In the old days, they often used a round robin format to choose the world champion, but usually only invited 8 players. Since the games were only to 125, you still had the element of luck (ie. running into a "hot player"). The only championships Willie Mosconi lost were under this format (the tie breaker was total number of balls). The champion could always accept challenges (as in boxing), and these were often multi-city extravaganza's where the challenger and champ would play to 2,000 or 2,500. Mosconi only lost 1 of these affairs (to Ralph Greenleaf, well before Mosconi's prime). One or two years later, Mosconi destroyed Greenleaf in a long, multi-city contest (but Greenleaf was on his way down - their ages were different enough that they never played each other at their peak of proficiency). Mosconi was emphatic that no pool player alive (or dead) could ever have beaten him in a long race; his offensive skills were unparalleled and in a long race the crafty defensive players were at a little bit of disadvantage. My father always thought Mosconi (before his stroke) was a much better shotmaker than Luther Lassiter (who he placed at number 2).
