Blog entry from 2024-12-20
21st Tour title for Efler, second complete success in a row for Innarella, triumphs for Dömer and Riml in classics premieres
Four tournaments, four different winners – spread across all DACH nations Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The last competitions of the Home Tour Infinity Series in 2024 took place from 16 September to 10 December. With 22 players at 13 venues in 4 countries and more than 100 LIVE matches, there was plenty of variety and excitement guaranteed. Individual tournaments were held in the disciplines three cushion, five pins, and for the first time on the Tour, in the classic technical disciplines balkline 47/2 and one cushion.
The comebacks of the classics disciplines went according to plan and consistently brought favourite victories. German top player Markus Dömer was in a class of his own in the one cushion tournament and, with a general average of 5.172, untouchable for the competition. By comparison, the balkline tournament brought much lower class – with a points average of 4.580, Austrian tournament favourite and MWS CEO Thomas "Jimmy" Riml was nevertheless clearly the best player in this competition and won by superior.
Podium Balkline 47/2 Home Tour Infinity Series #1:
- Riml, Jimmy (AT / Innsbruck): 10 MP / 4.580 AVG / 28 HR | prize money € 125
- Volger, Pirmin (AT / Innsbruck): 8 MP / 3.173 AVG / 17 HR | prize money € 75
- Saska, Harald (AT / Innsbruck): 6 MP / 2.000 AVG / 15 HR | prize money € 50
HT 47/2 #1 tournament page with all results
Podium One Cushion Home Tour Infinity Series #1:
- Dömer, Markus (DE / Bottrop): 12 MP / 5.172 AVG / 32 HR | prize money € 125
- Volger, Pirmin (AT / Innsbruck): 10 MP / 1.920 AVG / 11 HR | prize money € 75
- Riml, Jimmy (AT / Innsbruck): 8 MP / 1.774 AVG / 15 HR | prize money € 50
HT 1C #1 tournament page with all results
The three cushion and five pins competitions took a completely different course. The favourites had to accept early defeats and both competitions were open until the end. No player remained without a loss of points, and there was plenty of excitement in other aspects as well. In the three cushion event, Viennese Zoran Gajs got back into the race for the tournament victory with a 25:15 win over record champion and title favourite Andreas Efler. Without his surprising previous defeat against Pirmin Volger from Innsbruck, this would have meant the pole position in the title decision. Now he had to win his final match against Georg Schmied and hope for his opponents to lose points. The situation for his direct opponents in the fight for the tournament victory and the podium was no less tricky. The round robin mode that was used stipulated that in the event of an equal number of wins (match points), the general average would decide the ranking – and since all players had to surrender match points, the result looked likely to be decided by a thousandth of a point. In addition, a new organisational mode was used for the first time, which stipulates that a fixed date is set for all matches, marking the last possible time for a game to be played. Players are allowed to bring forward their matches, but they must take place no later than the fixed date. If a match is not played, it is scored according to a specific walkover regulation.
Summa summarum so many unknowns and a new regulation, with which all participants and in the tournament finish in particular the title contenders had to deal with. Among the remaining contenders for a place on the podium were, in addition to the players mentioned, the Erlangen-based and former Tour champion Tay-Dien Truong, who ended the tournament with by far the best general average of 1.314 – despite this top performance, he did not win the tournament, and in the end he was even unable to make it onto the podium. Truong could be described as the jinx of the tournament, who, due to two walkover defeats, only managed fifth place in the final, despite an otherwise almost flawless record. As expected, Volger, who came in fourth, was no longer able to compete for the tournament victory, but celebrated his best individual result on the Tour. The decision for the title and the medals was made in a thrilling finish between Gajs, Efler, Truong and Schmied, with the motto for all of them being the same: no losing allowed, score as many points as possible in as few innings as possible, and then wait for the results of the rivals.
Gajs had to win his last match against Schmied in order to be able to take the lead in match points against Efler, since Efler was ahead of Gajs in the comparison of AVGs. However, Efler had to play Truong in his last match, who left the strongest impression of all participants in this tournament in terms of play. If Truong won against Efler, he would still have a chance of finishing in third place, provided that the parallel game between Gajs and Schmied did not end in a draw. Schmied, on the other hand, had to win his last match against Gajs to overtake Volger and make it onto the podium. First, the match Gajs vs. Schmied took place, which Schmied won 25:18 and was thus able to advance to third place. For Gajs, the chances of winning the tournament were almost lost, since Efler would have had the same number of MPs as Gajs but most likely the better AVG even if he had lost to Truong. So Efler was the de facto winner of the tournament, but in his last match against Truong, it was either third or fifth place for the player from Erlangen. To finish third, Truong would have needed to beat Efler – and that's exactly how he started, being the first to reach the required 25 points after a good 18 innings. But Efler still had the equalizing break shot and needed four points to equalize. He made the equalizing break shot and the next two points with ease, before he found himself in a very difficult position in the fourth position, known to insiders as "Siberia", with the opposing and red ball in the lower quarter instead of on the cushion. Efler decided on a one cushion bank shot over the long rail, with the second ball more than a diamond away from the long rail, in order to run the playing ball over the corner in the bank sequence short-long to ball three. Efler also solved this difficult situation and thus saved the match draw, which meant fifth place in the end for Truong.
Andreas Efler won his 21st (!) tournament on the Tour without shining much this time, but with the big points at the crucial moments – that's another thing that characterises the best. Gajs came in second, Schmied third. Due to his performances, jinx Truong will surely achieve a top result again soon.
Podium Three Cushion Home Tour Infinity Series #7:
- Efler, Andreas (AT / Hinterbrühl): 15 MP / 1.111 AVG / 8 HR | prize money € 150
- Gajs, Zoran (AT / Vienna): 14 MP / 0.933 AVG / 8 HR | prize money € 90
- Schmied, Georg (AT / Rosenburg-Mold): 12 MP / 0.980 AVG / 6 HR | prize money € 60
HT 3C #7 tournament page with all results
The new fixed date regulation also caused a stir in the five pins tournament, and here too, for more schedule discipline. As in the three cushion tournament, two matches had to be verified w/o. Title defender Gerardo Innarella from Basel was at the start again and in the absence of the probably currently strongest five pins player on the Tour, the Dutchman Ernst-Jan Driessen, was the slight favourite to triumph again. Early in the tournament, many observers saw an early final between Innarella and Riml, which the Swiss managed to win 2:1 in sets. The road seemed clear for Innarella, until he unexpectedly according to the paper form lost 1:2 in sets to Jeroen Driessen (Komorow, Poland). This meant that everything was open again, because Riml had won all his other matches in the meantime.
The decision of who would win the tournament came down to the very last match, the Basel derby between "Gerry" Innarella and Cosimo Antonazzo, in which a lot was at stake for both players. Innarella had to win 2:0 if he wanted to win the tournament, any other result would have meant Riml winning the tournament. Antonazzo, on the other hand, could overtake his club colleague in the final ranking by beating him, advancing to second place, in which case Riml would have become the tournament winner and Antonazzo would have pushed Innarella down to third place. Both players were therefore under a lot of pressure, both nerve costumes were accordingly tense. Innarella kept his club colleague in check, winning the Basel derby with 2:0 sets and celebrated his second tournament victory on the Tour. Riml came in second, Antonazzo third. Also worthy of mention is the fourth place of Frank Ofner from Innsbruck, who has recently shown a strong upward trend in his play and could possibly make the leap into the medal ranks in the near future.
Podium Five Pins Home Tour Infinity Series #7:
- Innarella, Gerardo (CH / Basel): 6 wins / +8 set delta / 11 sets won | prize money € 125
- Riml, Jimmy (AT / Innsbruck): 6 wins / +7 set delta / 13 sets won | prize money € 75
- Antonazzo, Cosimo (CH / Basel): 5 wins / +4 set delta / 11 sets won | prize money € 50
HT 5P #7 tournament page with all results
Preview of the upcoming tournaments, 12 Jan 2025 registration deadline
Right after the holidays, it's time to get down to sporting action! The new year starts with these six tournaments:
- Three Cushion Team League #1: from 20 Jan 2025, teams
- Five Pins Home Tour #8: from 13 Jan 2025, singles
- Three Cushion Home Tour #8: from 13 Jan 2025, singles
- Biathlon Home Tour #1: from 13 Jan 2025, singles
- One Cushion Home Tour #2: from 13 Jan 2025, singles
- Balkline 47/2 Home Tour #2: from 13 Jan 2025, singles
Registration @ Sports administration
Release of the new ELO discipline rankings, some big jumps
After each completed tournament, the match data is immediately fed into our ELO rankings, which enable a success-based evaluation of the playing strength of players – similar to the ELO rating systems used in chess. Our discipline-specific ELO player rankings become more and more meaningful and "settle down" as more and more data becomes available. The rankings are endowed with prize money and are decisive when creating the seedings for our tournaments. Statistical methods also allow us to create individual trend forecasts for each player.
Complete ELO rankings & regulations
The latest rankings were fed with the data from the recently concluded tournaments 3C HT #7, 5P HT #7, 47/2 HT #1 and 1C HT #1. The balkline and one cushion rankings are the first of their kind, and more (future) tournaments will have to be included in order for them to develop significance.
The top 3 of the ELO balkline 47/2 ranking:
- Riml, Jimmy (AT): 5250 points
- Volger, Pirmin (AT): 5150 points
- Saska, Harald (AT): 5050 points
The top 3 of the ELO one cushion ranking:
- Dömer, Markus (DE): 5300 points
- Volger, Pirmin (AT): 5200 points
- Riml, Jimmy (AT): 5050 points
The established three cushion and five pins rankings show some significant improvements and deteriorations of individual players, crashes and ascents. Particularly noteworthy in this regard, in terms of the point changes, in alphabetical order:
- Antonazzo (5P | +208 pts / +3 pos upwards)
- Augenstein (3C | -352 pts / -1 pos down)
- Driessen E. (5P | -244 pts / -1 pos down)
- Driessen J. (5P | -250 pts / -1 pos down)
- Ofner (5P | +237 pts / +5 pos upwards)
- Riml (3C | +141 pts / +5 pos upwards)
- Truong (3C | +239 pts / +6 pos upwards)
- Volger (3C | +237 pts / +8 pos upwards)
The top 3 of the ELO three cushion ranking:
- Efler, Andreas (AT): 5472 points
- Gajs, Zoran (AT): 5294 points
- Ibraimov, Amir (DE): 5288 points
The top 3 of the ELO five pins ranking:
- Driessen, Ernst-Jan (NL): 5256 points
- Riml, Jimmy (AT): 5253 points
- Innarella, Gerardo (CH): 5223 points
The changes in position result, on the one hand, from point gains and losses and, on the other hand, from the ranking status changes of individual players. To be listed as active in the ranking and thus have a ranking position, at least five matches must be completed in the three most recently incorporated tournaments.
And last but not least: Welcome to our new MWS location!
At the beginning of December, our latest MWS location went online, the Erster Badener Billardsportclub. The club is located in the modern sports center of the city of Baden near Vienna, along with many other sports, and is the home location of the Austrian top player Patrick André.
