Three-cushion World Championship

mbvl · Nov 7, 2007

The tournament starts today in Ecuador with 48 players representing 22 countries. The US competitors, Mazin Shooni and Pedro Piedrabuena, face stiff competition in the opening qualifier round having been put in flights with Blomdahl and Jaspers, respectively. Only one player from each of sixteen flights of three will advance to the knockout tournament.

Two trivia questions:

1. Which country has the most players in this year's tournament? (Belgium has five players, but that is not the most.)

2. Blomdahl has won the World Championship five times. Who has won the most World Championships (an easy question) and how many times has he won that title (much harder)?

Mark

Bob Jewett · Nov 7, 2007

mbvl said:
... 1. Which country has the most players in this year's tournament? (Belgium has five players, but that is not the most.)
...

Host Ecuador has four spots thanks to the two wild card spots for the host country.

mbvl · Nov 7, 2007

I based my earlier post about the countries represented on the original Player List. According to that list there were six Turkish players. As it happens, one of the Belgians and four of the Turks are not playing. All five of those spots were filled with Ecuadorians, so there now nine players from Ecuador, four from Belgium, and four from the Netherlands.

Both Americans lost their first matches in straight sets, and have virtually no chance of advancing.

Bob Jewett · Nov 8, 2007

mbvl said:
... 2. Blomdahl has won the World Championship five times. Who has won the most World Championships (an easy question) and how many times has he won that title (much harder)? ...

For me the interesting thing about Ceulemans' world 3-C championships was how low his averages were in the first several years he won. Of course they were higher that people had previously been reaching, but below the standard today. He didn't hit a WC average of 1.500 until 1976. These days, a 1.500 is unlikely to win a world tournament.

(Readers may want visit http://www.raymondceulemans.com/ )

3kushn · Nov 8, 2007

Bob Jewett said:
For me the interesting thing about Ceulemans' world 3-C championships was how low his averages were in the first several years he won. Of course they were higher that people had previously been reaching, but below the standard today. He didn't hit a WC average of 1.500 until 1976. These days, a 1.500 is unlikely to win a world tournament.

(Readers may want visit http://www.raymondceulemans.com/ )

The sign of a true champion. He raised his game to meet the challenge palying better averages in his later years than his championship run. Not to mention the game changing to give others a chance to beat him before the young punks came up with the 2.0's+ averages.

mbvl · Nov 9, 2007

Bob Jewett said:
...These days, a 1.500 is unlikely to win a world tournament.

I definitely agree with that, but with eight of the preliminary flights finished, only one of the advancing players is averaging over 1.5. The qualifiers so far are Merckx (1.380), Blomdahl (1.446), Caudron (1.378), Sanchez (1.942), Jaspers (1.266), Forthomme (1.360), Nelin (1.344), and Polychronopoulos (1.303).

If it weren't for Sanchez, I'd say maybe the tables are playing funny.

Drawman623 · Nov 11, 2007

Ceulemans

You've got me stumped on how many times he won. The man is impressive each time he plays though. His mastry of speed makes his play a delight to watch.

Despite my not knowing the answer, I hope you will let me pose a question in response: Who was runner up most during Ceuleman's time as champion?

mbvl · Nov 11, 2007

Drawman623 said:
You've got me stumped on how many times he won. The man is impressive each time he plays though. His mastry of speed makes his play a delight to watch.

Despite my not knowing the answer, I hope you will let me pose a question in response: Who was runner up most during Ceuleman's time as champion?

Based on information posted on Kozoom at the start of this year's tournament, Ceulemans won the World Title 21 times. (I would have got it wrong myself, since I had the number 19 firmly in mind.) I have looked around a bit for confirmation, and haven't found it yet. As far as runnerup position, I don't know the answer, but during one stretch it seemed as if Kobayashi was coming in second much of the time.

Mark

mbvl · Nov 11, 2007

I just looked again and found a complete list of the top three finishers for every year that the World Champion has been declared since 1928. The list shows 21 titles for Ceulemans. Nobuaki Kobayashi had two firsts, ten seconds, and four thirds. He was second to Ceulemans eight times.

Mark

Bob Jewett · Nov 11, 2007

mbvl said:
The tournament starts today in Ecuador with 48 players representing 22 countries. ...

The results are available on www.umb.org and Ryuuji Umeda is the new world champion at three cushion. He beat Dani Sanchez in the finals. In the semi-finals, he beat Dick Jaspers as Jaspers had a very uncharacteristic 1.05 match average. Umeda had a very respectable over-all average of 1.426 for the tournament. Of the final 8, only Sanchez was much above this with a 1.805. Umeda went into the tournament ranked 14th in the world.

Bob Jewett
President, USBA

Bob Jewett · Nov 11, 2007

mbvl said:
I just looked again and found a complete list of the top three finishers for every year that the World Champion has been declared since 1928. The list shows 21 titles for Ceulemans. Nobuaki Kobayashi had two firsts, ten seconds, and four thirds. He was second to Ceulemans eight times.

Mark

If you compare the sites that show 21 titles with Raymond's web site, it looks like his 1990 championship was a BWA championship. His count seems to be 20 UMB championships and 3 BWA championships.

Boro Nut · Nov 12, 2007

mbvl said:
I just looked again and found a complete list of the top three finishers for every year that the World Champion has been declared since 1928. The list shows 21 titles for Ceulemans.

Actually he has 23 titles. You're completely forgetting 'Mister Ceulemans' and 'Herr Ceulemans'.

Boro Nut

Bob Jewett · Nov 12, 2007

Boro Nut said:
Actually he has 23 titles. You're completely forgetting 'Mister Ceulemans' and 'Herr Ceulemans'.

Boro Nut

Since he was knighted, I think he is also Chevalier Raymond or something like that depending on which part of the future Belgium/Flanders/Wallonia/??? he ends up in.

Three-cushion World Championship

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