Pinball Tournaments: Where to Find Them, Which to Enter, and How to Win

Competitive pinball is structured, worldwide, and far more accessible than it looks: everything goes through the IFPA (International Flipper Pinball Association), its public calendar, and its WPPR rankings. There is no membership fee, no license, no qualifying requirement to get started: you play a sanctioned tournament, the tournament director submits the results, and you're ranked worldwide. Here's where to find tournaments, what they're for, how the formats work — and the techniques that actually win you places.

How competitive pinball is organized

A single body governs it all: the IFPA. It sanctions tournaments, publishes the worldwide calendar, and maintains the WPPR (World Pinball Player Rankings), in place since 2006 and now in version 6.2. The player with the most WPPR points on December 31 is crowned "World's Greatest Pinball Player" for the year.

How a tournament "earns" points

This is the point everyone gets wrong. The value of a win doesn't depend on tournament size alone, but on three multiplied ingredients:

• Base value: 0.5 WPPR points per "Rated" player (a player becomes Rated after 5 sanctioned tournaments), capped at 32 points — reached at 64 Rated players.
• Tournament Value Added (TVA): up to +25 points based on the rating of the players present, and up to +50 points based on their ranking. Beating the world #1 pays off: their presence alone adds 1.46 points to the pot.
• TGP: the IFPA itself clarifies that the acronym stands for both Tournament Grading Percentage and Total Games Played. Each "meaningful game" played by the winner adds 4%. Cap is 100%, or 200% if the tournament has genuine qualifying rounds and an elimination finals. Tip to know: a round in groups of 4 counts double (one round of 3 games = 6 meaningful games).
• Event Booster: x200% for a Major, x150% for an IFPA Championship Series or "Certified+" event, x125% for a "Certified" tournament. Theoretical maximum: 200% TGP x 200% booster = 400%.

Two vital rules for competitors: only your top 15 active results count, and points decay (100% of their value in the first year, 75% in the second, 50% in the third, zero beyond three years). The ranking rewards consistency, not a single flash of brilliance from five years ago.

Where to find a tournament (practically)

• The IFPA calendar — ifpapinball.com/calendar: filters by country (France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada), by radius in kilometers, and by sanctioning level. It's the only comprehensive source.
• The league directory — ifpapinball.com/leagues: this is where you should start, not at a Major.
• Match Play Events — matchplay.events: the software that runs virtually every tournament on the planet since 2015 (created and maintained by Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen, also behind PinTips and the OPDB). Pairings, scores, and standings live on your phone during the tournament.

What about France?

A necessary clarification, because there's a lot of nonsense out there: there is no official "French Pinball Federation." The actual structure is the IFPA French Championship Series (FCS): all IFPA-sanctioned tournaments played in France from January 1 to December 31 count toward it, and the top 64 compete in the FCS finals the following year for the title of IFPA French champion. The winner (or the highest-ranked player not yet qualified) earns a spot at the European Championship and one at the IFPA World Championship. The IFPA Country Director for France is Archibald Lefevre.

In terms of volume, as of July 13, 2026: 1,224 French players are ranked by the IFPA, compared to 454 in Belgium, 352 in Switzerland, 4,632 in Canada, and 49,010 in the United States. France is therefore the top French-speaking European country in the field — and the most decorated Frenchman at Majors is Franck Bona, with two European Championship titles and six top-4 finishes at Majors.

The big tournaments: which ones to aim for

The IFPA officially recognizes five "Majors" (x200% booster): IFPA World Pinball Championship, PAPA World Pinball Championships, European Pinball Championships, Pinburgh Match-Play Championship, and THE OPEN. The record for Major wins is held by Keith Elwin: 11 titles (6 PAPA, 5 Pinburgh).

Tournament	Where / when (2026)	Entry	Format
IFPA World Pinball Championship	June 5–7, 2026, District 82, De Pere (Wisconsin, USA)	By invitation: 80 players from over 20 countries, 77 of whom qualify via WPPR ranking as of January 1	The most prestigious event on the circuit. Won this year by Jason Zahler, also world #1.
Pinburgh Match-Play Championship	July 22–26, 2026, Bridgeville (Pittsburgh, PA)	Open — $350 entry fee	The monster. 10 rounds of 4 games in groups of 4 (scoring 3/2/1/0, 12 points max per round), meaning 20 hours of play against 30 guaranteed opponents. Split into A/B/C divisions after day 1, top 24 per division in the finals. Over $60,000 in prize money.
PAPA World Pinball Championships	September 10–13, 2026, Stone Park (Illinois)	Open — $150 (12 entries included), 250 spots	Revived in 2024 after a hiatus since 2017, under the name "LFS Memorial for Suicide Awareness," in memory of Lyman F. Sheats Jr. Qualifying in Hybrid Best Game, top 72 in Division A.
THE OPEN — IFPA World Championship	Held within INDISC	Open to all	Created specifically to offer a world title accessible without invitation.
INDISC (It Never Drains in Southern California)	February 4–7, 2027, Murrieta Hot Springs Resort (California)	Open	4 days, 8 tournaments including THE OPEN, a Classics championship, a women's championship, and a youth championship.
IFPA European Pinball Championship (EPC)	April 10–12, 2026, Lund Pinball Academy (Sweden) — 10th edition	64 players: 49 via European Championship Series points, 14 spots reserved for national champions (including France), 1 spot from the women's series	The European showdown. This is your realistic goal if you're based in France.
IFPA Pin-Masters	March 6–8, 2026, ORD Pinball, West Chicago (IL)	Open	Watch out for the misconception: this is the Pin-Golf World Championship ("IFPA Pin-Masters: World Pin-Golf Championships"), not a circuit final.
Stern Pro Circuit	Season of 20 tournaments; finals in Chicago	Top 32 of the season	Elite circuit co-organized by Stern Pinball and the IFPA since 2018.

Beyond these, two events to put on your calendar even if you're not playing to win: the Texas Pinball Festival (March 20–22, 2026, Frisco) and the Pinball Expo (October 14–17, 2026, Schaumburg, near Chicago) — the oldest pinball show, established in 1985.

The formats, properly explained

Understanding the format is already winning you places: the right strategy differs depending on the rules.

Format	How it works	What it changes for you
Group Match Play (the most common)	Over N rounds, you're paired in groups of 4 (or 3). You score based on your finish position. No elimination: points accumulate.	Official scoring systems: IFPA 7/5/3/1 · PAPA 4/2/1/0 · Pinburgh 3/2/1/0. All three are correct — they're simply different scoring scales.
Best Game ("Herb")	No opponent: you play solo on a bank of machines, and your best game on each machine is compared to everyone else's. (The name reportedly comes from Herb Silvers — reported by the community, not confirmed by an official source.)	Variants: Limited (fixed number of entries), Unlimited (unlimited), Hybrid. Strategically, this is the all-or-nothing format: take risks.
PAPA-style (card)	You play a "card" of several back-to-back games, and your best card counts — not your best individual game.	Rewards consistency. As PAPA puts it, this makes it "practically impossible to buy your way into qualifying" through sheer number of entries. Here, you dial back the risk.
Knockout / Strikes	Each poor finish earns a strike. At N strikes, you're eliminated. The "fair strikes" scoring in groups of 4: 0/1/1/2.	A tense, fast format. Avoiding last place becomes the goal, rather than winning.
Flip Frenzy	Fixed duration (e.g. 3 hours). Head-to-head matches are created continuously; players without a match queue up. Winner = best wins minus losses record.	The most beginner-friendly format for a first tournament: you play a lot and never sit around waiting.
Pin-Golf (Pingolf)	Each machine is a "hole" with a target score. The number of balls needed to reach it = your number of "strokes." The lowest total wins.	Completely changes the game: you're not chasing a high score, you're chasing minimum efficiency.
Selfie League	Play whenever you want during the month and submit your score yourself (photo of the DMD).	Worth knowing: the IFPA does not count the unverified qualifying phase toward the TGP — it only serves to establish the finals bracket.

Your first tournament: what to expect

1. Register for the ranking? Not needed. Official IFPA answer: play a sanctioned event, the tournament director (TD) submits the results, and you automatically become a world-ranked player. You receive an IFPA number and can create a profile. No membership fee.
2. Start with a league or a monthly, not a Major. Majors are expensive ($350 for Pinburgh, $150 for PAPA) and book up months in advance; a local tournament typically costs about the price of a movie ticket. We won't give a precise range for France: we couldn't find a reliable primary source to pin it down, and it's better to check the tournament listing on the IFPA calendar.
3. You'll be "Rated" after 5 tournaments. Before that, your rating is provisional (1300 by default, Glicko system). Don't judge yourself on your first three results.
4. Rules to know from day one: coaching a player while they're at the machine is prohibited; there's a yellow/red card system; gambling is strictly forbidden (one-year removal from WPPR rankings); if you're absent for more than 3 minutes without notifying the TD, they'll plunge the ball for you.
5. Watch out for divisions. The IFPA only awards WPPR points to open divisions. Winning Division B or the novice bracket is great — but it earns no Open ranking points.

How to win: techniques that actually work

The descriptions below follow the official PAPA Player's Guide. Terminology and techniques are those of competitive play, not bar-room wisdom.

The foundation: ball control

• Cradle (trap). Immobilize the ball on a raised flipper. This is the absolute prerequisite: until you can trap the ball, you're not aiming, you're reacting.
• Dead bounce. The most underrated skill. PAPA's advice is literally: "Do nothing!". Let the ball bounce off a lowered flipper: it loses speed and travels, often to the other flipper. The entire skill lies in knowing when not to flip.

Intermediate moves (the ones that win tournaments)

• Drop catch. You release the button just before the ball makes contact: the ball hits a descending flipper, loses its energy, and rolls back up the inlane instead of flying back into play. Critical condition: the drop catch only works when the ball is coming toward the flipper. If it's heading for the center drain, lowering the flipper will only guide it into the drain.
• Live catch (catch on the fly). The opposite: it works when the ball is heading toward the center drain. The idea is to time the end of the flipper's upstroke with the ball's arrival — ideally, the flipper reaches its highest point at the exact moment it touches the ball, which dies on the spot.
• Post pass. To transfer a trapped ball from one flipper to the other: bounce it off the lower part of the slingshot just above. The button timing varies from machine to machine — this is a move you have to relearn on every pinball machine.
• Flick pass. When the ball is moving too fast to trap: you briefly release the button as the ball reaches the tip of the flipper, producing a flick that sends it to the other side.
• Tap pass. A short, sharp tap on the button: the flipper only partially engages and sends the ball just to the opposite flipper, instead of launching it to the top of the playfield. Especially effective on older solid-state machines.
• Loop pass. Transfer via an orbit, on machines where the orbit feeds to the opposite flipper: lower the flipper just before the ball arrives.

Nudging the machine: what's allowed and what isn't

Nudging is perfectly legal and omnipresent in tournament play. The PAPA/IFPA rules explicitly allow shaking the machine to free a stuck ball — provided the benefit isn't infinitely reproducible. The slap save (striking the side of the machine at the precise moment you hit the nearest flipper button, to virtually "extend" the flipper's reach toward the center drain) is a standard high-level technique.

However, two techniques are explicitly banned by the PAPA/IFPA rules (Section III.6): the death save and the bang back. Official reason: their effectiveness varies from machine to machine, and more importantly they carry a risk of injury to the player and damage to the machine (sprained or broken wrists). Also banned are shooter-lane juggling and shooter-lane cradle, because a high-level player can exploit them to stretch a game for hours. Useful nuance: if a drained ball returns to play on its own without deliberate action from the player (a so-called "lazarus"), that's just the mechanical nature of pinball — you can play it.

The tilt

The rules are clear: losing your tilt warnings without losing the ball is not considered a major malfunction — you'll get no compensation. However, waiting for the tilt pendulum to settle is allowed: take that time, it's free. The mental rule to internalize: your warnings are a resource, not a safety net. Spend them early, on the balls that matter, not in a panic on the last one.

Strategy: play the format, not the machine

PAPA puts it well: "Every flip counts!" — every flip should have a specific goal. And above all, the right level of risk depends on the format:

• Best Game qualifying (multiple attempts, only the best counts) → take maximum risks. A failed game costs nothing. Go for multiball and the jackpot, even if the game might collapse.
• PAPA-style card qualifying (several back-to-back games, the card counts) → reduce the risk. A single bad game ruins four good performances. Play it safe.
• Head-to-head or group match play → play the target score. Constantly monitor what your opponents are doing: a guaranteed 2nd place is often worth more than going for 1st and finishing 4th. With a 7/5/3/1 scoring system, the gap between 2nd and 4th place (4 points) is bigger than between 1st and 2nd (2 points).

One last competitor's reflex, before you plunge your ball: test the flipper responsiveness, note the outlane positions, read the rulecard and any TD instructions posted on the backglass. Thirty seconds, and you're already playing better than half the room.

Where to really learn

Resources recommended by the IFPA itself: PINBALL 101, the tutorial series by Keith Elwin (don't confuse them: Bowen Kerins, another circuit legend with 5 Major titles, is the author of many PAPA video tutorials and rulesheets, but Pinball 101 is by Elwin), the PAPA video tutorials, PinTips, and the rulesheets from the Pinball Archive.

FAQ

How do I enter a pinball tournament as a beginner?

Go to the official IFPA calendar (ifpapinball.com/calendar), filter by country and radius from your location, and sign up for a local league or monthly tournament — not a Major. There is no license or membership fee: as soon as the tournament director submits the results, you become a world-ranked player and receive an IFPA number.

What is the WPPR ranking?

The WPPR (World Pinball Player Rankings) is the IFPA's worldwide ranking, in place since 2006. A tournament's value depends on the number of ranked players present, the strength of the field, the number of games played (the TGP, +4% per meaningful game), and a multiplier (up to x200% for a Major). Only your top 15 active results count, and points lose value over time (100% in the first year, 75% in the second, 50% in the third, zero beyond three years).

Is there a French pinball federation?

Not under that name. There is no official "French Pinball Federation." The actual competitive structure is the IFPA French Championship Series (FCS): all IFPA-sanctioned tournaments played in France during the year count toward it, and the top 64 compete in the national finals. The winner earns a spot at the European Championship and one at the IFPA World Championship.

What is the biggest pinball tournament in the world?

The Pinburgh Match-Play Championship (Pittsburgh, July 22–26 in 2026) is the largest open tournament: $350 entry fee, 10 rounds of 4 games in groups of 4, meaning 20 hours of play against 30 guaranteed opponents, followed by division finals (A/B/C). The IFPA World Championship is more prestigious but by invitation only: just 80 players, qualified via the WPPR ranking.

Are nudging and slap saves allowed in tournaments?

Yes. Nudging (shaking the machine) and the slap save are legal and commonly used at the highest level. What is banned by the PAPA/IFPA rules are the death save and the bang back — prohibited due to the risk of injury to the player and damage to the machine — as well as shooter-lane juggling and shooter-lane cradle.

What technique should I learn first to improve?

The cradle (trapping the ball on a raised flipper), then the dead bounce (letting the ball bounce off a lowered flipper, without flipping). These are the two foundations: until you can immobilize the ball and choose not to flip, all advanced moves (drop catch, live catch, post pass) are unusable. The drop catch comes next — keeping in mind that it only works when the ball is coming toward the flipper.

Sources & further reading

• IFPA — Worldwide tournament calendar · WPPR v6.2 ranking rules · TGP guide
• IFPA French Championship Series (French national championship)
• PAPA — Player's Guide (the reference for gameplay techniques)
• Complete PAPA/IFPA Competition Rules (PDF)
• Match Play Events — format and scoring documentation
• Pinburgh Match-Play Championship · PAPA World Pinball Championships · INDISC
• IFPA — Resources for learning to play (Pinball 101, PAPA tutorials, PinTips)
• IFPA — The five Majors and their records