07/04/2022 - Pinball Statistics Power Rankings

First, I’d like to start by thanking Brian Shepherd of the IFPA, Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen of matchplay.events, and Karl DeAngelo of neverdrains.com for their help this week with API support and data collection for this project.

Today is exciting because it is the first time I am able to show off the 1-week power ranking change column along with the updated power rankings. I designed the rankings in a way that should give them some movement each week.

So far, the response to the Pinball Statistics Power Rankings has been mostly positive. A lot of players have taken a glance at the list to find out where they rank. Some have been particularly delighted with their position in the power rankings and shared this website on social media which has given this site a lot more traffic than I would have expected in just one week. I don’t make any money from more traffic, but I do feel like it might still be useful to plug the NYC Pinball Championships coming up this August 19th-21st in Brooklyn, NY.

For this week, I would like to take a look at a few of the players who moved up the list and talk about what statistics contributed to those changes.

3rd. Raymond Davidson (⬆️1)

Raymond’s move up in the standings comes from his 3rd place finish at the Pintastic 2022 Silverball Rumble tournament in Sturbridge, MA. Although the results were not submitted to the IFPA, I did submit the challonge bracket that tracked the results of the finals to Match Play Ratings.

Raymond passes Eric Stone who also played in the Silverball Rumble tournament, as well as a pre-tournament called The Plunge which took place on Thursday, June 23rd.

The reason why I chose Monday as the day to update the PSPR is because Match Play Ratings updates its rating period on a trailing 7-day basis. This means that if I play in and complete a tournament on a Sunday, it will not be reflected in my match play rating until the next Sunday. Since most major tournaments fall on weekends, calculating results on a Monday is likely to reflect both the IFPA’s updated data if the tournament director submits results within a week as well as the match play rating updates from that tournament.

When data is submitted late to either IFPA or Match Play, both of these systems have the ability to do a full rebuild to “catch up” on data that was missing. Tournament Directors are ultimately responsible for submitting results to the IFPA, and closing and submitting all tournaments that are run on matchplay.events.

Last week I made a post speculating that Jason Zahler would move up in the PSPR due to his 1st place win at the Silverball Rumble, but as we can see he did not move up or down any spots this week. I figured it would be fun to speculate on how a player’s results would affect their standing, but it’s certainly much less fun to speculate on how long it will take a Tournament Director to submit results to the IFPA.

10th. Colin Urban (⬆️3)

Colin’s move up 3 spots in the rankings this week comes as a result of his 1st place finish in a relatively small tournament: Cbar Last Saturdays - Fair Strike. Colin is currently 27th according to IFPA rank, 3rd in IFPA rating, and 8th in Eff percent. Since coming in 2nd at The Open - IFPA World Pinball Championship, Colin has only played in a few pinball tournaments.

97th. Ken Martin (unranked)

Ken’s move into the PSPR comes from his 3rd place finish at the same Cbar tournament in Portland, OR. He’s the only previously unranked player to jump into the Power Rankings this week.

If there was any negative criticism with the debut of the Pinball Statistics Power Rankings it was that players who did not travel to tournaments as often were ranked too high. I have noted the criticism, but have not made any changes to the Power Ranking formula as of now.

I’m fortunate enough to have the chance to travel to lots of different pinball tournaments around the USA during the year. It’s always fun to see my friends and compete against the best players. I’ve personally met nearly every American player on this list, as well as a few European players. I think that anybody who makes this list has a really good chance to qualify at a major tournament like The Open or the New York City Pinball Championships. Ken used to routinely beat me head-to-head when we both lived in Pennsylvania, and he’s still an incredibly active and successful player in Portland, OR.

75th. Jerry Bernard (⬆️23)
77th. Roland Nadeau (⬆️23)
58th. Anthony Lambos Jr (⬆️14)

Without any major tournaments hitting the IFPA rankings this week, our 3 biggest movers come from small knockout tournaments. Jerry’s results include his 3rd place finish at The Plunge, and his partial results from the Silverball Rumble at Pintastic New England. Roland won the 34-player
Electric Bat June Bounty Knockout tournament. Anthony won the 14-player monthly tournament and 16-player weekly tournaments at The Vault.

In a week with larger tournaments or tournament series, there will probably be even more dramatic shifts in the rankings. Looking at the IFPA calendar, I see a few large tournaments coming up in mid-July in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and Edmonton(ish), Alberta, Canada.

07/04/2022 - Pinball Statistics Power Rankings

	A	B
1	Escher Lefkoff	No Change
2	Johannes Ostermeier	No Change
3	Raymond Davidson	1
4	Eric Stone	-1
5	Jason Zahler	No Change
6	Keith Elwin	No Change
7	Jared August	No Change
8	Cayle George	No Change
9	Daniele Celestino Acciari	No Change
10	Colin Urban	3
11	Stephen Prusa	-1
12	Aleksander Kaczmarczyk	No Change
13	Bowen Kerins	-2
14	Colin MacAlpine	No Change
15	John Delzoppo	No Change
16	Walt Wood	No Change
17	Zach McCarthy	No Change
18	Dalton Ely	No Change
19	Andy Rosa	1
20	Julio Vicario Soriano	-1
21	Gabor Solymosi	3
22	Paul Englert	-1
23	Flavio Baddaria	No Change
24	Robert Sutter	-2
25	Markus Stix	5
26	Arvid Flygare	2
27	Germain Mariolle	-2
28	Jim Belsito	-2
29	Peter Andersen	-2
30	Phil Grimaldi	-1
31	Jason Lambert	No Change
32	Andrei Massenkoff	2
33	Carlos Delaserda	-1
34	Karl DeAngelo	-1
35	David Riel	No Change
36	Jason Werdrick	No Change
37	Marcus Hugosson	1
38	Derek Price	-1
39	Nico Wicke	3
40	Roberto Pedroni	1
41	Robert Byers	-2
42	Viggo Löwgren	2
43	Andrew Foster	-3
44	Drew Cedolia	-1
45	Josh Sharpe	1
46	Neil Graf	1
47	Robert Gagno	4
48	Andy Bagwell	2
49	John Miller MO	-4
50	Joe Lemire	4
51	Steven Bowden	-3
52	David Daluga	-3
53	Will McKinney	-1
54	Alberto Santana	-1
55	Travis Murie	No Change
56	Emil ED Dreiborg	2
57	Adam Becker	-1
58	Anthony Lambos Jr	14
59	Markus Virtanen	No Change
60	Mats Runsten	4
61	Zach Sharpe	No Change
62	Franck Bona	-2
63	Dave Hubbard	No Change
64	Elliott Keith	-7
65	Paul Jongma	-3
66	Luke Nahorniak	-1
67	Lonnie Langford	4
68	Jonas Valström	1
69	Timothy Street	-1
70	Tim Sexton	-3
71	Lewis Bevans	-5
72	Tobias Wagemann	7
73	Mark Pearson	8
74	Phil Birnbaum	-4
75	Jerry Bernard	23
76	Jesse Baker	-3
77	Roland Nadeau	23
78	Derek Thomson	8
79	Adam McKinnie	-4
80	Jordan Semrow	-4
81	Trent Augenstein	-7
82	Johnny Modica	-4
83	Billy Brown III	No Change
84	David Peck	-7
85	John Shopple	-1
86	Olli-Mikko Ojamies	1
87	Donavan Stepp	-5
88	Bill Mason	-3
89	Sean Davis	3
90	Levente Tregova	4
91	Alex Harmon	-11
92	Jack Tadman	-3
93	Jörgen Holm	-5
94	Danielle Peck	5
95	James Scott OH	-5
96	Keri Wing	-5
97	Ken Martin	unranked
98	Reidar Spets	-5
99	Tom Graf	-3
100	Matthew Stacks	-3