out of the gate, as both Escher Lefkoff and Arvid Flygare racked up hundreds of thousands of points, while Team USA trailed behind. This sentiment generally rang true for the rest of the match, and while Jason Zahler and Zmac played well, they were not able to outpace the excellent play of Daniele Acciari and Lukas Ott, giving Team EU an early advantage in total match points. Game 2, Attack from Mars (Bally, 1995), offered a bit more variety in strategy, as some players opted to play standard multiball, while others chased the lucrative Total Annihilation multiball. Team EU once again got ahead early, thanks to a quick Total Annihilation from Andrew Foster, who scored nearly 4 billion points during his ball. Raymond Davidson answered back with impressive multiball play, racking up close to 2 billion points on his ball, only for Daniele to do the same, pushing Team EU further in the lead. As Paul Englert and Timber Engelbeen both contributed heavily with impressive multiball play, Team USA fell further behind, and despite solid performances from Jason Zahler and Jack Slovacek, it was not enough to overtake Team EU. Thanks to their dominant wins in the first two games, Team EU entered Game 3 with 28 total match points, compared to Team USA's 14, making it mathematically impossible for Team USA to achieve tournament victory. Still, both teams seemingly had a fun time playing an hour-long game of Rush (Stern, 2022), as Team EU solidified their victory, ending the match with 43 total points to Team USA's 20. The day after the Epstein Cup, the IFPA21 World Pinball Championship began in earnest, with 80 players competing, representing 20 different countries from across the globe. Although the IFPA World Championship is an invite-only event for the highest-ranked players in the world, nobody gets into the playoffs without earning it, as players competed in 21 matches of Match Play qualifying. Only the top 32 qualifying players would progress into the playoffs bracket, and with $40,000 in prizes (including a brand new pinball machine) and infinite bragging rights, nobody was taking it easy. After a full day of qualifying, several familiar names separated themselves from the pack, with defending world champion Jason Zahler finishing as first seed, followed by Daniele Celestino Acciari, Escher Lefkoff, Timber Engelbeen, and Josh Sharpe. Yet, finishing high in qualifying was only worth a bye or two, as the playoffs would push every player to their limit. Unlike the Match Play qualifying rounds, playoffs followed the standard format seen in most major IFPA regional finals: single elimination, best-of-seven, head-to-head battles, with additional matches if a 3 – 3 tie occurred. The opening rounds were anything but sleepy, resulting in some very close and surprisingly heated matchups. Kineticist's own Noah Crable performed admirably in Round 1, defeating his very talented opponent, Jared Schmidt, in a 4 – 1 finish, only to be defeated by Dalton Ely in Round 2. Zach 'Zmac' McCarthy and Nick Mueller had an intense back-and-forth series in Round 2 that went to Game 9, with Zmac ultimately winning, while Escher Lefkoff and Gregory Kennedy also went to war in Round 3, battling to the bitter end of Game 9, where Greg picked up back-to-back wins on Viking (Bally, 1979) and Supersonic (Bally, 1976) to secure the series win. When you put this many top-ranked players under one roof, almost every match has something incredible to see, like Arvid Flygare's double-danger shimmy on The Walking Dead (Stern, 2014) or Jason Zahler's 1 billion point bank wager on Jackbot (Williams, 1995). Come semifinals, only four players were left standing, including Jason Zahler, Timber Engelbeen, Daniele Celestino Acciari, and Gregory Kennedy. The hunger for grand finals was apparent as Jason defeated Timber in a 4 – 1 finish and Daniele knocked out Gregory with a 4 – 2 finish, setting the stage for an intense final bout against two of the most dominant players in IFPA World Championship history: four-time world champion Daniele versus two-time (and defending) world champion Jason. IFPA21 Finals: Jason Zahler vs Daniele Celestino Acciari In the grand finals, Daniele started off strong on Indianapolis 500 (Bally, 1995) with nearly 300 million points, but Jason quickly fired back with calculated multiball play, earning his first win of the series. In Game 2, Harlem Globetrotters (Bally, 1978), Jason shot ahead with over 700,000 points by ball 2, and despite a solid ball 3 from Daniele, it was not enough to pass Jason, putting the series at 2 – 0. The always enjoyable Stingray (Stern, 1977) was the arena of choice for Game 3, but both players had a hard time putting up meaningful points, giving Daniele his first series win with 140,000 points to Jason's 63,000 points. A similar struggle played out in Game 4, White Water (Williams, 1993), but thanks to some solid multiball jackpots on ball 2, Jason was able to ice out Daniele, putting the series at 3 – 1. Now on match point, the only thing standing between Jason and a historic three-peat world championship (apart from Daniele, of course) was Game 5, Foo Fighters (Stern, 2023). Daniele got a good start on ball 1, finishing one mode and priming his multiball for 57 million points, while Jason suffered a right outlane drain after a quick and unprofitable multiball for 9 million points. Daniele furthered his lead on ball 2, clearing another mode stacked with multiball for a total of 112 million points. Answering back in a big way, Jason tore into the machine on his ball 2, clearing three standard modes before playing a mini-wizard mode with 2X playfield, bumping his score up to 400 million points. With the tournament on the line, Daniele needed to sizably surpass Jason's score, but despite an admirable shimmy attempt, a brutal left outlane drain ended his ball 3 after just a few flips. Wrapping up the series with a 4 – 1 finish, Jason Zahler was crowned the IFPA21 World Pinball Champion for the third year in a row: an incredibly impressive and historic three-peat following his wins at IFPA19 and IFPA20. Matt Owen is a lifelong gamer and overall media fiend. He can often be found playing endless hours of games or watching an absurd amount of movies and television: action, horror, mystery, and sci-fi in particular. When he's not bingeing entertainment media, Matt enjoys reading and writing fiction, playing pinball, broadcasting, and attempting to cook.