Pipe Dream Tournament

Cameron Smith

is kind of hungry...
Silver Member
I've been really enjoying watching the MIH 14.1 event. The round robin format reminds me of a modern version of those old world championships from the early part of the 20th century.

It would be wonderful to see a real revival of those events for the sake of posterity. Invite the top 6-8 14.1 players in the world based on the winners of the few major 14.1 events that are available each year and have a double round robin event. That would be great fun.

Oh well, back to my homework.
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
Staff member
Gold Member
Silver Member
I've been really enjoying watching the MIH 14.1 event. The round robin format reminds me of a modern version of those old world championships from the early part of the 20th century.

It would be wonderful to see a real revival of those events for the sake of posterity. Invite the top 6-8 14.1 players in the world based on the winners of the few major 14.1 events that are available each year and have a double round robin event. That would be great fun.

Oh well, back to my homework.
That's not a bad idea. It would certainly cut down on the production costs. Also, if a spectator had a favorite, he would be sure of being able to see him in a bunch of long matches. I think it would be best to have a single-elimination playoff among the top four, though.

A major problem is how to select the players if it's going to be a real world championship. There are six continental confederations in the WPA, so if each wanted to send a player, you would have six to start with.

If you had eight players total including, perhaps, the reigning champ (Feijen?) and the runner-up, you could do it on two tables in fourteen rounds for a five-day tournament with a relatively relaxed schedule. The eighth player might instead be decided by an at-the-venue qualifying tournament, with additional players coming from the tournament if any Confederation failed to send someone.

Another advantage of having a fairly small number of players is that there is no need for an entry fee. I have heard that the WPA would accept a relatively low added-money amount for a 14.1 World Championship, maybe $25k or $50k. A possible prize breakdown would be $1.5k for the four who don't make the elimination round, and $4k, $8k, and $16k for the three levels of final finishers. (That's 38k total.)

Another option is to pay for the travel and lodging of all the nominated players and reduce the prize fund. That would make it possible for even poor continental confederations, such as North America, to enter a player.

I think it would be nice to have challenge matches after the round robin just like the old days. Maybe to 2000 points. Players who got into the single-elimination would be eligible to challenge.
 
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alstl

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I've been really enjoying watching the MIH 14.1 event. The round robin format reminds me of a modern version of those old world championships from the early part of the 20th century.

It would be wonderful to see a real revival of those events for the sake of posterity. Invite the top 6-8 14.1 players in the world based on the winners of the few major 14.1 events that are available each year and have a double round robin event. That would be great fun.

Oh well, back to my homework.

I believe there were qualifying events to get into the round robin event.
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
Staff member
Gold Member
Silver Member
I believe there were qualifying events to get into the round robin event.
It seemed to change for every event from what I read on Charlie Ursitti's site. There were several years when some of the players were selected by state or city championships. Other years I think the organizer (Brunswick) just announced the players.

The US Open 14.1 originally had a lot of qualifiers such as state championships. I think it is the best way to do things if you can get local organizers to help. It promotes the game at the local level.
 

mjantti

Enjoying life
Silver Member
Another option is to pay for the travel and lodging of all the nominated players and reduce the prize fund. That would make it possible for even poor continental confederations, such as North America, to enter a player.

Lol. Almost spat my coffee all over my laptop :grin-square:
 

Cameron Smith

is kind of hungry...
Silver Member
That's not a bad idea. It would certainly cut down on the production costs. Also, if a spectator had a favorite, he would be sure of being able to see him in a bunch of long matches. I think it would be best to have a single-elimination playoff among the top four, though.

A major problem is how to select the players if it's going to be a real world championship. There are six continental confederations in the WPA, so if each wanted to send a player, you would have six to start with.

If you had eight players total including, perhaps, the reigning champ (Feijen?) and the runner-up, you could do it on two tables in fourteen rounds for a five-day tournament with a relatively relaxed schedule. The eighth player might instead be decided by an at-the-venue qualifying tournament, with additional players coming from the tournament if any Confederation failed to send someone.

Another advantage of having a fairly small number of players is that there is no need for an entry fee. I have heard that the WPA would accept a relatively low added-money amount for a 14.1 World Championship, maybe $25k or $50k. A possible prize breakdown would be $1.5k for the four who don't make the elimination round, and $4k, $8k, and $16k for the three levels of final finishers. (That's 38k total.)

Another option is to pay for the travel and lodging of all the nominated players and reduce the prize fund. That would make it possible for even poor continental confederations, such as North America, to enter a player.

I think it would be nice to have challenge matches after the round robin just like the old days. Maybe to 2000 points. Players who got into the single-elimination would be eligible to challenge.

This sounds like a great framework. I think I am in agreement that there should be a four-player playoff. Perhaps if only because the end of a round robin event can be somewhat anti-climatic. Further, perhaps it reduces shenanigans a bit when there are four spots to play four as opposed to one or two.

I think there may be the need to qualify even just three more people outside of the continental federations given that 14.1 seems to be fairly localized to North America and Europe with I think maybe some interest in Asia (though from the website it looks like the include Russia in the Asian federation?). Two of which could come from the American 14.1 Championship and European 14.1 Championship respectively.

But if, as you suggest, some of the funding can be used to send players to the event then that would likely engage more interest. On the one hand it can be seen as lowering the prize fund, but on the other hand, the players would likely use part of their prize money to pay for the trip anyways. So if you allocate an appropriate amount of money to each confederation depending on where the players are coming from and the event location, perhaps it's possible to mitigate the prize fund reduction, if that makes any sense?
 

Positively Ralf

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Are the Us Open and World not open to everyone? for some reason I thought any player can pay the entrance fee and participate.
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
Staff member
Gold Member
Silver Member
Are the Us Open and World not open to everyone? for some reason I thought any player can pay the entrance fee and participate.
World Championships have confederational quotas. I think that North America generally does not fill its quota.

The event at Steinway was a great event but it was not a World Championship.

The US Open 14.1 has not had more than a few qualifiers that I know of for a long time. It used to be that most or maybe all of the players were somehow qualified.

I have heard that if the US Open 14.1 is held again, it will likely be at Griff's.
 

BayGene

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I think that Pat Fleming has been way ahead of everybody for many years. His MIH and other 14.1 Invitationals are the pattern for events, both for players and spectators. We don't need 64 players; we need the best players, and they need their expenses covered and guaranteed payoffs.
 

BayGene

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Griff's?

I'm imagining that's the one in Las Vegas. A little farther for me than Mark Kulungian's friendly room in Windsor Locks, CT.
 

Cameron Smith

is kind of hungry...
Silver Member
I think that Pat Fleming has been way ahead of everybody for many years. His MIH and other 14.1 Invitationals are the pattern for events, both for players and spectators. We don't need 64 players; we need the best players, and they need their expenses covered and guaranteed payoffs.

That was the inspiration behind the idea and to be honest the first time I started thinking about those early 20th century tournaments was the original MIH 14.1 tournament. He had pretty much every top 14.1 player in the event except John Schmidt so to me it was as legitimate a world championship as any of those early tournaments (aside from the short races to 75).

That said, the MIH tournaments are being phased out according to the recent podcast. It would be nice to see the 14.1 ones continue and a small round robin would be an ideal format for the game.

Anyhow, I'm three matches into the recent MIH event through the on-demand service and so far there have been pretty tight scorelines which has been a lot of fun.
 
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