Pinball Overview/Summary of the JPA League Rules

Location of League: Eight On The Break in Dunellen, NJ

Length: The Spring and Fall periods of the League would each consist of one 10-week session followed by a PAPA style playoff conducted the two weeks after Week 10 is completed.

Dues: $81 per Season ($80 for cash prizes and trophies and $1 for the IFPA fee), payable in full at the beginning of the season.

Day of League, Start time, lateness, and No-Shows: League Play will start at 7:30 PM each week on Wednesday. There is no grace period for lateness. If a player is going to be late and I’m not notified before 7:30 PM, we can start without the player present. If a player doesn’t show up in a given week without notifying me in advance, that will be considered a No-Show. Two No-Shows for a player in a season will result in that player not being allowed to play for the rest of that season.

Number of games per week: 4 or 5, to be determined close to the beginning of each season. There will be two games of each group’s set that will be the same for every group. Those games will be Games Of The Week with a $5 bounty for each game to the person who gets the highest score on each game. One player can win the bounty for both games if he/she gets the high score on both games.

Groupings and Basic Scoring: There will be groups of 4 with groups of 3 added in if the number of players is not divisible by 4.

Basic scoring is 3-2-0 plus a bonus point for three player groups and 3-2-1-0 plus two bonus points for four player groups.

Weekly results will be tracked by the Match Play tournament software that is used now by a number of TDs/LDs. Each week, all players will be ranked by their total points for the week and those rankings are cumulatively added up over the 10 weeks and at the end of the 10th week, the three lowest results of each player from the 10 weeks are dropped.

Groupings for the first week will be random and for subsequent weeks will be based on your rank from the previous week. So for Week 2, players ranked 1st to 4th in Week 1 will be in Group 1, players ranked 5th to 8th in Week 1 will be in Group 2 and so on. If a player is absent from a group such that one or more 2-player groups are formed, then the existing groupings will be modified so that there will be no more 2-player group(s) for that week.

Playoff Format (for a 16-23 player league): The top 8 players with the highest point total at the end of Week 10 would go to the A Playoff. Players in positions 9-16 would go to the B Playoff. If there are three or fewer players left after the A and B Playoff players are determined, those players would not play in any playoff and would not win any prize. If there are 4-7 players left after the A and B Playoff players are determined, then those players would play in a ladder-style format to determine the top one (or two in the case of 7 players left) winners of this group of players.

For the A and B Playoffs, the players would be split into two groups of 4 based on seeding. For the Semifinals, each group would play seven games with PAPA-style scoring used to score the match. The top 2 players from each group of 4 in the divisional Semifinals would move on to form one group of 4 players in the A and B Finals. Each of those Finalists would get a trophy and a cash prize according to how they finish in their Final.

For the ladder-style playoff (if there is one), the bottom 4 seeded players would play one game and the loser of that game is eliminated from the playoff. Then the next lowest seeded player joins the other three survivors from the first game and all play one game. The loser of that game is eliminated from the playoff. Play continues in this manner until there are 4 players left. Then one game is played and last place is eliminated (that player gets 4th). Another game is played with the remaining three players and last place is eliminated (this player gets 3rd). One final game is played with the remaining two players to determine 1st and 2nd in the Division. First place gets an award. Second place also gets an award if 7 players are in the Ladder Division.

If there are 24-39 players in a given season, the Playoffs would follow the same rules as above, but there would be a C Division Playoffs for positions 17-24 and a D Division Playoffs for positions 25-32 for 32 or more players in the League. If 40 players are in a given season (max number of players allowed in a given season) then the Playoffs will consist of A, B, C, and D groups plus an 8-person group that would play the ladder-style format in a similar manner as above (with the top 2 of the 8 getting an award).

If there are fewer than 16 players but more than 11 in a given season, then the top 8 players would play a PAPA style format as above and the remaining players would play a ladder style format as above. If fewer than 12 players are in a given season, then the Playoffs would consist of the top 8 players at the end of Week 10 and they would follow a PAPA style format as above. The players who play in the Final would get cash and a trophy according to how they finished in the Final.