PSPR - 2022 Super Series Shakeup

Karl DeAngelo’s worst finish in all 6 Super Series events was 11th out of 150. This moved him from 49th in the Pinball Statistics Power Rankings up to 10th.

The District 82 Pinball Super Series was the most impactful event series on the Pinball Statistics Power Rankings since I put this formula together. As you can see below, almost every player saw a rank change over the past two weeks. Most of these changes were due to the District 82 Pinball Super Series. The results of the UK Open also made a big impact for many players. I ran fantasy events for both of these tournaments and had a great number of people participating in both.

When the calendar flips to January 1st, 2023, the “normal” pinball season will finally begin. All of the Championship Series events will reset, the Stern Pro Circuit will begin a new season, and the IFPA will begin its new season leading up to the IFPA19 World Pinball Championships. Additionally, we know that proposed WPPR v5.8 rules will go into effect which should make a significant impact on WPPR point distribution in 2023. I’m hopeful that this will mean I have more storytelling opportunities on this blog site. Currently, the story of the 2020-22 COVID-impacted season seems to be just about wrapped up. We know that Escher Lefkoff has a commanding lead for IFPA’s player of the year award and he’s quite unlikely to lose that spot. The Stern Pro Circuit event that was supposed to be played in March 2020 will finally take place with little fanfare this week before expo, and the 2020-22 Stern Pro Circuit standings consist of a mix of 3 year’s worth of events that have been quite difficult to keep up with.

What we have seen in 2022 is the complete dominance of “farm-style” events on the IFPA rankings. I would define a “farm-style” event as one that meets both the following criteria:

• Multiple pinball tournaments held in succession with the same or mostly the same set of players.

• All pinball tournaments in the event are designed to not go beyond the requirements for 100% TGP and add extra time required to complete each event.

I’ve driven up to District 82 several times this year, and I have enjoyed myself every time I have been there. Erik Thoren’s games are all in fantastic condition and the competition is excellent. However, the process of WPPR farming is incredibly exhausting. With the knockout formats in the evening at the 2022 Super Series, I never left District 82 until past midnight every night, and I returned by 9am the next morning. I do still recommend that anybody who is interested in playing over 100 great pinball machines in a highly competitive environment should try to get up to De Pere, Wisconsin for a weekend at some point in the future, even if you may not get as much sleep as your body needs.

Personally, I prefer events where I can earn bye rounds through qualifying or privileges like game and order choices. Even more preferable to me are formats that allow unlimited qualifying or practice on the games that will be played in the finals. These preferences, however, take additional time that the tournament director does not get back in the form of the ultimate virtual currency: the WPPR. The proposed WPPR v5.8 changes should make a huge impact on the 2023 season, giving events like INDISC hundreds of additional WPPRs for making 0 changes to the structure of the event, and INDISC will undoubtedly be a massive shakeup to the IFPA standings.

Pinball is still quite an immature sport that should grow and develop tremendously over the next few years and hopefully beyond. It’s certainly good that we have such a large community that a places like District 82, which only opens for free play and competitive pinball can exist. However, I do think the events that focus on building the best competitive experiences for the players and showcasing the best gameplay are well deserving of the massive WPPR boost coming to them in 2023.

	A	B	C	D	E	F
1	Name	RANK 10.16.2022	RANK 10.09.2022	RANK 10.04.2022	Rank Change	Current PPI
2	Escher Lefkoff	1	1	1	0	27.88
3	Jason Zahler	2	2	2	0	23.38
4	Raymond Davidson	3	5	5	2	23.02
5	Johannes Ostermeier	4	4	3	-1	22.97
6	Eric Stone	5	3	4	-1	22.83
7	Cayle George	6	6	7	1	18.42
8	Keith Elwin	7	8	9	2	18.09
9	Colin Urban	8	7	8	0	17.82
10	Jared August	9	9	6	-3	17.62
11	Karl DeAngelo	10	15	49	39	15.51
12	Walt Wood	11	10	10	-1	15.38
13	Daniele Celestino Acciari	12	11	15	3	14.77
14	Bowen Kerins	13	17	16	3	14.44
15	Stephen Prusa	14	13	13	-1	14.24
16	Zach McCarthy	15	12	11	-4	14.06
17	Aleksander Kaczmarczyk	16	14	12	-4	13.85
18	Peter Andersen	17	18	22	5	12.82
19	Colin MacAlpine	18	16	17	-1	12.68
20	Andy Rosa	19	22	18	-1	12.41
21	Germain Mariolle	20	21	21	1	12.32
22	Julio Vicario Soriano	21	24	31	10	12.08
23	Dalton Ely	22	19	20	-2	11.79
24	Josh Sharpe	23	27	41	18	11.49
25	Carlos Delaserda	24	20	19	-5	11.14
26	Neil Graf	25	28	39	14	10.69
27	Viggo Löwgren	26	26	26	0	10.65
28	Arvid Flygare	27	25	25	-2	10.29
29	John Delzoppo	28	23	14	-14	9.84
30	David Daluga	29	29	29	0	9.56
31	Paul Englert	30	30	24	-6	9.49
32	Gabor Solymosi	31	38	37	6	9.17
33	Markus Stix	32	34	28	-4	9.09
34	Jim Belsito	33	31	27	-6	8.85
35	Andrew Foster	34	33	56	22	8.20
36	Andrei Massenkoff	35	32	23	-12	8.15
37	Marcus Hugosson	36	35	32	-4	8.15
38	Luke Nahorniak	37	41	57	20	8.02
39	Robert Sutter	38	39	33	-5	7.74
40	Robert Byers	39	37	34	-5	7.68
41	Timber Engelbeen	40	36	unranked	unranked	6.98
42	Jason Lambert	41	43	46	5	6.79
43	Flavio Baddaria	42	40	38	-4	6.62
44	Matthew Stacks	43	42	50	7	6.50
45	Steven Bowden	44	50	48	4	6.23
46	Zach Sharpe	45	64	69	24	6.23
47	Joe Lemire	46	44	43	-3	6.20
48	John Miller MO	47	48	53	6	6.20
49	Lonnie Langford	48	51	55	7	6.00
50	Markus Virtanen	49	54	54	5	5.86
51	Jesse Baker	50	52	58	8	5.83
52	Elliott Keith	51	45	45	-6	5.82
53	Derek Price	52	55	42	-10	5.76
54	David Riel	53	49	30	-23	5.75
55	Jason Werdrick	54	46	36	-18	5.66
56	Travis Murie	55	57	61	6	5.59
57	Jerry Bernard	56	62	77	21	5.39
58	Roberto Pedroni	57	47	40	-17	5.17
59	Lewis Bevans	58	53	52	-6	5.09
60	Nico Wicke	59	59	59	0	5.00
61	Andy Bagwell	60	61	51	-9	4.93
62	James Scott OH	61	unranked	unranked	unranked	4.50
63	Phil Grimaldi	62	56	35	-27	4.46
64	Jack Tadman	63	66	65	2	4.31
65	Gregory Kennedy	64	65	71	7	4.31
66	Alberto Santana	65	58	44	-21	4.18
67	Tim Sexton	66	82	87	21	4.17
68	Adam Becker	67	75	60	-7	4.16
69	Mads Kristensen	68	63	63	-5	4.16
70	Chris Frame	69	80	105	36	3.81
71	Brian Shepherd	70	85	96	26	3.77
72	Dave Hubbard	71	68	72	1	3.72
73	Franck Bona	72	67	66	-6	3.60
74	Brian O'Neill NH	73	86	104	31	3.53
75	Will McKinney	74	92	85	11	3.38
76	Bill Mason	75	69	68	-7	3.36
77	Robert Gagno	76	70	70	-6	3.32
78	John Shopple	77	81	75	-2	3.26
79	Paul Jones AUS	78	74	unranked	unranked	3.15
80	Timothy Street	79	73	73	-6	3.12
81	Jason Wilson TN	80	76	83	3	3.00
82	Paul Jongma	81	71	64	-17	2.98
83	Andreas Frid	82	103	110	28	2.58
84	Mike Tzanakos	83	83	79	-4	2.49
85	Craig Pullen	84	60	67	-17	2.20
86	Jonas Valström	85	77	86	1	2.08
87	Mitchell Stewart NZ	86	88	92	6	2.01
88	Olli-Mikko Ojamies	87	79	76	-11	1.89
89	Adam McKinnie	88	84	78	-10	1.86
90	Levi Nayman	89	87	117	28	1.78
91	Johnny Modica	90	89	84	-6	1.59
92	Matthew Richardson	91	110	127	36	1.56
93	Richard Rhodes	92	93	89	-3	1.51
94	Sebastian Bobbio	93	91	82	-11	1.32
95	Tom Graf	94	94	98	4	1.26
96	Trent Augenstein	95	96	80	-15	1.24
97	Nate Grant	96	101	102	6	1.23
98	Richie Terry	97	100	107	10	1.19
99	Derek Thomson	98	95	91	-7	1.09
100	Jordan Semrow	99	102	109	10	1.07
101	Bob Choate	100	97	94	-6	1.06