Slater Wins Second World Crokinole Championship

Justin Slater, 2015 World Crokinole Champion,
posing with the World Champion signature board.

It seemed like old times for Justin Slater, which seems hard to say for a 22-year-old. Fresh off an NCA Tour victory in early May, and facing a long-time rival in the finals, Justin Slater rekindled the ice cool precision of 2010 to win his second World Crokinole Championship title.

The 17th annual World Crokinole Championship came with great anticipation, that included more crokinole squeezed into shorter day. More importantly, anticipation for the event rose through a couple stories such as CTV’s Marek Sutherland paying a visit, and the intriguing story of a Brooklyn duo that would later become the two crowd favourites despite being newcomers to the WCC. (more on that below)

Doubles

The doubles preliminary round changed slightly this year with the addition of two more games in the preliminary round, to bring the total to 8. The change was significant enough to see a 3 point difference from 6th to 7th place for the cutoff of the A group playoffs, in what is normally a log-jam. The following teams made it through to the coveted top 6 playoffs:

1. 53 pts, 74 20s - Clare Kuepfer and Nathan Walsh (2nd straight top 6 finish)

2. 52 pts, 80 20s - Ray Beierling and Jason Beierling (3rd straight and 12th overall top 6 finish)

3. 52 pts, 78 20s - Jon Conrad and Tony Snyder (3rd top 6 finish as a team)

4. 50 pts, 64 20s - Rex Johnston and Tom Johnston (3rd top 6 finish)

5. 49 pts, 65 20s - Paul Brubacher and Roy Campbell (1st top 6 finish)

6. 46 pts, 58 20s - Fred Slater and Justin Slater (5th straight and 6th overall top 6 finish)

Photo Credit: Bill Gladding/Tavistock Gazette

As mentioned, there was a bit of a gap until the 7th place team of Matt and Dave Brown, who failed to make it their 4th top 6 appearance after earning 43 points through 8 games. Also joining them in the consolation playoffs were Dave Meijer and Kevin Brooks (42 points), Bob and Robert Mader (41), Ray Kappes and Kevin Bechtel (39), Brian Simpson and Roger Vaillancourt (39), and the PEI team of Wilfred Smith and Lawson Lea (39).

Before the doubles playoffs began, the World Championship competitors were introduced to Gregory Pinel, one of the aforementioned Brooklyn duo. He told the story of how, even as a Canadian, he learned about crokinole when he moved to the US. Not only did he quickly find the same passion many of us share for crokinole, he is planning to incorporate it into his ambitious after-school programs that serve students of under-funded schools in the New York area. If you are interested it is highly recommended to read more about his story.

As mentioned by Pinel in his letter, he and partner Tommaso Mazzoni, had their sights set on championship performances. They played great in their first ever WCC tournament, but fell just short of the playoffs with 38 points.

2015 World Crokinole Doubles Champions
Tony Snyder and Jon Conrad
Photo Credit: Bill Gladding, WCC

The consolation playoffs were won by Bob and Robert Mader, followed by Dave and Matt Brown and Wilfred Smith and Lawson Lea. In the A group playoffs, Justin and Fred Slater saw their two-year run as World Doubles Champions end as they finished 4th with 21 points. In the crowded finish for the top prize, Rex and Tom Johnston equalled their best ever finish at 3rd place, with 24 points. Also at 24 points, but with a win through the tiebreaker, Ray and Jason Beierling grabbed 2nd.

For the third year in a row, it took 25 points to win the doubles title, which was reclaimed by Jon Conrad and Tony Snyder. Since teaming up in 2012, Conrad/Snyder have won twice and finished 2nd once. The two had played with a few different partners previously, but this win gives Jon Conrad his 4th Doubles title (with Paul Hartman in 2003 and 2005), and Tony Snyder (with Jarmo Puiras in 2004) his 3rd.

After doubles play wrapped up, CrokinoleCentre was able to interview a couple of players for their thoughts on the doubles event. 

Photo Credit: Bill Gladding, WCC

After a short break, play began again for the singles. This time all singles events ran concurrently, with a world record of 100 boards in use simultaneously.

Singles

The competitive singles portion saw 82 players battling for a spot in the top 16 playoffs, along with a few others who had hopes of scoring the most 20s in the preliminary round. The top 3 spots were grabbed by Jon Conrad (67 points out of a possible 80), Ray Beierling (65) and Matt Brown (64). There was decent gap until the crowd appeared to fill out the rest of the top 16. That group included Gregory Pinel, who finished 4th at 58 points. He and Wilfred Smith of PEI were the only 2 non-Ontario players to make the top 16. (For the data we have from the World Crokinole Championships, that may in fact be a record, as previous years had as many as 1 single player from outside of Ontario in the top 16.)

2015 World Crokinole 20s Champion - Ray Beierling
Photo Credit: Bill Gladding, WCC

Roger Vaillancourt was the unlucky 17th place finisher. He was involved in a 3-way tie with Ezra Jantzi and Rob Mader at 52 points, but their 20s scores of 74 and 67, beat his score of 54.

Speaking of 20s, the 20s scoring was relatively low in comparison to previous years. In 2014, 6 players scored more than 90 20s in the 10-game preliminary round, meanwhile in 2015 only one player scored more than 90. Justin Slater was the runner-up in this category scoring 88 20s, ahead of Jon Conrad and Ray Kappes at 82 and 81 respectively. But while the field was scoring lower, Ray Beierling was performing just as he had hoped (as indicated in the above interview), earning 116 on his way to a record-extending 5th 20s title.

Also awarded through the preliminary round was the title of Women’s World Crokinole Champion, this year with prizes being given to the top 3 finishers.

Cathy Kuepfer was able to finish 3rd, while Kathy Geris grabbed 2nd place. Beverly Vaillancourt once again came out on top, with 42 points, to claim the title for the 3rd-straight year.

So the play shifted to the top 16 playoffs as players were split into the following pools:

Pool A

Jon Conrad (2012 and 2013 World Champion)

Matt Brown (2014 4th place finisher)

Justin Slater (2010 Champion, 2012 and 2014 runner-up)

Robert Bonnett (3rd straight top 16 finish)

Paul Brubacher (2011 3rd place finisher)

Jason Beierling (2006 Champion, 2002 runner-up)

Wilfred Smith (PEI champion, first top 16 finish)

Ezra Jantzi (2nd straight top 16 finish)

Pool B

Raymond Beierling (2011 Champion, 7 top 4 finishes)

Gregory Pinel (first ever WCC appearance)

John Harvey (5th top 16 finish in last 7 years)

Roy Campbell (2nd top 16 finish)

Raymond Kappes (2003 Champion)

Nathan Walsh (2009 runner-up, 2014 3rd)

Rex Johnston (2nd top 16 finish in last 4 years)

Robert Mader (2008 3rd place finisher)

In Pool A, Justin Slater rolled to the top spot, earning 40 points in the 7-game round robin. Robert Bonnett would take the other qualifying spot, barely nudging out Jon Conrad with 33 points to Conrad’s 31.

In Pool B, Ray Beierling also took the top spot by a decent margin with 41 points. Roy Cambell finished second with 36, similarly edging Robert Mader who had 34 points.

So the top 4 was set with a pair of one-time World Champions, and a pair of newcomers to the top 4.

In the first game of the Round of 4 playoffs, Ray Beierling and Justin Slater were dominant, winning 8-0 and 7-1 respectively.

The script changed in game 2, as Roy Campbell beat Ray Beierling 6-2, and Robert Bonnett was deadly in 20 shooting to win 5-3 over Justin Slater.

Top 4 Playoffs: Roy Campbell faces a relaxed Justin Slater

The final game of the round pitted Beierling against Slater, who played to an electrifying 5-3 win for Slater, including a perfect round of 8 20s each for Beierling and Slater. 

With Slater comfortably into the finals at 15 points, and Beierling at 13, there was a chance for Bonnett and Campbell to narrowly grab the other spot in the final. But the two played to a tight 4-4 draw, setting the 2015 World Crokinole Championship final as Justin Slater against Ray Beierling.

In the 3rd-place game, Roy Campbell used an impressive display of defensive crokinole to beat out Robert Bonnett, winning 6-4, 6-4.

The Slater/Beierling final was a very fitting finish considering the 2014-2015 National Crokinole Association Tour. The two of them not only finished 1st and 2nd in the overall Tour, but they also played in the final of the NCA Finale in St. Jacobs just over a month prior to the Tavistock meeting. Justin Slater had gotten the better of Beierling in both the Tour and the St. Jacobs final, but it was Beierling who had edged out Slater in both the Doubles and 20s competitions earlier in the day.

With that it was hard to tell who had the advantage going into the final. Looking at experience, Slater had the advantage entering his 4th championship final to Beierling’s 2nd. But Beierling’s final record had remained unblemished, while Slater had failed to take home the title both of the last two times he’d made the final. The confidence and mental state of both players had to be intriguing heading into a match with everything on the line.

Ray Beierling and Justin Slater square off for the title

The match began easily for Beierling, winning 2 points on his own hammer without any pressure. Slater responded in the best way possible, scoring a perfect round to tie the first game 2-2. Slater carried that momentum into the next round, scoring 20s in his first 5 shots to lead 4-2.

In the fourth round, Slater was exemplifying some great defensive play, but Beierling put the pressure on with a great double-takeout 20 shot. It wouldn’t be enough though as Slater made all of his remaining shots to tie the fourth round, and win the first game 5-3.

The crowd forms in gathered hush as the
day reaches the championship finals.

Beierling got off to a good start in the second game, winning 2 points against the hammer after a few Slater errors gave Beierling the chance to pile on the 20s. Slater responded strongly again though, going perfect on his 20 attempts to jump to a 4-2 lead and move within one point of the title. 

In the fourth round Slater took an early lead in the 20s, and twice Beierling’s attempts to level the round by scoring a 20 skipped over the hole. An interesting scenario developed late in the round as Beierling had 2 discs on the board, but remained down a 20, and in need of a win rather than a tie in the round. Beierling was left with a nearly impossible shot at the end, needing a long ricochet off of a peg to score a 20 to extend the match.

While he hit the peg he was looking for, the weight on the shot was too much, and Slater had claimed the 2015 World Crokinole Championship title 5-3, 6-2.

The Elite 4 of the 2015 World Crokinole Championship
Ray Beierling, Justin Slater, Roy Campbell and Robert Bonnett
Photo Credit: Bill Gladding, WCC

Slater reflected on the day as the newly crowned World Crokinole Champion, which must have been a relief after making the finals in 2012 and 2014, but just coming up short.

A small sample of all of the boards that were in action at
the 2015 World Crokinole Championship.

So the 17th annual World Crokinole Championship came to a close, in what was a major success in terms of overall registration growth and organizing efficiency, making it perhaps the best run tournament yet. The volunteers that run the event cannot be thanked enough.

And with that comes much expectation for next year and what is to come next for the World Championships and the great game of crokinole. Several visitors from far away promised to make their return again soon, and we look forward to seeing them in 2016.

Until then, the National Crokinole Association continues with the next tournament in New York in August. Meanwhile at CrokinoleCentre, the vow to edit and post the videos from this year’s World Championships in a much more timely manner begins. It will take time, but over the summer months they will become available.

Thank you for all enjoying the 2015 World Crokinole Championship, I look forward to the next one.

To the good times we’ve shared with crokinole, and to many more.

Nathan Walsh

Several photos in this blog were taken by Bill Gladding of the Tavistock Gazette, who wrote a comprehensive review of all of the events at the 2015 Championship than can be read here.

Crokinole Fantasy Pool Results and Review

So the 2015 World Crokinole Championships are in the books. Another fine day led to some familiar faces in the winner’s circle. Jon Conrad and Tony Snyder won the doubles title for their second time together, while Ray Beierling racked up his 5th 20s title and Justin Slater became the fourth player to claim the singles title a 2nd time.

A full review of the day will come in the near future, but first a look at the first ever crokinole fantasy pool.

9 teams were submitted before the deadline, including a couple who caught me a few minutes before 1:30pm to change most of their lineup upon learning of player absences. Here are the end results.

2015 World Crokinole Championship Fantasy Pool

1.   Clare Kuepfer - 465

2.   Jon Conrad - 435

2.   Fred Slater - 435

4.   Jason Beierling - 360

5.   Ray Beierling - 355

6.   Nathan Walsh - 350

6.   Dave Brown - 350

8.   Joe Arnup - 345

9.   Nathan Jongsma - 225

Clare Kuepfer took first place on the strength of strong research. He scored big on picks of Roy Campbell (3rd) and Paul Brubacher (14th), that more than made up for the fact that he did not select Justin Slater. (EDIT: Upon further inspection, Clare did choose Justin Slater.)

Fred Slater and Jon Conrad tied for second to round out the podium. Slater’s strongest picks were Justin Slater (1st) and Ezra Jantzi (7th), while Conrad also picked up on the Brubacher/Campbell combination, and also had Ray Kappes to score big from Pool D.

The major deficiency of this first-ever fantasy pool (which I’ll address below), hit Brown, Arnup and Jongsma the worst. All three picked well, but lost big points for having a number of their players not competing in the Adult Singles event.

One nice thing about this fantasy pool is that it provides validation for the “underdog” stories of tournament. Namely in all 9 teams, no one picked Robert Bonnett who came through to finish 4th on the day.

I received a decent amount of feedback and suggestions, which is great because it shows there’s interest to do it again. A couple changes are easy to make, and one is more challenging.

Starting with the easy ones, the biggest problem this year was being unaware of who was registered for the Adult Singles category. An easy solution for next year will be adding alternates or “bench players” to compensate.

Additionally, next year the plan is to have printouts so people can select their teams on the day, with full knowledge of who’s in attendance and competing for the title. This should also boost the number of entries and make things a little more competitive.

The most challenging problem is how to properly rank players and fit them into these groupings. There were a number of strong players, specifically Rob Mader (finishing 5th from Group D) and Wilfred Smith (making the top 16 also from Group D), who easily outperformed their group standing, as many would have predicted. Obviously, when not everyone plays a plethora NCA tournaments, there is a challenge of how to fairly rank players.

An easy change would be to match the players who only play in the WCC with similar NCA players based on their most recent WCC scores. Or more simply just go with the most recent WCC results. 

I specifically used the CrokinoleCentre rankings for the purpose of keeping the rankings objective, but perhaps it would be better to have a layer of subjectivity. Though I don’t like the idea of having the decisive choice that could easily make me a target of angered crokinole players during the World Championships.

So congratulations to Clare Kuepfer for the inaugural World Crokinole Championship Fantasy Pool victory. Needless to say, I’m looking for suggestions with regard to this for next year’s edition, so please let me know what you think.

2015 World Crokinole Championship Fantasy Pool

With under 2 weeks to go until the World Championships you may only want to focus on preparing your game for the world’s best. But have you taken time to think about how the day will shape up? Who’s going to come out of nowhere? Who’s going to falter? And most importantly, who’s going to win the 17th World Championship?

Do you want to finally prove once and for all your prediction prowess? Are you afraid that your prognostications will go unheard despite being astonishingly accurate?

Well why not take your hand at picking a team for the first ever Crokinole Fantasy Pool?

The rules are simple: 

1. Pick the best 8 player team consisting of 2 players from Group A, 2 players from Group B, 2 from Group C, and 2 from Group D.

2. The higher up your players finish, the more points your team earns.

3. Whoever has the team with the most points will win the coveted title of Crokinole Fantasy Champion, and bragging rights until their title is challenged next year.

The separation into 4 different groups is designed to spread out the talent, so the winning team will require a strong showing from many different players, who outperform their expectations.

I initially thought about drafting the groups subjectively by my own choosing, but then thought it should probably have some objective basis. As such, the groups are determined based on the current CrokinoleCentre Rankings.

Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D
(The top 6 CrokinoleCentre Ranked players.)	(Rankings from 7-20)	(Rankings from 21-40)	You may pick any player not listed in Groups A, B, or C.
Justin Slater	Jason Beierling	Ron Reesor	Brian Henry
Ray Beierling	Matt Brown	Brian Simpson	Kyle Vaillancourt
Nathan Walsh	Roy Campbell	Reuben Jong	Rob Mader
Fred Slater	Tom Johnston	Ab Leitch	Ed Ripley
Brian Cook	Clare Kuepfer	Alex Protas	Barry Kiggins
Jon Conrad	Eric Miltenburg	Chris Gorsline	Ralph Hargrave
	John Harvey	Dale Henry	Abijah Jong
	Dave Brown	Tony Snyder	Kevin Bechtel
	Rex Johnston	Peter Carter	Raymond Kappes
	Howard Martin	Cathy Kuepfer	Bob Mader
	Robert Bonnett	Paul Brubacher	Jeremy Gunn
	Roger Vaillancourt	Gloria Walsh	Beverly Vaillancourt
	Peter Tarle	Ray Haymes	John Lichty
	Louis Gauthier	Jody Good	Kevin Brooks
		Nathan Jongsma	Bob Jones
		Linda Irvine	Curt Currie
		Quin Erzinger	Ewen MacPhail
		Ron Haymes	Richard Guptill
		Adrian Conradi	Daryl MacDonald
		Michael Hughes	David Younker

Note: For Group D the players listed above are ranked 41 to 60, but you are also permitted to pick any player not included in any of the other groups.

This is where a little inside information can make the difference. If you know of a real ringer coming in, or you want to take a chance, then select that player for your team.

As an example team, for the 2014 World Championships, the ideal team would have included

Group A - Brian Cook (1st) and Justin Slater (2nd)

Group B - Matt Brown (4th) and John Harvey (7th)

Group C - Ray Haymes (13th) and Tony Snyder (15th)

Group D - Ezra Yantzi (10th) and Kevin Bechtel (14th)

This would have met all conditions for player choices (2 from each group) and put all 8 players in the top 15. Notice the choice of Ezra Jantzi would have been an “off the board” pick as he is not listed in Group D.

Points will be awarded to each member of a team as follows:

1st - 100

2nd - 90

3rd - 85

4th - 80

5th-8th - 70

9th-12th - 65

13th-16th - 60

17th-20th - 50

21st-25th - 45

26th-30th - 40

31st-35th - 35

36th-40th - 30

41st-45th - 25

46th-50th - 20

51st-60th - 15

61st-70th - 10

>71st - 5

The ideal 2014 team would have earned:

100 (Cook) + 90 (Slater) + 80 (Brown) + 70 (Harvey) + 65 (Yantzi) + 60 (Haymes) + 60 (Bechtel) + 60 (Snyder) = 585 points

Enter your team roster with a comment below. Entries will be accepted until 1:30pm EST on June 6th, 2015.

Entries can be made in the comments of the NING Website, or on CrokinoleCentre.

Good luck and have fun!

Quin Erzinger Crokinole Classic Quite a Success

Off to Hamilton today for more #crokinole

— Jason Beierling (@crokinoledepot) May 18, 2015

Players getting some early practice before the
start of the Quin Erzinger Classic

18 players took a rare opportunity on a holiday Monday in Hamilton to put together one of the most satisfying crokinole events in recent memory.

With a world-class crokinole player from British Columbia in the region, several other crokinole fanatics from Ontario gathered to play the 2015 Quin Erzinger Crokinole Classic.

With everyone wanting to face-off against the young stud from BC, the format was composed of a full round robin of singles action, with the remainder of the afternoon left for social play.

After completing 9 singles games before lunch, some players were eager to jump to a 6-player board, thankfully brought by Eric Miltenburg, to try crokinole from a brand-new point of view.

The remaining 8 games of singles were played after the fantastic lunch was held. As eloquently quipped by Clare Kuepfer the $10 event fee was broken down as “$10 for lunch, crokinole for free”.

After tabulating the scores, the following results were generated (listed below is the top 10).

Rank	Name	Points	20s
1	Nathan Walsh	104	157
2	Jon Conrad	104	122
3	Eric Miltenburg	90	126
4	Roy Campbell	89	130
5	Jake Ruggi	89	124
6	Quin Erzinger	88	174
7	Jason Beierling	88	150
8	Reuben Jongsma	84	108
9	Clare Kuepfer	83	91
10	Howard Martin	73	104

True to his lore, Quin Erzinger thumped in a tournament-high 174 20s, which also included a “perfect-round” in the very first game of the tournament against Roy Campbell. Also sharing in some fame was Jason Beierling, who scored a perfect-round in the very last game of the tournament against Nathan Walsh.

With trophies available for the top 3 finishers, the battle for the podium was incredibly tight. Through 17 games (and a maximum of 136 points) 5 players finished within 2 points of each other. Recognition should be given to Jason Beierling, Quin Erzinger, Jake Ruggi and Roy Campbell for an incredibly solid day. Jake Ruggi turned out a great performance, despite coming into the tournament out-of-practice.

Congratulations were given to Eric Miltenburg for squeezing through the heap and earning 90 points along with the well-deserved 3rd place finish.

Jon Conrad accepts the trophy for 2nd Place

The battle for 1st was also quite close as Jon Conrad and Nathan Walsh both earned 104 points. The tiebreaker went the way of Walsh, with Conrad having to settle for 2nd.

After the results had been announced, players took the opportunity to get a few more games of crokinole in before heading home. Some players used the chance to practice doubles before the World Championships, while others used the advantage of numbers to play more games on the 6-player crokinole board.

Nathan Walsh accepts the 1st Place prize from Quin Erzinger

While the 6-player board is large, and thus more difficult to transport, it was no doubt a hit among the attendees. If you are looking for ways to make crokinole tournaments more social and entertaining, a 6-player board can be great for a few laughs in between rounds.

Unfortunately, the day to which there was great anticipation, did come to an end. The tournament’s main guest of honour, Quin Erzinger departed along with others. The memory of a great time had, and the hope for more in the future was all that remained.

On a personal note, thank you to everyone who helped make this event a reality. Special thank you to my parent’s for helping with lunch, organizing and transportation. Thanks to Jake Ruggi and Reuben Jongsma for helping to secure the venue. Thanks also to Roy Campbell for bringing although the game-timer, and to Eric Miltenburg for the extra large crokinole board.

Lastly thanks to everyone who came along to partake in the special occasion. While crokinole tournaments come around every year, the opportunities we get to share the love of the game, with people who otherwise would be complete strangers from distant locations, are few and far between. 

Thank you for taking advantage of the opportunity. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

To the good times we’ve shared with crokinole, and to many more.
Nathan Walsh