World Straight Pool Championship

The World Straight Pool Championship, or the World 14.1 Tournament if no world championship is on the line, is a pocket billiards (pool) competition, that has been held annually in New Brunswick, New Jersey, since 2006. Between the years of 1941 and 1957, Willie Mosconi won the World Straight Pool Championship an unmatched fifteen times. In 1933, Mosconi competed in the Billiard Congress of America (BCA) World Straight Pool Championship. He nearly won the title but lost in the final to Erwin Rudolph^[1] It is the current global professional title for straight pool (also known as 14.1 continuous), and is organized by Dragon Promotions, in part to restore the game's popularity in the United States.^[2] Though billed as a world championship, the tournament in some years (including 2009, 2011 and 2012) has not been sanctioned by, or recognized as a world title event by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) . The WPA in turn has not recognized any of the World 14.1 winners from 1912 onwards even through the golden era of Willie Mosconi, Steve Mizerak, Luther Lassiter, Ralph Greenleaf and numerous other legendary players. Although the World 14.1 and all its champions are vastly recognized by the media, fans, pool historians, and professional players themselves. ^[3] The 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010 event were WPA-recognized.^[4] The 2013 & 2014 event was sanctioned by the ABP Association of Billiard Professionals founded by multi-world champion Johnny Archer.

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.^[5]

The games of Last 32 round are played in double-elimination format until 16 players remain. Matches are extended to races to 150.^[5] The games since Last 16 round are played in single-elimination format, and matches are further extended, to races to 200.^[5]

Winners

Year	Winner	Runner-up	Semifinalists
1926	Erwin Rudolph	Ralph Greenleaf
1933	Erwin Rudolph	Willie Mosconi[1]
1941	Erwin Rudolph[6]
2006	Thorsten Hohmann	Thomas Engert	Mika Immonen
			Max Eberle
2007	Oliver Ortmann	Huidji See	Martin Kempter
			Danny Harriman
2008	Niels Feijen	Francisco Bustamante	Nick van den Berg
			Jasmin Ouschan
2009*	Stephan Cohen	Mika Immonen	Oliver Ortmann
			Johnny Archer
2010	Oliver Ortmann	Mika Immonen	Thorsten Hohmann
			Huidji See
2011*	Thorsten Hohmann	Mike Davis	Alex Pagulayan
			Charlie Williams
2012*	John Schmidt	Efren Reyes	Darren Appleton
			Ralph Eckert
2013*	Thorsten Hohmann	Darren Appleton	Francisco Bustamante
			John Schmidt
2014*	Darren Appleton	Shane Van Boening	Evgeny Stalev
			Max Eberle
2015*	Thorsten Hohmann	Darren Appleton	Warren Kiamco
			Reiner Wirsbitzki
2016*	Mika Immonen	Earl Strickland	Jayson Shaw
			Lo Li-wen

*No world title at stake.

References