Seattle Monday Night Pinball Handicapping
Starting with the Fall 2025 Season, handicapping is used in each team match, in the form of providing teams with Handicap Points (H) based on team strength, with weaker teams getting more H points, and stronger teams getting less.
The goal of handicapping is to balance out the strength of teams beyond just the team cap, so that teams who provide opportunities to lower-ranked players are not in as much of a disadvantage as compared to teams that stack themselves with the best players.
Under this new system, the Match Bonus Points, (B column on website Match pages), for full team participation still apply. That is +9 for having all ten players and everyone playing 3 games, or +4 for having nine players and all nine playing at least 3 games.
In addition, the Handicap Points, (H column on website Match Pages), will be calculated as follows:- +1 H point for every 2 IPR below a Team IPR baseline of 50, based on attending players that night, up to a maximum of 15 points.
- In cases where a team plays with 7, 8, or 9 players, the IPR used for the missing player(s) will be obtained by averaging the IPR of the players who played in all four rounds.
Given the above, the maximum number of Handicap Points a team can earn is 15 points. Computing Handicap Points relative to a baseline of 50 ensures that overall points can still be used as a fair tie breaker within the standings. Note that this change does NOT change the Team IPR cap of 36, nor the rules associated with adding players or subs to stay below that team cap. The site software is updated to do B and H computations automatically. However, the board has the right to update a match's bonus points afterwards, to correct errors that might have been incurred by software, especially due to an improper IPR used for a player.