How It Works

The PAPA 23 World Pinball Championships is a four-day tournament event held at The Pinball Capital in Stone Park, Illinois. There are three tournaments: the Main, Women's, and Classics.

Qualifying for the Main tournament will run Thursday through Saturday, with finals (split into A and B divisions based on cutoff) held on Sunday. Qualifying for the Women's and Classics tournaments will run Thursday and Friday (with a few hours of Classics qualifying Saturday morning), with finals held on Saturday. On Saturday, Women's finals will be played first, followed by Classics finals, approximately 30 minutes after qualifying closes.

Each player may make as many paid qualifying attempts as they like, up to the Hybrid Best Game cap. This cap is determined by multiplying the total number of available games in a Division by 4 (four). These attempts may be made at any time while qualifying for the division is open. The Hybrid system is a mixture of a friendlier qualifying experience than card, while implementing a hard cap on the number of entries you can purchase to curb players “buying” their way into finals.

In each qualifying attempt in Main, Women's, or Classics, each entry (sold in sets of 4 for Classics and 3 for Main/Women's) allows the player to compete on one machine. In Main the top 10 scores are counted, in Classics the top 8, and in Women's the top 6. The resulting scores are then ranked against every other score that has been recorded on each selected machine, yielding a point total (300 point scale). That total is then ranked against every other qualifying attempt in the division, including attempts by the same player. This yields an overall ranking of all players in the division. Note that qualifying attempts that have not been completed, or have been intentionally voided, are not considered in these rankings.

In the Main, the top 72 ranked players will proceed to the A division finals. The next 16 ranked players will participate in the B division finals (excepting that any player ranked #250 or better by the IFPA will not be eligible for the B division finals). During finals, players will compete in groups of four on three machines, with two players advancing from each group. In the A division, seeds #1-4 will receive three byes, seeds #5-8 two byes, and seeds #9-24 one bye.

The top 4 players age 55+ from Main qualifying will also play a Senior’s Division final on Sunday.

The top 24 players will qualify for the Women's finals. Seeds #1-8 will receive a single bye.

The top 40 players will qualify for the Classics finals. Seeds #1-4 will receive two byes, while seeds #5-16 will receive one bye.

The entirety of The Pinball Capital will be open only to those with an event pass, with a spectator area set up away from the tournament games for people to watch.

This year's logo was once again designed by the insanely talented Ryan Claytor and features the teal and purple colors for suicide awareness. This year's logo is an homage to Attack From Mars, another of Lyman’s masterpieces and a grail game for many in the hobby.