Hey Everyone

Thanks as always to the Staff at Tilt for keeping the machines running in great shape!

This week we also did a mystery score giveaway, the mystery score was 69,872 and the winner was……

Anthony Caradonna with 69,370 in his BOPP score!  Congrats Anthony!  Luch will talk to you on Monday for shirt options of your choice!

Scores for week 2 are up on the PAPA site:

http://topl.league.papa.org/meetResults?leagueId=1&latest=true

See everyone this Monday at Eddie’s place!

Adam

Welcome to the second Season of TOPL for 2017!

Sorry for not getting this out sooner, I actually had the scores in the Monday night right at the end of league, I just hadn’t gotten around to posting publicly about it.

Anyway thanks as always to Kim and Lori for opening their home and providing food and drink along with access to the games for the night.

Not much to report as it is just the start of a new seasons so anything can still happen.  The full results are up here.

See everyone this Monday at TILT, we are also going to bring back the Mystery Score for this week.  Win a TOPL 20th Anniversary shirt by getting the score closest to the Mystery score!

In the past 5 – 10 years of TOPL the season has largely be ruled with an iron fist by either JRF or AB being the only names on the Season Champ Trophy.

The TOPL Leadership recognizes that creates apathy toward regular season nights with a large majority of our players never really in the hunt for an opportunity to win a Season Champ award.

With the transition to the FSPA/PAPA League management software this opens up a whole new world of possibilities one being the creation of a new handicapping system that, with the help of Joe Schrober, we have been able to implement!

The new system will work as follows:

After players have participated in 14 total weeks they will be assigned what we are calling a lifetime %.  The lifetime % is a calculation based on every single league night a player has ever attended that is currently entered into our system.  The reason we are using a lifetime percentage rather than the current season percentage is that the season percentage can vary wildly season to season and there can be quite the swing as a percentage settles down during the season.  The lifetime % will be more steady so players can count on or expect the points they are going to receive each night.

Based on a players lifetime percentage players will now receive bonus points on a every league night based on that percentage, the break down being:

20% – 30% – 6 points

30% – 40% – 5 points

40% – 45% – 4 points

45% – 50% – 3 points

50% – 55% – 2 points

55% – 60% – 1 point

This means that potentially a player who’s current lifetime percentage is in the 20% – 30% range, in the event they were able to achieve a 16 on the night would then actually earn 22 points on that given league night.

The lifetime percentage will decay in order to represent a players current skill level.  After a player has 90 weeks (6 seasons) of attended league nights in the system, the oldest results will drop off and we will calculate the lifetime percentage based on the most current 90 league nights in the system.  We feel this will give us a good sampling with which to base the lifetime percentage on while at the same time accurately reflecting a players improvement or decline as time goes on.

The award for this new system will be exactly the same as it is for the current season.  The players name on a trophy and a “Replay” into the next season.  With that in mind the TOPL Leadership has also decided to retire the Pinball Wizard (High Score award trophy) and repurpose it for this new System.  We feel that the high score award while fun to track is not relevant from an award perspective, chances are if you winning the season you most likely are going to win high scores as well so it just represents the rich getting richer so to speak.  All the current plaques will be removed from the trophy and we will award our first Pinball Wizard plaque under this new system in the upcoming season!

With the retirement of the high score award we are also hoping this will help speed up league play since player 4 when in the lead on a machine at the end of ball 3 does not have to play if they don’t want to in order to attempt to achieve a high score on the night.

Finally this does not replace the regular Season Champ award, that will remain in place exactly the same and our submission for WPPR points during the season will be based off those standings.

We hope this shows our continued commitment to our entire membership to hopefully make the regular season more relevant to more players.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask us in person or in response to this message.

Your TOPL Leadership Team

Mike, Chris and Adam

2016 Marks the 20^th anniversary of TOPL and to mark the occasion we would like to get new shirts made up with a variant of our logo to help commemorate the occasion!

The problem is the TOPL leadership team has nary an artist bone in our combined bodies.

So we are reaching out to the membership to see if an artist among us would help us come up with a variant on the TOPL logo to help celebrate the 20^th anniversary of TOPL!

Compensation wise we don’t have allot in the way of budget (as you can tell from our ledger)  to put toward actual costs that are associated with this type of work, but that being said we are willing to offer up Free league fees for X (X to be worked out with whoever wants to take on this task) number of seasons in order to attempt to compensate you for your work.

If you want to help the league out and take on this task you can email me directly at adam.becker@changepoint.com or just talk to me in person at league.

Thanks for the consideration

Chris, Mike and Adam

As always thanks to Andrew for opening his home and allowing us to play his collection of machines and providing food and drink for the night!

Scores can be found in the usual spot

http://topl.league.papa.org/meetResults?leagueId=1&latest=true

The season race is still very tight half more than half way through the season!

Ian still has the lead in the most improved category, we will see if he can hold onto it.

There is no league this Monday on account of Family Day, so enjoy the long weekend!  We’ll see everyone on the   Feb 22^nd at another new location for TOPL, Scott has opened a warehouse location without about 20 some off games, should be interesting!

It’s been 2 years since the initial implementation of the new leadership structure, so that means it is time to open up the discussion on elections for the Leadership team of the Toronto Pinball League.

For those that are new the league has 3 positions of leadership.

Treasurer – Currently held by Mike Luciani
Score Keeper – Currently held by Chris Bardon
President – Currently held by Adam Becker

Every 2 years we give members within the league an opportunity to step up and say they would like to volunteer their time to help make the league better for everyone.

With that being said all 3 incumbents would like to continue to volunteer their time for the league.

But if anyone would like to step up and volunteer their time for any of these positions that would trigger an election.

The details of how an election would work can be found in our rules located here: http://topl.ca/topl-rules/

In order to be considered the person would need to submit their application via the Yahoo Group, Facebook or replaying to the post on the webpage stating which position they would like to volunteer for. This open nomination will be available until Dec 21st at 12pm EST.

The existing leadership team is happy to continue to move TOPL forward and volunteer their time but in our continuing effort to make leadership activities more transparent this is a necessary step in that process.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Your TOPL Leadership team
Chris, Mike and Adam

With playoffs only a couple weeks away I wanted to take a moment and clarify how the division structure works for playoffs.  We have had allot of new people join the league in recent years and information on the B division of the TOPL playoffs hasn’t really been made clear recently.

It’s all written down in our official rules:

http://topl.ca/topl-rules/

But I know it’s a LONG read so I figured I would offer up an FAQ on the B division so people can make a more informed decision this playoffs on which Division they would like to play in.

What is the B Division?

The B division is a separate division we offer to members during the playoffs to give lesser skilled and more casual players an opportunity to compete amongst themselves for cash/prizes.

Who is eligible to play in the B Division?

Everyone that has a valid percentage is eligible for the B division assuming that they have not won cash in the A division in the last 3 years and they have not won the B division at the previous playoffs.   Anyone who does not have a valid percentage is automatically slotted into the A division.

Doesn’t the A Division get more money?

Not specifically, at the end of the year we tally up all the fees that have been taken in.  We then subtract out league expenses (Web hosting costs, giveaway expenses, food for playoffs, etc) and that gives us a final value.  We then divide that value by the number of players we have had in the current season.  That gives us a “player value”.  That player value follows you to your division.

So if there are more people in B division then there are in A the B division will have the larger prize pool

So what’s the difference between A and B then?

The only difference is who is eligible to play in the B division and WPPR points.  Everyone that plays in the A division will be ranked higher than anyone who plays in B.  So while everyone will get some WPPR points to contribute to their Provincial Championship eligibility:

http://www.ifpapinball.com/rankings/custom_view.php?id=109

The last place person in A will be ranked higher than the first place person in B.  So if you care about trying to make the Ontario PCS or your ranking in general A division would be where you want to play, otherwise feel free to play B.

So this all sounds great, how do I play in the B division?

At the start of the playoffs on the 29^th one of the SLO’s will come around and ask every eligible person which division they would like to play, A or B.  The player then makes the choice for themselves and assuming we have 6 people or more a B division will be run.  The playoffs still play exactly the same, but in the Standings for the match play a player in B division will be marked with a B and will be ranked separately from the other players.

I don’t want to play in B, I want to play in A what will that do to the prizes in A?

Nothing really, the only difference might be the number of positions we are able to pay out in the A division.  The previous few years we have been able to pay out down to 8 spots.  If we ran a B division those extra spots of payout in A would then go to the B players.

Hopefully the above makes things more clear on what the B division at playoffs is, how it works, and who is eligible to play.  But if you have any other questions, feel free to speak to Adam, Chris or Luch at the next league night or respond here.

Thanks

Your TOPL Leadership Team

Adam, Chris, Luch

TOPL is putting the TO back in the PL by finally heading back downtown again to visit 3030 for a league night on Oct 5th.

As this is a public venue there will be no host fee for the night, but you will be responsible for coin drop at the location. Also 3030 has a great selection of food and beer so make sure you come hungry/thirsty!

For new players who can’t make it out to our more rural locations, this is an opportunity to give Canada’s longest standing pinball league a try. League fees are waived for new members if you have never attended a league night before.

Also as a reminder a Williams Disco Fever will be given away at our playoffs at the end of this season, and just by attending on Oct 5th that gets you another shot to win this machine!

Finally we will also be doing a Mystery Tshirt draw on that night and giving away one of the TOPL Grey Colored TShirts!

For anyone not familiar with our regular league nights, players are put in the groups of 3 or 4 so we need players to show up before 8pm to sign in as groupings will be created at 8pm sharp and play will begin as soon as sheets have been completed.

Look forward to seeing everyone at 3030!

Mike, Adam and Chris
Your TOPL Leadership Team

Want to take a moment and recognize some new sponsors to the league!

First Kim Darwoski, Kim donated a Tshirt to the league that was misplaced but $30 has been provided to make up the cost of the misplaced shirt. Once the run of white shirts has been sold out, we have plans to do another run of color TOPL shirts and at that time we will purchase a shirt with Kim’s donation to giveaway as part of our Mystery Score Giveaway! So thanks very much for that Kim.

Next Myles Cameron has graciously donated 10 sets of headphones to the league! We will be giving these away 2 sets per week for the next 5 weeks again via Mystery score. Thanks very much to Myles for the donation!

Finally Mike Luciani has donated another $100 to the league again to increase the food available at the league Playoffs!

Thanks to each and every one of our sponsors! Your support is very much appreciated.

If you have something you would like to donate to the league, please let myself, Luch or Chris know and we will work with you to see it best benefit everyone in the league!

Chris, Mike and Adam
Your TOPL Leadership Team