World Straight Pool Championship
The World Straight Pool Championship, sometimes marked as simply the World Tournament among other names,[a] is a pool) competition, that has been held annually in United States in its present form since 2006. It is one of the successor tournaments (also including the American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship) to the historical World 14.1 Continuous Championship (1912–1990). During the modern tournament's early years, it was the only global professional title for straight pool (also known as 14.1 continuous). The event is organized by Dragon Promotions, in part to restore the game's popularity in the United States.[1] Throughout the current event's history, only the 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2010 editions were sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) to be world championships.[2] Since then, the tournament continues to be held under its current name without WPA sanctioning.
Format
All 64 players are divided into 8 groups where they play in round-robin format. Each match in this round is a race to 100 points. The leading 4 players in each group proceed to the next round.[3]
The games of the last-32 round are played in double-elimination format until 16 players remain. Matches are extended to races to 150 points.[3]
The games in the last-16 round are played in single-elimination format, and matches are extended, to races to 200 points.[3] The finals match is further extended to a race to 300 points (with a half-hour break occurring when a player reaches 150).[4]
Winners
Early World 14.1 Continuous Championship tournaments
In 1911, Jerome Keough (USA) invented the 14.1-continuous game.[5]
- 1912–1913: Alfredo DeOro (Cuba)
- 1916–1928: Frank Taberski (USA) – won 14×
- 1919–1937: Ralph Greenleaf (USA) – won 16×
- 1927: Thomas Hueston
- 1927–1941: Erwin Rudolph (USA) – won 5×
- 1935–1938: Jimmy Caras (USA) – won 4×
- 1940–1943: Andrew Ponzi (USA) – won 3×
- 1941–1956: Willie Mosconi (USA) – won 19×
- 1942–1972: Irving Crane (USA) – won 6×
- 1963–1967: Luther Lassiter USA) – won 7×
- 1965: Cisero Murphy (USA) – only African-American champion
- 1969: Ed Kelly (USA)
- 1971–1978: Ray Martin (USA) – won 3×
- 1973: Lou Butera (USA)
- 1976: Larry Lisciotti (USA)
- 1977: Allen Hopkins (USA)
- 1979–1985: Mike Sigel (USA) – won 3×
- 1980–1986: Nick Varner (USA) – won 2×
- 1982–1983: Steve Mizerak (USA) – won 2×
- 1990: Bobby Hunter (USA)[6][b]
Dragon Promotions events
*WPA-sanctioned world championship
Notes
- ^ In some news releases, including some pages in the event's website, names like World 14.1 Tournament or World Tournament of 14.1 are sometimes used. However, the recent website's title page, and promotional pages simply use World Tournament (76th World Tournament, 77th World Tournament. 78th World Tournament, etc.). A different numbering system has also sometimes been used, starting with the first Dragon Promotions event, and including the name of that year's major sponsor, e.g. The BottleDeck.net 7th World 14.1 Tournament.
- ^ This 1990 event was not produced by Dragon Promotions, which did not yet exist. The company, however, includes Hunter (but no one earlier) in the list of winners which can be seen on the current tournament trophy.
References
- ^ "The World Straight Pool Championship". AZ Billiards. September 29, 2005. Archived from the original on 2011-06-13. Retrieved August 25, 2008.
- ^ "Players: World Champions". WPA-Pool.com. Sydney, Australia: World Pool-Billiard Association. November 2011. Archived from the original on February 15, 2012. Retrieved November 5, 2011.
- ^ a b c "2008 Predator World 14.1 Championship Group Pairings". AZ Billiards. August 24, 2008. Retrieved August 25, 2008.
- ^ "Billiards: Corteza becomes 1st Asian to win World 14.1 Straight Pool title". ABS-CBN News. October 11, 2017. Retrieved October 11, 2017.
- ^ "The World Tournament – Hall of Fame". TheWorldTournament.com. Dragon Promotions.
- ^ "2018 78th World 14.1 - News". Forums.AZBilliards.com.
- ^ "The BottleDeck.net 7th World 14.1 Tournament: 12 Player Single Elimination: Race 200 / Finals Race to 300" (PDF). BottleDeck.net. August 19, 2018. Retrieved August 22, 2018 – via Docs.WixStatic.com.
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