Story dated May 8, 2006 .

Two recently launched ventures are aiming to record pinball playing excellence, both in book form and on the web.

The start of April saw the official unveiling of the revamped International Flipper Pinball Association (IFPA) to promote competitive pinball playing around the world. Coupled with that was the World Pinball Player Rankings website to record players' scores and award them points.

The IFPA is jointly run by Roger Sharpe and Steve Epstein with the aim of increasing the amount of competitive pinball playing both by supporting existing tournaments but also by fostering the introduction of competitions in new and existing shows and leagues. Neither man is any stranger to pinball competition. Besides being talented players, they established the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association (PAPA) in the late 1970s, an organisation now run by Kevin Martin and acknowledged as the world's premier competitive pinball event.

Alongside the IFPA is the World Pinball Player Rankings (WPPR) - a website to record all the points scored in affiliated tournaments and provide player rankings.

Run by Josh Sharpe, the WPPR website is updated on the first of each month with the points scores from the previous month and lists all those players with qualifying points. Many pinball shows around the world are now affiliated with the IFPA and award WPPR points for their tournaments. Points are valid for three years but reduce in value each year, making the most current performances the most relevant.

People organising tournaments should get in touch with Josh to see if, and how, their event can be included in the WPPR calendar of points-scoring competitions.

We have made it easier to identify those events with WPPR points scoring status in the Pinball News Diary section by marking them with a symbol.

Meanwhile, that other documenter of achievement - the Guinness World Records book - is to accept pinball scores for the first time.

To mark pinball's inclusion, pinball record keeper Twin Galaxies organised an inaugural event at the Pinball Hall Of Fame last weekend. The book will show the highest scores achieved on ten different games - The Addams Family, Twilight Zone, South Park, Taxi, Creature From The Black Lagoon, Scared Stiff, Kings And Queens, Captain Fantastic, Wizard and Lawman.

The scores achieved at the event were:

The Addams Family	1,591,573,470	Jim Belsito
Twilight Zone	1,726,330,320	Jim Belsito
South Park	456,968,070	Tony Moore
Taxi	19,507,390	Tony Moore
Creature from Black Lagoon	1,015,433,710	Jim Belsito
Scared Stiff	69,895,370	Craig Sengstock
Kings and Queens	2,243	Michael Frankovich
Captain Fantastic	245,240	Tom Neighbors
Wizard	190,240	Tom Neighbors
Lawman	159,530	Brian Weilbacher

 It is expected that further recorded events will be played at the Hall of Fame to give other players a shot at the record. This one was arranged to set the records before the book Editors' deadline for entries of 1st May 2006 to get into the 2007 edition.