World Leagues Contests

SpareTalk will be partnering with the WorldLeagues.Net website to provide what should be an entertaining feature for the bowlers who are a part of the World Leagues web portal in the states of Maryland and Minnesota. For the bowlers who were members of the Maryland Suburban Traveling League around the turn of the milennium, these contests will be familiar in that the tournaments would run for several weeks during the league season.

There will be two "WorldLeagues" tournament events running throughout January and February, which are free and will attempt to include all of the WorldLeagues bowlers. One contest will be in the style of the Travel League Open bracket format, while the other will be in the "Eliminator" format. Unfortunately, leagues that roll either 2 or 4 games in a "set" aren't eligible for these events.

ELIMINATOR - Click to see latest results

The Eliminator is simple in concept, and runs using the normal 3 games that are a part of each league's weekly schedule. (Unfortunately, the leagues that roll 2 games a week or 4 games a week aren't eligible to participate). If a bowler rolls 10 pins or more under average in any game during the night, s/he is eliminated from the tournament. It usually takes around a dozen games or so to be rolled, on average, to obtain a winner (the Soul Survivor). If the remaining bowlers in the last game of the elimination format all are eliminated in the same climactic game, the tournament will continue until there is a clear winner. In the case a league is snowed out, the tournament won't continue until this league has "caught up".

Please Note: The Eliminator will start in Game 2 of this week only, just to give everyone a chance to not be late, and to warm up with a game.

BRACKET MADNESS - Click to see Brackets, or click QUALIFIER to see Qualifying Round scores

The bracket event will be similar to the NCAA March Madness. With there being roughly 400 World Leagues members, a qualifying round will take place in Week 1 to achieve a total of 256 qualifiers, that will be separated into four (4) 64-player divisions, to be labeled "North, South, East, and West" brackets. A bowler who is a member in more than one league of the WorldLeagues group, will be placed in different brackets. In other words, a bowler can't bowl in two leagues (or more) and be entered in the same bracket with all of his/her leagues. Players will be seeded based on scratch score plus 100% handicap off of 160 (or higher, depending on if an average is higher than 160 at any time). Then, in the weeks that follow the qualifying round, these matched-up players will advance throughout the bracket, based on their 3-game set totals, with handicap, against their opponent each week. At the end of the four bracket eliminations, these 4 bracket winners will then move into a Final 4 elimination round, and the contest will continue until a single champion is crowned.

If a player is absent from bowling in a week, s/he is eliminated and the opponent moves on. If both players are absent, then the sets rolled from the previous week will be used between the two absent players, and the higher score will advance. (Since this is a new event, and a freebie for all participants, we'll see how this format works, and will make corrections for future events, if any).

Please note that only in Round 1 of the bracket matches, will alternates be used, and it's a good chance that alternates will make it into the bracket. If a player is absent in Round 1, the highest score with handicap that didn't make the top 256 qualifiers, will get into the tournament. As mentioned earlier, a player who's in multiple leagues can't be in the same bracket twice. If such player is an alternate with one of his/her leagues, and there is a spot available in an appropriate bracket, then that player is eligible to be an alternate. So, the 257th qualifier is the 1st alternate, the 258th is a 2nd alternate, and so on.