1998 World Championship

The World Championship series consists of a series of three tournament levels, and is held every second year. The first level in the series is the set of Regional Qualifier Tournaments. These are open tournaments which will select the top candidates from each region. These candidates then battle it out in the Candidate's Tournament to select a challenger. Finally, the challenger plays against the defending champion in the Challenge Match.

All of the games of the World Championship Tournament are played live over the table (or over the internet where over the table games are impractical).

Qualifier Tournaments:

The world is split into three regions or zones, with each zone providing two candidates. Tournaments in each region are organised by a regional tournament director. The qualifying candidates from each zone in 1998 were:

• Zone 1: North and South America. Qualifiers are Mel Nicholson and Karl Heuer.
• Zone 2: Europe, Africa & Middle East. Qualifiers are Martin Pedersen and Rolle Johansson.
• Zone 3: Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and Pacific Islands. Qualifiers are Tom Siegenthaler and Thomas Wedekind.

The loser of the previous Challenge Match is also deemed to have qualified based on past performance. Dan Pless who lost the 1996 Challenge Match 6-4 qualified under this rule.

Candidate's Tournament:

The two qualifying played a round robin of best of 3 matches to determine the 1998 challenger. Tom Siegenthaler withdrew prior to the start of the Candidate's Tournament because of work commitments, and Dan Pless withdrew from his remaining games part way through the tournament (games not played are marked with * in the table).


Mel Nicholson is the winning 1998 candidate. Go to listings

Challenge Match:

The challenge match is a best of 11 games, played between the winning candidate, Mel Nicholson, and the incumbent champion, Donald Bailey. These games were played over the weekend of November 7-8, 1998 at Mel's home in San Leandro, California, with the games being relayed to spectators over the internet.

Donald won the match 6-0 to retain his title. Listings of the Challenge Match games are on page 8 of the newsletter.