Thanks to Josh for hosting this week!  Scores are up on the PAPA site, and the overall standings are pretty close to what they were last week.  Les has pulled ahead of Julian in the most improved race, but Julian is still leading the season with the new handicap system.  We also had four new members join this week, so welcome to Karl, Tammy, Marc, and Jeff!

This week we also started testing a new rule where we allowed groups to switch games instead of waiting.  Since we had 8 groups of 4 this time, there were no games where we needed a median, so it wasn’t a big deal to switch players.  Going forward, we’re going to keep this in place, but with the following guidelines:

• If a game is marked on the score sheets with an Asterisk * then that game MUST be played to get a median (since it means we have groups of three.
• A game can be substituted if the game you’re supposed to play is busy with a league game, and will likely stay so for more than 5 minutes. 
• All four members of a group need to agree to switch games.

If in doubt, ask before you swap a game out.  At larger locations, we’re going to try to spread players out as much as possible, so swapping games won’t be as necessary, but at smaller locations, we’ll obviously have overlap, and it’s never obvious what is going to take the a long time on any given night.  If you’ve got any other suggestions on how else to implement this, let me know!

Next week we’re back to Glen’s place in Newmarket.  Glen hasn’t hosted in a while, but he’s got a great collection of Bally/Williams games.  Have a great week everyone!

Thanks to Kim and Lori for hosting this week!  We had 2 new players this time out, so welcome Brianne and Roman!  Hopefully both of you get a chance to come out again.  Scores are up on the PAPA site, and more players are showing up on the most improved listing, but Julian is still way ahead at this point. 

Next week we’re back out to Josh’s place-have a great week everyone!  Also, dates for the rest of the season have been worked out, so look for those on the Yahoo and Facebook calendars soon. 

Thanks to Andrew (and Kirk) for hosting this week, and for keeping everyone fed!  Scores for this week are up on the PAPA site, and now that we’re 5 weeks in we can start tracking most improved.  As expected, Julian is in the lead with a commanding 24% over last season, just short of double Brian’s increase.  There’s still a long way to go before the end of the season though, so lots can change. 

We’re at Kim’s place next week, and he asked me to remind everyone that Brock is closed north bound from the 401, so you’ll need to work around that.  Best bets are to go south on Brock to Baley ,  or go to Westney and go north to Kingston rd .  Hopefully it doesn’t cause too much trouble for everyone.  Have a great week!

Thanks to Nick for hosting us this week, with a great turnout after a week off for the long weekend.  Scores are up here for the week, and it’s still early, so things are still pretty clustered, but as we get more weeks in, things should start to spread out a little more.  One more week and we can also start tracking most improved, but even without the handicap system, it seems that Julian is having a great start to the season, so I’d expect to see his name crop up there.    We also had 4 new people in this week, so welcome to Andy, Chris, Qui, and Mike.  New faces, but some familiar names-I don’t think we’ve had a group of 4 Mikes in one week, but it’s theoretically possible now…  Hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves, and you’ll be back for the rest of the season-still plenty of weeks left!

Enjoy the warmer weather this week, and I’ll see everyone at Andrew’s next Monday!

Thanks to Luch for hosting this week-results are up in the usual place.  3 weeks in and Adam and John are tied for the season lead, while taking handicaps into account, Julian is still in the lead. 

Now that we’re not tracking high scores anymore, you might notice that we may spread groups out onto more games if they’re available to try to keep things moving.  Before, we needed 4 groups on each game to have a valid high score, but now the only time we need 4 groups playing the same game is with groups of three, which will need median scores.  This also means that if you notice that things are backing up waiting for a particular game, and the entire group agrees, you can ask myself, Adam, or Luch about swapping for something else that’s available, and we’ll see what we can do. 

There’s no pinball next week because of the May long weekend, and then we’re at Nick’s place the week after that.  Have a great May 24, and see you all in 2 weeks!

Thanks to Jim for hosting this week, and also to Adam for taking care of the groups/scores while I was away.  Scores are posted on the PAPA site, and the handicap system is already showing some results.  John, Adam and Julian are leading the season so far, but with Julian’s big improvement for the season start, he’s ahead when handicaps are taken into account.  Keep in mind that on the PAPA site, you can sort the standings by clicking the column headings, so you can always see who’s ahead.

Next week we’re at Luch’s place-see everyone next Monday!

Welcome to another TOPL season.  Thanks to Scott for hosting this week, with his warehouse of ever-changing pins.  The scores for this week are up on the PAPA site, and you may notice the new “bonus points” column on the score sheets, and a new “Total w/ Handicap” listing on the totals.  This is based on the new handicapping system that we’re trying out this season, so you’ll notice things like Henrik’s 14 being worth more than John’s 16 in the handicap results.  We’ll see how this works out over the course of the season.  High scores are still showing up on the system, but these are just there for fun/information vs any prizes or trophies now. 

Also, congrats to Ian, who won the mystery score giveaway, which includes tickets to the Robert Gagno documentary Wizard Mode on Saturday at the Hot Docs festival.  There are two more screenings this week (Wednesday and Saturday) if you want to catch the movie in a theater, or you can also get it on Vimeo right now via the official site. 

Next week we’re playing at Jim’s place-have a great week everyone!

Barry, our current playoff champ, has just compiled a list from the TOPL trophy of everyone with a plaque on it going back to 2001:

For those keeping score, that’s 39 tournaments, and only 10 winners:

And most of the winners are still playing with the league today.  Thanks for pulling this Barry! 

First off, thanks to Pete and Ann for hosting the playoffs today, and for keeping everyone well fed through the day.  Things went really well, and despite the long drive, it was a great day of pinball.  Final stats are available here.  This is where things stood at the end of 20 long rounds of matchmaking:

We had 8 players in the B division, so we ran two separate playoff brackets.  The B division playoff ended up like this:

Resulting in two tiebreakers.  In the end, Mike beat Myles on Iron Man, and Henrik beat John on Metallica to put Mike in 1st, Myles 2nd, Henrik 3rd, and John 4th:

For the A division, the top four players stacked up like this in the finals:

For a clean final result with no tiebreakers needed.  Congratulations to Barry for taking home the playoff champ trophy for what I believe is the first time, pictured here with a disappointed second place Steve:

Thanks to everyone who played in the season and today’s tournament, and in a week we start it all over again with a brand new season on May 2 at Scott’s warehouse. 

Thanks to Andrew for hosting this week, and also thanks to JRF for helping out with the scores while I was out sick.  This brings another regular season to an end, and the scores for the season are up.  After a strong finish at both PAPA and the IFPA championships, it surprised nobody that Adam won the season, but with strong finishes from Jack, Barry, John, Steve, and Josh, all with over 140 adjusted points.  Adam wins a replay into next season for taking the season champ spot, and another plaque on the trophy.  Adam also took the lead in the final High Score champ competition that we’re tracking.  For most improved, Ian Glasner ended up keeping the top spot with 12.19%, so congrats to Ian, who wins a replay for next season as well.

Just a reminder that playoffs are this Sunday, Apr 24 at Pete’s.  Doors open at 10:30, and we’re starting match play at 11 and going for 20 rounds.  As usual, when you get there, you’ll need to sign in (with Chris or Adam), and pay Luch your $15 host fee.  For those that are eligible for the B division, let us know you that you want to play B when you sign in.  Remember that in order to play in B, you need to have a valid percentage for the season, and have not placed in the top 3 in A for at least 9 seasons.  If we have enough players, we’ll run a B playoff with a separate prize pool for the top 4 B players (everyone plays everyone else in match play).  Playoffs are open to all, but non-members need to pay a $50 registration fee.

The next season starts on Monday May 2 at Scott’s warehouse in the bluffs, and will be the first season where we start tracking using the new handicap system in parallel to the regular points totals.

Have a great week everyone, and we’ll see you all on Sunday.  It should be a great day of pinball!