World Straight Pool Championship
The World Straight Pool Championship, now marked as simply the World 14.1 Tournament,[lower-alpha 1] 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 Pocket Billiards 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 currently 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 a different name of the World 14.1 Tournament without WPA sanctioning. Ralph Greenleaf is the most successful player having won the tournament on twenty occasions. The oldest player to win the tournament is Irving Crane at 59 years old at the time of his victory. The youngest player to win the tournament is Ralph Greenleaf at 20 years old at the time of his victory.
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
In 1910, Jerome Keough (USA) invented the 14.1-continuous game.[5]
1912–1967, traditional era (multiple titles per year)
1968–present, modern era (one title per year)
Top performers (traditional era)
Rank | Name | Nationality | Winner |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Ralph Greenleaf | ![]() |
20 |
2 | Willie Mosconi | ![]() |
19 |
3 | Frank Taberski | ![]() |
15 |
4 | Luther Lassiter | ![]() |
7 |
5 | Bennie Allen | ![]() |
6 |
6 | Erwin Rudolph | ![]() |
5 |
Jimmy Caras | ![]() |
5 | |
7 | Andrew Ponzi | ![]() |
4 |
Alfredo de Oro | ![]() |
4 | |
8 | Irving Crane | ![]() |
3 |
9 | Joe Balsis | ![]() |
2 |
- In the event of identical records, players are sorted in alphabetical order by first name.
Top performers (modern era)
Rank | Name | Nationality | Winner |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Thorsten Hohmann | ![]() |
5 |
2 | Mike Sigel | ![]() |
4 |
3 | Irving Crane | ![]() |
3 |
Ray Martin | ![]() |
3 | |
4 | Nick Varner | ![]() |
2 |
Oliver Ortmann | ![]() |
2 | |
Steve Mizerak | ![]() |
2 |
- Active players are shown in bold.
- In the event of identical records, players are sorted in alphabetical order by first name.
See also
Cue sports portal
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.
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.
- "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.