Blog entry from 2021-01-05
Playing tournaments despite Corona, even internationally? We make it possible by networking billiard tables and players at different venues to form a common, semi-virtual tournament room. Players from different locations meet virtually in a multimedia conference circuit and play real billiards with cues and balls at the real table and in real time.
Players can participate in our tournaments from home, which means they don't have to travel to another tournament location. In addition, the final tournaments of our new Home Tour series are currently limited to 1 participant per location, so that, for known reasons, each participant can play alone at their own table.
On January 1st and 2nd, the Royal Pro New Year's Trophy 2021 took place as premiere tournaments of the new MWS Home Tour series, consisting each of a three cushion and a five pins tournament. Both competitions were played in round robin mode as full-day tournaments. Every single match was broadcast live and free of charge on our streaming platform. Players started at MWS locations in Germany (Berlin, Erlangen, Castrop-Rauxel), Austria (Vienna, Innsbruck, Hinterbrühl), Poland (Turek) and Denmark (Store Heddinge).
The five pins competition on New Year's Day was won and dominated by Andreas Efler (€ 250 prize money | Hinterbrühl, AT). He decided all his games for himself and only conceded one set over the entire tournament. The race for second place, however, could hardly have been more exciting. Three players had the same number of match wins and only the differences in the set ratio brought a decision here. Ultimately, Andreas Felser (€ 150 prize money | Vienna, AT) won the three-way battle for the second place. Third place went to veteran Ernest Driessen (€ 100 prize money | Turek, PL), who was able to keep MWS mastermind Jimmy Riml at a close distance. Jeroen Driessen and Frank Ofner completed the field of participants.
Results of the five pins tournament (PDF)
The next day the three cushion tournament followed with a very evenly strong field of participants. The matches were played on 3 winning sets in the rapid 3 points open end format: current runs are never interrupted when the set distance is reached, but always played to the end. As soon as a player has at least 3 points in a set, that set is "sharp". Then the opponent must at least equalize this score with his next inning in order to stay in the set. The set is played until a player can no longer meet the requirement "equalize or overtake" and thus loses the set.
The bottom line was that predictions for the tournament victory were hypothetical, at least four players were allowed to be given real chances of winning the tournament. With an unbelievably good performance, Markus Dömer (Castrop-Rauxel, DE) managed to clearly defeat all cofavorites and win the tournament (€ 250 prize money). His surprising loss in the last round was no longer relevant for the overall victory at this point. Second place went to Andreas Efler (€ 150 prize money | Hinterbrühl, AT), who thus advanced to the prize money king of the weekend and won a total of € 400 in both competitions. The battle for third place was decided in a photo finish, in which Lukas Stamm (€ 100 prize money | Berlin, DE) prevailed with a slightly better set ratio ahead of Tay-Dien Truong. Places five to seven went to Pirmin Volger, Kim Bengtsson and Jimmy Riml.
Results of the three cushion tournament (PDF)
Already on January 16/17 and 30/31 the next two editions of the Home Tour series will follow, with a total prize money of € 1,000 per edition and 2 separate individual tournaments each (five pins and three cushion). More information will follow soon.
We sincerely thank the tournament sponsor Royal Pro.
