Open Competition at Pinfest 2025

[Wayne J]

Details of the Open Competition to be Held at Pinfest this year are as follows (subject to a potential few minor tweaks).

The format will again be a 5 game ticket comp, using the NeverDrains Software.

That is, for a single entry you will play 5 different machines and you're scores will be ranked against all other submitted scores (including your own). The total of those 5 ranks will determine your overall rank.
Registration is £15, which will include a single entry.
Further entries can be bought for £7.50, or 3 for £20.

Qualifying will run for a total of 24 hrs. 10:00-21:00 on Friday and Saturday, with a last chance period of 10:00-12:00 on Sunday.

The top 24 will qualify with the top 8 getting a bye past the first round.

The finals will start at 13:00 on Sunday and will consist of best of 3 knockout with the higher qualifying seed choosing the machine to be played for the first and third games (if required) and the lower seed choosing the machine for the second. Player choosing will play first.
NO machine can be chosen twice by the same player throughout the finals.

When there are just 4 players left, the final will be PAPA style (4,2,10) played over 3 games.
Third highest seed will choose the first machine, second highest the second machine, and highest seed the last machine.

Prize monies will be split as previous years for the top 8 players

 

[Wayne J]

Reserved for trophy pics

 

[Wayne J]

Reserved for full schedule of all comps once finalised

 

[Wayne J]

This year, following lots of feedback from many people last year, the competition will be downstairs. on your immediate left as you enter.

The timings have also been changed slightly for the qualifying, finishing at 9pm on the Friday and Saturday. This will allow people to focus more on the social side of Pinfest, which has been commented on over recent years.

Due to this being the first time we have ventured downstairs, there may be a few tweaks, but we hope to be able to broadcast the twitch stream by @strobey on the large TV on the wall in the bar, allowing for more people to see what's going on without overcrowding downstairs, while enjoying a pint.

As always we are still requiring more donations, for all of the competitions as well as the freeplay areas. Of particular interest for the Open comp is No Fear and Jaws, but all machines will be considered.

 

[Czard]

Hi Wayne, Josh here

Glad to hear that we’ve got a 5 game card back as it was a lot of fun last year, looking forward to it!

I just wanted to query about the format for finals, as at the moment it looks like it won’t get certified as it is currently best of 3 H2H until the final 4.

I think this can become certified by just making the H2H games a best of 5 and you can keep the final 4 as PAPA scoring. If the reason this was done is due to time constraints, an idea could be that as the qualifying time is currently 24 hours, and it only needs to be 20 hours, you could cut the Sunday morning qualifying session and take 2 hours off of the Saturday evening, and you could potentially do the first round or two of the H2H on Saturday evening and still have it finish around 9pm which will leave people some time for socialising.

Also, you could then still avoid any clash with the classics finals on the Sunday by starting the rest of the main finals once the classics has concluded.

Hopefully you can consider this as it would be great to get to certified as we can hopefully keep making Pinfest a hub for casual and competitive players!

 

[Tucks]

Most people don't care about WPPR points

 

[roadshow16]

Lots don't care, but many do care.

So for one of the biggest UK tournaments where pretty much everyone will be there, it would be nice to accommodate both camps if possible.

As Josh said, its only a very small tweak to make it a certified tournament, best of 5 instead of best of 3. All of the hard bits are already catered for (20 hours of qualifying, across multiple days), so it would be great if Wayne would consider moving to best of 5.

For those who do care about the WPPR's it is a pretty significant difference between being certified and not. With the current format Wayne has planned, the winner would get about 60 wpprs based on the same player list as last year. Where as, if it was best of 5 H2H instead of best of 3, it would be about 100 wpprs, similar to last year. We just have very few opportunities in the UK to have tournaments of this size, so it would be awesome for it to work for everyone if possible.

Cheers, Craig

 

[Wayne J]

The Sunday morning qualifying session is there so that it is not just people who can attend on more than one day who can realistically compete. You have the opportunity to attend on the Sunday, qualify, compete in the finals and win it all in one day. (I seem to remember this happening on more than one occasion in the past)
Rather than having to qualify and have the finals on different days, especially as the hotel has long since sold out.

 

[roadshow16]

Fair enough, its definitely not easy striking a balance for sure and I have definitely benefitted in the past from the Sunday morning qualifying

But would you consider making it best of 5 please. Its a small change, that has a big impact, it will probably run a bit longer, but if there is time to accommodate it, it would be excellent.

Cheers, Craig