World Champions, Past and Present?

Big Dave

Big Dave

Pool Hack!!!
Silver Member
List of 14.1 World Champions?

"The World Tournament is the oldest tournament in history that still exists today. Invented by Jerome Keough and shortly after recognized as the official game of billiards. The first World Tournament of 14.1 was held in 1911 and won by Alfredo DeOro. In its history due to war and economics, the World Tournament had 29 tournaments that did not take place including a 15 year gap between 1990-2005 until Dragon Promotions revived the game and the World Tournament in 2006. It has taken place every year since."

1911 - Alfredo DeOro - Cuba
-
-
-
2006 - Thorsten Hohmann - Germany
2007 - Oliver Ortmann - Germany
2008 - Niels Feijen - Netherlands
2009 - Stephan Cohen - France
2010 - Oliver Ortmann - Germany

Can anyone point me to a definitive list to fill in the gaps please?
 
Big Dave said:
List of 14.1 World Champions?

"The World Tournament is the oldest tournament in history that still exists today. Invented by Jerome Keough and shortly after recognized as the official game of billiards. The first World Tournament of 14.1 was held in 1911 and won by Alfredo DeOro. In its history due to war and economics, the World Tournament had 29 tournaments that did not take place including a 15 year gap between 1990-2005 until Dragon Promotions revived the game and the World Tournament in 2006. It has taken place every year since."

1911 - Alfredo DeOro - Cuba
-
-
-
2006 - Thorsten Hohmann - Germany
2007 - Oliver Ortmann - Germany
2008 - Niels Feijen - Netherlands
2009 - Stephan Cohen - France
2010 - Oliver Ortmann - Germany

Can anyone point me to a definitive list to fill in the gaps please?
Click to expand...

Actually I believe Jerome Keough won the first 14.1 tournament . i thought it was 1912 but according to the rulebook it had to be 1910
DeOro won it many times but not the first one.
Keough was the person responsible for the rule change and had about a year of practice at the new game over the other players.
Also, the BCA rulebooks have the list of champions in the back for pocket billiards.
Good luck with your research , there is a ton of misinformation to wade through.
 
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Big Dave said:
List of 14.1 World Champions?

"The World Tournament is the oldest tournament in history that still exists today. Invented by Jerome Keough and shortly after recognized as the official game of billiards. The first World Tournament of 14.1 was held in 1911 and won by Alfredo DeOro. In its history due to war and economics, the World Tournament had 29 tournaments that did not take place including a 15 year gap between 1990-2005 until Dragon Promotions revived the game and the World Tournament in 2006. It has taken place every year since."

1911 - Alfredo DeOro - Cuba
-
-
-
2006 - Thorsten Hohmann - Germany
2007 - Oliver Ortmann - Germany
2008 - Niels Feijen - Netherlands
2009 - Stephan Cohen - France
2010 - Oliver Ortmann - Germany

Can anyone point me to a definitive list to fill in the gaps please?
Click to expand...

One sticking point may be what is defined as a "world championship."

There is one school of thought that in order for it to be a so-called "world championship," the event must be ranked by the WPA.

According to the WPA website, The World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) is the international governing body for pocket billiards. The group was formed in Germany in November of 1987, as a result of the efforts of the European Pocket Billiard Federation.

The popularity of 14.1 waned in the U.S. in the middle to late 20th century, though I am unable to pinpoint a date.

On the WPA website: WPA tournaments have grown considerably. In addition to the World 9-Ball Championships for men, women and juniors, there is an annual World 8-Ball Championship for men, World 10-Ball Championships for both men and women, along with several World Ranking events that are conducted each year in all parts of the globe. In 2011 more than 3 million dollars in prize money will be awarded to players through these competitions.

There is not a mention of straight pool championships.

Here is an extremely interesting article from the Sports Illustrated Vault. It did state that Steve Mizerak won four consecutive championships in a row, but in 1976, a fairly unknown Larry Lisciotti defeated Steve Mizerak and became a straight pool champion title-holder for that year. You'll enjoy this article if you like straight pool: UNKNOWN LARRY LISCIOTTI CHALKED UP A TOURNEY FUNDED BY HIS OPPONENTS

So who's to say what is a world tournament when it comes to 14.1. We now know that Steve Mizerak won four straight pool "world" championships in a row, besting Willie Mosconi's record, according to the above-referenced article, and Larry "Prince of Pool" Lisciotti won a "world" championship in 1976. The article also states that Willie was the "world" champ in 1955. :smile:
 
Source:
The Billiard Encyclopedia
An Illustrated History of the Sport
Second Edition
Victor Stein & Paul Rubino

“The first professional straight pool tournament was held in Philadelphia`s Horticultural Hall from March 25 through April 6, 1912”.
Before this time the championship for pocket billiards was called “continuous pool” where all the balls were racked, including the last ball. Jerome Keough came up with the idea of leaving the last ball on the table and using it as the “break shot” thereby creating the new version of the game of straight pool or 14.1, as it is sometimes called. The winner of that first tournament was Edward Ralph and the high run was 46 by Alfred De Oro.


Source: internet:
Champions who followed included Alfred De Oro, Bennie Allen, W. Emmett Blankenship, Jonny Layton, Frank Taberski, Ralf Greenleaf, Erwin Rudolph, Andrew Ponzi, Jimmy Caras, Willie Mosconi, Irving Crane, Luther Lassiter (among others) and so on into the modern era. See Billiards: the official rules & records book By Billiard Congress of America for the official list of dates.


http://books.google.com/books?id=mX...#v=onepage&q=frank taberski billiards&f=false

This address will get you to the page with the list of champions and the dates up until 1990.
 
http://charlesursitti.com/?page_id=196

book collector said:
Actually I believe Jerome Keough won the first 14.1 tournament . i thought it was 1912 but according to the rulebook it had to be 1910
DeOro won it many times but not the first one.
Keough was the person responsible for the rule change and had about a year of practice at the new game over the other players.
Also, the BCA rulebooks have the list of champions in the back for pocket billiards.
Good luck with your research , there is a ton of misinformation to wade through.
Click to expand...

Jerome Keogh didn't even play in the first one. But he did invent 14.1.
 
JAM...The tournament in question (won four times by Mizerak) was titled simply the US Open forever. In the 70's, it was titled the US Open 14.1 Championships. When CW and Dragon Promotions started their version, they called it a "world championship". It would seem that it's almost always been a function of those with the dough, can call any tournament a 'world championship', if they so choose. To me, a world championship must have the BEST in the world competing. In the latest version of this 14.1 event, frequently many of the world's best are not present, for one reason or another. JMO

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

JAM said:
One sticking point may be what is defined as a "world championship."

Here is an extremely interesting article from the Sports Illustrated Vault. It did state that Steve Mizerak won four consecutive championships in a row, but in 1976, a fairly unknown Larry Lisciotti defeated Steve Mizerak and became a straight pool champion title-holder for that year. You'll enjoy this article if you like straight pool: UNKNOWN LARRY LISCIOTTI CHALKED UP A TOURNEY FUNDED BY HIS OPPONENTS

So who's to say what is a world tournament when it comes to 14.1. We now know that Steve Mizerak won four straight pool "world" championships in a row, besting Willie Mosconi's record, according to the above-referenced article, and Larry "Prince of Pool" Lisciotti won a "world" championship in 1976. The article also states that Willie was the "world" champ in 1955. :smile:
Click to expand...
 
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Hueston's contribution

Treasure hunting, I found the son of a famous Indianapolis roomkeeper who was known to have a thorough billiard history scrapbook. When I went through it, 99% of it was local Indy balkline coverage from the local paper. But one local article concerned Thomas Hueston's new game. He invented a game in which the last ball was spotted on the center spot. You had to pocket it, then strike at least two rails, then break the remaining 14 balls which were racked straight pool style (minus head ball.) It even diagrammed the break shot. He invented this game because he was trying to prove that if he could just keep running balls, nobody could beat him, most notably Keogh, who I am sure he believed beat Hueston out of his title by luck. The joke was on him because Keogh improved on Hueston's game by invening 14.1 shortly thereafter (yes, in 1910.) And the rest is history. I told various billiard historians and collectors about this article, and soon it magically appeared in a major billiard magazine by a major billiard historian as if he had uncovered the history, minus any credit to me. I suppose he used a psychic who told him that little article was there in the Indianapolis newspaper over 100 years ago. Well, I don't get credit, but I did get the trophy Brunswick created for the first 14.1 championship which was won by Edward Ralph. All the matches are listed on it up until it became the property of champion Bennie Allen.
Any time you have a history question about champions, contact Charles Ursitti, who has done more to document billiard player history than just about anyone. And if you have not heard his name, it is because he is a fairly humble man. But if you look over his website, you will see why he deserves to be first in line for the Hall of Fame, among historians. The amount of research is staggering.
 
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Thanks for all the info, it's "spot on". I've dug out my well thumbed copy of the BCA's "Billiards: The Official Rules and Records Book" (the 2001 version with the pretty billiards postage stamps on the cover) and sure enough, there's the list, and a nice accompanying article, as mentioned!

Thanks everyone!

(Unfortunately it's a much longer list than I was expecting, as apparently, in the past, champions often had to defend their titles many times in the same year, so there are actually several world champions per year in many cases!)

I'll have to see what I can do with it! Thanks again.
 
hunger strike said:
Treasure hunting, I found the son of a famous Indianapolis roomkeeper who was known to have a thorough billiard history scrapbook. When I went through it, 99% of it was local Indy balkline coverage from the local paper. But one local article concerned Thomas Hueston's new game. He invented a game in which the last ball was spotted on the center spot. You had to pocket it, then strike at least two rails, then break the remaining 14 balls which were racked straight pool style (minus head ball.) It even diagrammed the break shot. He invented this game because he was trying to prove that if he could just keep running balls, nobody could beat him, most notably Keogh, who I am sure he believed beat Hueston out of his title by luck. The joke was on him because Keogh improved on Hueston's game by invening 14.1 shortly thereafter (yes, in 1910.) And the rest is history. I told various billiard historians and collectors about this article, and soon it magically appeared in a major billiard magazine by a major billiard historian as if he had uncovered the history, minus any credit to me. I suppose he used a psychic who told him that little article was there in the Indianapolis newspaper over 100 years ago. Well, I don't get credit, but I did get the trophy Brunswick created for the first 14.1 championship which was won by Edward Ralph. All the matches are listed on it up until it became the property of champion Bennie Allen.
Any time you have a history question about champions, contact Charles Ursitti, who has done more to document billiard player history than just about anyone. And if you have not heard his name, it is because he is a fairly humble man. But if you look over his website, you will see why hedeserves to be first in line for the Hall of Fame, among historians. The amount of research is staggering.
Click to expand...

If my memory serves me, Clement Trainer did extensive research and wrote a small booklet that gave the history of Balkline Billiards. He is mentioned in Bob Byrnes books.
As i said in my previous post , "Good luck with your research " there is a ton of misinformation out there. Usually caused by a reporter who did not have any clue what was going on.
I researched thousands of miles of microfilm of newspaper articles about tournaments and players and it was maddening to see so much contradictory information, from spelling a players names wrong to getting the wrong person as winner.
I am sure at that time there was more than 1 tournament each year, and every time a new player won , they were considered World Champion. I believe 1910 had 5 such tournaments, all were won by Jerome Keough . Also I believe that Alfredo De Oro was stripped of his pocket billiard title each time he won the 3 Cushion championship and and vice versa. So that may have created another "champion" each of those years by default.
In the BCA rulebooks and others the name of the championship was "Pocket Billiards". It was however the form of straight pool where you don't use the last ball to break until 1910 and then 14.1 from then on. Prior to the full rack straight pool I believe the game was 3 ball and then 4 ball or vice versa, but I am not positive when that ended.
Probably in the late 1880s with Jacob Schaeffer Sr.
 
huh?

Are you trying to compare pool (pocket billiards) to balkline billiards, 3-cushion, or carom billiards with 3 or 4 balls? Pocket billiards is not even played on the same type of table.
 
hunger strike said:
Are you trying to compare pool (pocket billiards) to balkline billiards, 3-cushion, or carom billiards with 3 or 4 balls? Pocket billiards is not even played on the same type of table.
Click to expand...

Actually, no I am not . Previous to the continuous pool game with 15 balls, they played a game called 3 ball and a game called four ball, both were played on tables with pockets. Some had 4 pockets, some 6. Some of the records in the BCA book are for these games. The reference to balkline billiards was in response to the other posters remark about a person in Indiana who kept records of tournament matches at the game. I remarked that there was a book out by Clement Trainer on the complete history of balkline billiards. It may be the same person , as it is mostly a thankless job. Now that I look back , I see the other poster was you. Was the person you were speaking about any relation to Mr. Trainer?
 
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Harry Cooler kept the records...

..... and Harry Cooler's son had me over to his home to go over the scrapbooks. American 4-ball billiards was scored with many types of shots, sort of like English billiards is with 3 balls. But these pocket games were long out of fashion by the time 14.1 came around. I have to stand by my statements, and Ursitti's research, that 14.1 was first used as the championship game in 1912.

P.S.: Continuous pool and 14.1 Continuous are not the same game. This throws some people off.....
 
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hunger strike said:
..... and Harry Cooler's son had me over to his home to go over the scrapbooks. American 4-ball billiards was scored with many types of shots, sort of like English billiards is with 3 balls. But these pocket games were long out of fashion by the time 14.1 came around. I have to stand by my statements, and Ursitti's research, that 14.1 was first used as the championship game in 1912.

P.S.: Continuous pool and 14.1 Continuous are not the same game. This throws some people off.....
Click to expand...

I never said it wasn't .
I did about 30 years of research myself and while I am sure Mr. Ursitti knows what he is talking about, you seem to have misunderstood nearly everything I have written.
Perhaps it is me.
I will leave it up to the other readers as to who is misunderstanding whom.
 
I understood it. :thumbup:

QUOTE=book collector;3137179]I never said it wasn't .
I did about 30 years of research myself and while I am sure Mr. Ursitti knows what he is talking about, you seem to have misunderstood nearly everything I have written.
Perhaps it is me.
I will leave it up to the other readers as to who is misunderstanding whom.[/QUOTE]
 
OUSooner said:
I understood it. :thumbup:

QUOTE=book collector;3137179]I never said it wasn't .
I did about 30 years of research myself and while I am sure Mr. Ursitti knows what he is talking about, you seem to have misunderstood nearly everything I have written.
Perhaps it is me.
I will leave it up to the other readers as to who is misunderstanding whom.
Click to expand...
[/QUOTE]

Thanks , now I don't have to flay myself. :bow-down:
 
Big Dave said:
List of 14.1 World Champions?

"The World Tournament is the oldest tournament in history that still exists today. Invented by Jerome Keough and shortly after recognized as the official game of billiards. The first World Tournament of 14.1 was held in 1911 and won by Alfredo DeOro. In its history due to war and economics, the World Tournament had 29 tournaments that did not take place including a 15 year gap between 1990-2005 until Dragon Promotions revived the game and the World Tournament in 2006. It has taken place every year since."

1911 - Alfredo DeOro - Cuba
-
-
-
2006 - Thorsten Hohmann - Germany
2007 - Oliver Ortmann - Germany
2008 - Niels Feijen - Netherlands
2009 - Stephan Cohen - France
2010 - Oliver Ortmann - Germany

Can anyone point me to a definitive list to fill in the gaps please?
Click to expand...
It might not help, but I think many of the "tournaments" were actually challenge matches. If anyone is actually going to compile a list of the tournaments, it would be nice to have the location, dates and at least the top 8 finishers in each one. "Greenleaf 1923" doesn't tell us much, if anything.

The US Open 14.1 never claimed to be a "World Tournament" although it certainly had the top US players of the time and I don't think there was that much top play in Europe or Asia at the time. Maybe you could find out when the first European ran 200. In 1975 there was a single European entered in the US Open and I suspect he never had run 30 balls -- he certainly had no idea of what a safe was.
 
As I stated in a previous post , there is a lot of misinformation to be waded through. now I am afraid I may have added to some of it. I was sure that the continuous pool was not played for the chapionships before the late 1880s. I was correct to that point, but, I erroneously thought the games previous to that for the championship were 3 ball and 4 ball as they were the popular games of that time. According to the BCA Rulebook by Mike Shamus, Charles Ursitti and Ken Shouler the game played from 1878 to 1888 was a game with all 15 balls called 61.
I apologise for giving this incorrect information but it was not intentional.
My intentions at all times have been to share any information I have had.
For whatever reason , some threads start going another direction and the original question or thought gets lost.
If I am to blame for the thread going haywire, I apologise for that also.
 
book collector said:
As I stated in a previous post , there is a lot of misinformation to be waded through. now I am afraid I may have added to some of it. I was sure that the continuous pool was not played for the chapionships before the late 1880s. I was correct to that point, but, I erroneously thought the games previous to that for the championship were 3 ball and 4 ball as they were the popular games of that time. According to the BCA Rulebook by Mike Shamus, Charles Ursitti and Ken Shouler the game played from 1878 to 1888 was a game with all 15 balls called 61.
I apologise for giving this incorrect information but it was not intentional.
My intentions at all times have been to share any information I have had.
For whatever reason , some threads start going another direction and the original question or thought gets lost.
If I am to blame for the thread going haywire, I apologise for that also.
Click to expand...

I think the game "61" you refer to was originally called Chicago elsewhere for Chicago, IL was where it had first become popular; if so, it was also called "rotation" and was not at all part of the evolution of games leading up to today's 14.1. I don't have much of a billiard library and am simply going by what I was told by old guy back in the 50s. Eddie Robin
 
Eddie Robin said:
I think the game "61" you refer to was originally called Chicago elsewhere for Chicago, IL was where it had first become popular; if so, it was also called "rotation" and was not at all part of the evolution of games leading up to today's 14.1. I don't have much of a billiard library and am simply going by what I was told by old guy back in the 50s. Eddie Robin
Click to expand...

Thank you sir, I made the mistake of going by memory at first , because, for all my life until I was in my mid 50s I had an almost photographic memory.
I got sick and now I have a horrible memory at best. I hope I don't do that again!
When are you going to write another book!
 
When are you going to write another book!

book collector said:
Thank you sir, I made the mistake of going by memory at first , because, for all my life until I was in my mid 50s I had an almost photographic memory.
I got sick and now I have a horrible memory at best. I hope I don't do that again!
When are you going to write another book!
Click to expand...

Hi Book Collector,

I've been working from time-to-time on various pool and billiard instructional books over the years. Don't get to really get into them for it seems my day-to-day struggle for survival (coming up with rent money, etc.) takes up the vast majority of my time. Several titles have been near completion for years already and I doubt that I've worked on any other than fundamentals and 14.1 over the past year or two. The hold up is that I'm unwilling to get back into publishing more books unless I can do it in a way that requires a lot more money than I'll probably ever be able to raise. Kinda frustrated on that subject for I've been unable to compromise on how my book project should be done when investors pop up as they do once or twice each year. However, thanks for asking.

You can contact me via email address if you wish re this subject since its not about "World Champions Past and Present.

Eddie Robin
 
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