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Episode 351: Brian Shepherd, the IFPA Man Behind The Curtain

PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago39 min listen
From the creator

Not only a top player in the world, but the person who gives us the goods on Brian shares a great history lesson of the IFPA, the changes, the growth and how competitive pinball...

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Highlights

  • IFPA has grown from approximately 23,000 players eight years ago to over 90,000 now, approaching 100,000 unique players.
  • Brian Shepherd has been with IFPA for approximately 16 years, almost from the beginning, and was instrumental in developing the ranking system beyond the initial NASCAR model.
  • The 5.0 ranking system overhaul involved a major change where Classics tournaments could now be graded on their own merit rather than automatically being worth 50% of the main division.
  • COVID caused a major reset in rankings by preventing events for ~18 months; by end of 2022, top 100 rankings reflected roughly the last 16 months rather than a true three-year window.
  • The IFPA World Championship has expanded to 80 players (from traditional top 64) and now includes women's champion and other new categories.
  • District 82 running seven tournaments over three days creates a 'WPPR farm' dynamic that makes it harder for other regions to earn equivalent points and raises fairness questions.
  • A single-ball F-14 tournament with 170 participants was ranked as the #1 tournament of the year, illustrating how format efficiency can game the point system and fail the 'smell test.'
  • 2023 IFPA changes include increased league valorization (especially public/barcade leagues vs. private house leagues), expanded certified event requirements (128 rated players vs. 64), and major/minor major tournament worth adjustments.
  • IFPA decision-making is collaborative, involving input from country directors, state representatives, and women's board, not unilateral by Josh Sharpe despite community perception of him as a 'dictator.'

Notable quotes

“Josh Sharp for years, for years has said, you know, if you can ever get this guy on, that'd be like, you know, finding the unicorn, so to speak. I'm like, are you kidding? In a heartbeat, I can get this guy on.”
Jeff Teolis
“Growth is always good, but it requires a lot of people like yourself, the Adam Beckers. You've got people in Europe and others that are looking after this once little thing known as IFBA. It's good in many ways and bad in others.”
Brian Shepherd
“The first year we had Papa, California Extreme, and Texas, and maybe a few others, Expo. But that's about all we had. We had probably 10 events a year.”
Brian Shepherd
“I only found out about this when somebody on Facebook in 2014 said, Hey, we're going to play pinball at someone's house. And I said, What? They are doing? He has a machine? Oh, no, he has 11.”
Brian Shepherd
“Before COVID hit, I was starting to get burned out quite a bit with the website, with playing and complaining of pinball and stuff like that. So it did help. But... it definitely revitalized my interest in pinball.”
Brian Shepherd
“Any system has to pass the smell test. It can be mathematically correct... But if you don't see Raymond or Escher or Keith, those people that are actively winning tournaments at the top, then you know something's wrong.”
Brian Shepherd
“There was a tournament held one year where you played one ball on the F-14, and it became the number one rated ranked tournament in the whole year. No. We had 170 people play one ball on the F-14. Wow.”
Brian Shepherd
“If you have a playoff, guess what? You have to play the top people to win. And it's match play. It's not another flip frenzy. It's match play.”
Jeff Teolis
“The nerfing was a blanket move, whereas there wasn't a solution to fix it and say, this is a legitimate tournament, this one is not. And you probably could have got rid of 90% of the flip frenzies and just said, do it this way and we'll count it.”
Jeff Teolis
“I think that's a good idea... to raise those values. I do wish my personal pet peeve is that I don't like having the 125%, 150%. I would rather recalculate where 100 was always your top game.”
Brian Shepherd

Entities

  • California Extreme· event
  • Cleepin· event
  • Delaware Collective· event
  • District 82· event
  • IFPA 18 / IFPA World Championship· event
  • Indisc· event
  • Ohio League· event
  • Papa· event
  • Pinball Expo· event
  • Pinberg· event
  • Stern Pro Circuit· event
  • Texas Pinball Festival· event
  • Final Round Pinball Podcast· media
  • BGA· organization
  • IFPA· organization
  • Adam Becker· person
  • Brian Shepherd· person
  • Elwin· person
  • Eric· person
  • Jeff Teolis· person
  • Josh Sharpe· person
  • Patrick Bowden· person
  • Ray Boyle· person
  • Trent· person

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