Hello Washington Pinheads!
It’s officially time to look at the 2024 SPL season. I’m excited to announce that we’ll have 9 regular season events. Pleaseread below for details on the season (especially for those new to the league),pricing updates, and information on our first event hosted by Rod Olsen inFebruary. As always, you can also find details on the website, http://www.splpinball.com.
The schedule for those 9 events, and a 10thfinals event, will be as follows:
February 10, 2024: Olsen’s Home in Seattle
March 23, 2024: McClintocks’ Home in Monroe
April 13, 2024: Terry’s Home in Kent
May 18, 2024: Chesborough’s Home in Kenmore
June 2024: NO SPL EVENT (NWPAS in Tacoma!)
July 13, 2024: Kotchon’s Home in Killman City
August 10, 2024: Donaldson’s Home in Marysville
September 21, 2024: NW Pinball Collective’s Sanctuary inSeattle
October 12, 2024: Shere’s Home in Shoreline
November 9, 2024: Edes’ Home in Milton
December 7, 2024: Finals Venue TBD
Season Details and Pricing:
The Seattle Pinball League is an all-ages group of pinballplayers in the greater Seattle area who meet (nearly) monthly on Saturdays fordaytime handicapped pinball events at the homes of various pinball collectorsand players in the area.
Each event has its own self-contained tournament with cashpayouts to the top 4. Additionally, the performance of all players ineach event is recorded and tracked to determine overall player rankings foreach year-long season. At the end of the year/season, the top-rankedplayers compete in a tournament of champions to determine the positions of allplayers and the overall winner of the league for that season. Seasonrankings are determined based on performance at 8-out-of-9 events (dropping thelowest-ranked event, or one event that was missed).
SPL is no longer IFPA-ranked – the league’s purpose is funcompetition and a bit of cash.
The handicapping system makes the league accessible and funfor players of all skill levels. Handicaps are assigned to each player asa value between 1 (lowest ranked) and 5 (highest ranked). An unrankedplayer starts with a handicap of 3, but that gets adjusted immediately afterthe first event. A player’s handicap will raise or lower based onperformance at previous events. Players are grouped together againstother players with similar handicaps.
Membership for the season is $40 (a $5 increase from 5 yearsago). Each event is then $10 for members (a $3 increase from 5 yearsago). Guests (non-members) may also attend any events, for $20 per event(a $5 increase from 5 years ago). While I would have loved to keep thememberships and buy-ins the same as 2019, I crunched a lot of numbers and themath just doesn’t work for good payouts at each event plus money left over forfinals at the end of the season. I’m basing expectations around thenumber of single-event participants I saw in 2023 at the events I hosted, andif we get more participants than expected, then there will be that much morecash up for grabs in the finals.
