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UIC SWISS HISTORY

UIC Swiss was originated by Julie (xtc.goddess) and Roy (judge.0000) after they decided to create a True Swiss competition to run alongside the main 5v5 UIC season as a secondary competition. Julie, who was Head Admin of UIC, was initially the HA in UIC Swiss too, before Roy took over the role further down the line.

The first UIC Swiss was run as a trial competition over four weekly tournaments in November and December 2007. Five players were allowed to jump the tournament from each league. As a starting point, week 1 of the trial was played over 6 rounds but was reduced to 5 for the remaining 3 weeks. The trial season was won by Straightshots with Freedom in second place and Breakers Alley taking third. United Pool's king_of_united was the first individual winner. Roy set up the first website and Nigel (e_n_d_i_k_a_y and later en_dk) supplied the banner and trophies.

With the trial being deemed successful, Season 1 of UIC Swiss ran along side UIC for 22 weeks, starting January 2008, and attracted no fewer than 29 leagues over the course of the season. Two separate weekly tournaments were set up, one named the UK Tourney arranged at 2pm EST and the other named the US Tourney at 7pm EST. The number of rounds was set at 5 and 5 players from each team were permitted to join. In June 2008, Straightshots carried on where they left off in the trial competition by winning the inaugural season. Runners-up were Breakers Alley and Deadstrokes finished third.

There are no records of the scoring system but we do have the final standings of that opening season. For the record, here are the final positions of that first-ever season, together with the bizarre high points tallies accumulated by each team over 22 weeks! 1. SS 2,934 points; 2. BA 2,583; 3. DS 2,204; 4. X8B 2,064; 5. EP 1,363; 6. BnR 1,194; 7.DP 907; 8. TC 614; 9. BP 604; 10. UP 591; 11. PRO 553; 12. PP 506; 13. PFN 488; 14. TP 468; 15. RP 441; 16. FR 369; 17. UNY 271; 18. 8BR 261; 19. LPL 183; 20. TPL 161; 21. CZ 154; 22. LS 92; 23. REG 90; 24. CW 74; 25. AA 52; 26. MP 32; 27. EPL 29; 28. VS 25; 29. OC 20. How many of these leagues can you name by their initials? Sadly, many of them have demised but it's good that the archives have recorded their existence for posterity!

In July 2008 Season 2 began and that ran for 22 weeks, finishing with Straightshots retaining their title in the December narrowly ahead of Breakers Alley with Deadstrokes again in third. Season 3 began in January 2009 and ran until March when, under severe pressure from Deadstrokes (second) and Cuemasters (third), Straightshots completed their third consecutive title success. Xtreme8ball, who finished 4th in the first season, challenged strongly for the next two seasons but slipped towards the end on both occasions to let in the reigning champions to complete wins numbers 4 (in Season 4 running from April 2009 to September) and 5 (in Season 5 from October 2009 to February 2010). Led by team captain Marie (milly_molly03 and later ms.marieeee) and assisted by Nigel, Straightshots therefore won five UIC Swiss championships in a row, an excellent achievement of consistency. Deadstrokes and Ultimate Outlaws finished third respectively.

Season 6 commenced in April 2010 and finally a new team broke the SS monopoly. ICA (International Cue Addiction), a league set up primarily by Trey (UN_NATURAL) to play interleagues 'hired' Nigel from SS to run their inters side and he led a small team including Bev, Dan, Nish, Shannon and Trey to victory in the sixth competition. In August 2010, ICA pipped Deadstrokes by one solitary point after a very close season, pushing 5-times winners SS into an unprecedented third position. This started a run of unsuccessful seasons for SS and they had to be content with a couple of thirds and second places as other teams challenged for the title.

With a first team title snatched from their grasp by ICA in Season 6, Deadstrokes came back fighting in Season 7 under the leadership of Michele (saucy_chele) and won the competition during a campaign spanning from October 2010 to February 2011. They contested the top two places with a keen Freedom team which had Petey and former ICA players Dan and Nish onboard. But DS just about stuck it out to take their first UIC Swiss championship. Starting in April 2011, Season 8 saw Freedom hell bent on gaining revenge and they stormed to a huge lead in the team standings once 8BC's challenge started to fade. Although SS recovered towards the end of Season 8 to finish second, FR had enough under their belts to take a first title when the season ended in September 2011.

The SS 'slump' lasting three seasons finally ended during Season 9 which began in November 2011 when they returned to former glories by taking the championship from FR. With Marie and Nigel back running the SS teams, the opposition found their organisation too hot to handle and watched as the league took their sixth title in February 2012. A major change for Season 10 was the addition of a third tournament – named the Australian or 'Aussie' tourney – which started at 11pm EST, four hours after the US tourney. Also new was the compulsory use of Camtasia or a similar recording program which was implemented in Season 10, in an effort to reduce the number of aimers. SS again dominated the campaign, winning their seventh Swiss title during a season played from April 2012 to August.

Season 11 commenced in October 2012 with a revised scoring system in place. The top four leading scores per team counted towards the standings rather than the top six, favouring the smaller leagues who could not get as many players to jump as the leading ones. In the most exciting race to the title since season 6, Straightshots led the table for the majority of the season only to see Deadstrokes snatch it in the very last tournament played in March 2013, which had to be delayed two weeks due to room problems. DS won by one point to match ICA's feat – it was the second time DS had won the Swiss championship and denied SS another consecutive treble.

In between Seasons 9 and 10, Nigel introduced a new Swiss competition called 7-Speed which he ran with Michele of DS. 7-Speed was played over 7 rounds and had different games for each round. In addition to Regular 8, Bank the 8/Cue, Default Pocket, Four Corners, Last Pocket, Red Ball Last and Psychic 8 were played on timed tables. The competition, which was well attended, was arranged over 2 consecutive weeks and was won by Straightshots. A second 7-Speed was held during the gap between Seasons 10 and 11 and Freedom were the winners. The concept was repeated between Seasons 11 and 12, again played over 2 weeks, and was won by Pool Hall Pros. Altogether, 7-Speed was well supported, having been advertised as a 'fun' competition in between the main Swiss seasons.

The last UIC Swiss (Season 12) held in Yahoo Pool started in May 2013 and finished in October 2013, with SS winning the championship for the eighth time in 12 seasons. DS were runners-up and BNR took third place. The points totals for the last Yahoo-based Swiss championship were as follows: 1. SS 255; 2. DS 225; 3. BNR 182; 4. PHP 161; 5. TCC 113; 6. HH 111; 7. BBM 91; 8. AP 59; 9. YPJ 55; 10. FR 46; 11. PP 7; 12. SP 7; 13. FTW 5; 14. EC 4; 15. CP 3. On 31st March 2014, Yahoo decided to phase out their parlour games including pool and as a result they decimated a worldwide pool community.

In August 2014, after 7 years at the helm, Roy decided to hand UIC Swiss to Nigel (en_dk) who had been an Admin for several seasons. With the intention of resuming the competition in October 2014 (almost a year on from when Season 12 finished), it was decided to switch UIC Swiss to a new gaming site, namely GameDesire.

Changes for Season 13 included the dropping of the Australian tourney to leave just the UK at 2pm EST and the US at 7pm EST, the removal of the requirement to play 20 games in one's home league, the removal of the requirement to cam games and the reintroduction of nl_ (non league) for players not signed up to any particular league. Also, players from leagues in any gaming site could compete. All these positive changes were introduced to encourage better participation.

After a 'warm-up' tourney, Season 13 commenced on Friday 3rd October 2014. Captained by Angela (hh_™-AngeLa-™), Harley Hustlers won the UIC Swiss team title for the first time, with SS finishing as runners-up and DS third. The competition ran for 24 tournaments held over 12 weeks and the final points were as follows: 1. HH 172; 2. SS 154; 3. DS 147; 4. EC 128; 5. PHP 114. DS were the Sportsmanship Award winners. CS (hh__Legend) won the Individual award, beating Lee (ds_Clawed_bawls) by 7 points. Third was Stewart (ss_sstewart).

Season 14 commenced on Friday 20th February and ran for 12 weeks with the last tournaments held on Friday 15th May. Straightshots won the Team championship for the ninth time, beating off the traditional challenge of Deadstrokes who finished runners-up for the fifth time. New to the top three were Cue Ball Crushers who grabbed third place from deposed champions Harley Hustlers. CBC ended a fine seaosn by capturing the Sportsmanship Award for their efforts. Individual champion was Rocky (ec_Asskicker619) with the previous season's winner CS (nl_Legendary) coming second and Fahd (ss_Devastator_de_pool) third.

Angela (ds_*Angela*) joined the UIC Swiss Admin team, replacing Michele (ds_saucy_chele) for Season 15. At an Admins' Meeting held on Sunday 7th June 2015 saw two proposals being voted in for Season 15. The maximum entry per league per tournament was increased from 5 to 6 players, whilst screen-name changes were restricted to just one per season. With the season starting on Friday 19th June 2015, Straightshots went on to be deserving champions for the tenth time after playing catch-up all season; they trailed DS from Week 1 and overturned a massive deficit by Week 11. When the season ended on Friday 4th September, the top of the table looked like this: SS 175 points, DS 170 points and BW (Bongwater in their only season) 63 points in third place.

A worthy mention about Michele (ds_saucy_chele) who served as an Admin in UIC Swiss with distinction for quite a few seasons. She worked with Roy in DS for a long time and also did a grand job as Admin in UIC Swiss, working alongside Nigel and Roy.

On the Individual front, Rocky (ds_Asskicker619) became the first player to retain the Individual title, seeing off gallant runners-up Fahd (ss_º°TheBeast°º) by one single point. Rocky won seven tourneys, five outright, compared to Fahd's five (four outright), Bryan's five (all shared) and Faizan's four (all shared). At the end of the season, Angela stood down as admin and was replaced by Bryan (ds_Pool.Champ).

Prior to Season 16 beginning, Robert (php_fishinlifer) proposed to alter the tourney times to encourage better participation. These were changed at an Admins' Meeting to 3pm EST (the UK tourney) and 8pm EST (the US tourney) respectively. Also new was the addition of Non-League (nl) to the team standings, which previously had only applied to the individual competition. In came Heather (cbc_spoiled.princess) and Sammy (cbc_two_can_sam90) as two new TDs. Eight Ball Saints (8bs) and The Rat Pack (trp) were two new teams taking part for the first time in Season 16 which commenced on Friday 9th October 2015. CBC returned after an exodus of one season whilst BW took part in their place.

UIC Swiss held its fifth season in Gamedesire between Friday 22nd January and Friday 15th April 2016 inclusive. Alex (trp_xx__0nLy__M€__xx) and Sandi (8bs_xlx_sandi_xlx) came in as new TDs to join the existing team and the season flowed by without too many hitches. On the playing front, Season 17 attracted the highest number of competing teams since UIC Swiss moved to Gamedesire. A total of ten different leagues took part, with Break & Run (third in Season 12) making a welcomed return and Pool Dreams entering for the first time. Eight Ball Crushers, third in Season 9, and Sinners also competed.

Reigning champions Straightshots dominated from start to finish, winning their 12th team title. The Team Sportsmanship Award went to The Rack Pack for the first time. In winning the Individual title again, Rocky (126 points) won seven tournaments, five outright, out of his 11 appearances and was the deserving winner.

Season 18 of UIC Swiss ran from Friday 13th May to Friday 29th July 2016 inclusive and started with several big changes from the previous season. A third tournament, previously known as the Australian Tourney, was reintroduced again, increasing the tournament count from 24 to 36 over the course of the season. The tournament names were changed as well – gone were the UK, US and Australian to be replaced by 3pm, 7pm and 11pm respectively.

But the most significant innovation for UIC Swiss was bringing in timed tables of 30 seconds. Having seen timed tables work well in 7-Speed previously, this proposal was generally approved in a pre-season ballot followed by a staff vote and certainly quickened up each tournament as envisaged, so it was a successful introduction. Another change was the number of players permitted to take part for each league was reduced from six to five per tournament. Proposals to cam games – whether in all rounds or in rounds 4 and 5 for players on 3–0 – were rejected.

The team competition was won by Deadstrokes for the first time since Season 11, their third success. For the first time since Season 13, SS had to be content with the runners-up spot. The most consistent player once again was Rocky who won the Individual title for a record-setting fourth time, with CS, a former winner, in second place. On the hosting side, Ben (php_BenThereDoneThat) and Stewart (ss_sstewart) were two new TDs who joined the team at the beginning of the season.

With the completion of Season 19, UIC Swiss became the longest running interleague competition in online pool, surpassing the 18 seasons of UIC and having already outlived the old PLC and MLP interleagues. Season 19 was the seventh season in Gamedesire and ran from Friday 9th September to Friday 25th November 2016 inclusive. There were no major rule changes to report from the previous season.

Despite losing several players, Straightshots led from the start to the finish to win their 13th team title. Faizan (ss_Darkness) and Raza (ss_TheCheaterX) – who had left DS to join SS – were their highest scorers. DS, the previous season's winners, ran them fairly close for much of the season mainly due to Rocky's consistency but lost by 12 points at the end as SS never dropped off.

Pool Hall Pros matched their highest ever finish by taking third place behind DS. Pool Dreams took fourth spot whilst Eight Ball Saints finished fifth for the second season in succession. The Rack Pack, fourth in Season 18, finished in sixth, with newcomers Independence Poolerz in seventh. Lucky Draw were last behind Non-League! In the Individual competition, Rocky (ds_hitlist) captured his third consecutive title – and an incredible fifth win overall.

UIC Swiss celebrated its 20th season – the eighth to be held in Gamedesire – which started on Friday 6th January 2017 and ran to Friday 24th March. The Winning Club (TWC) were the new team joining for Season 20 whilst Independence Poolerz (IP) and Lucky Draw (LD) dropped out, leaving the competition with eight teams including the NL group of players. With PHP, PD, TWC and 8BS more or less playing for positions 3rd and downwards, this left SS and DS going for the 20th Team championship. The SS team stormed to a position of dominance from the start, impressively hitting a mid-way high of 100 points after six weeks. At the season's close, SS went on to smash the team points record with 202, six more than they gained in Season 19.

Finishing second for the eighth time, DS were 53 points adrift on 149. TRP enjoyed their best season, gaining 117 points to take third, just four points ahead of PHP in fourth (113). PD were in fifth place and 8BS finished sixth. Newcomers TWC ended in seventh position on 105 points, with NL again in eighth place for the second season running. In the Individual competition, Fahd (ss_Devastator_De_Pool and then ss_ThePlayer) won his second title, winning five tourneys along the way. Colt (ss_CS) finished as runners-up which was his third second spot in UIC Swiss.

Continuing this history page, details of Season 21 and subsequent seasons can be found by reading the REPORTS section elsewhere on the website.

Roy Sheppard, effectively the founder of UIC Swiss, sadly passed away on 3rd July 2017. A year before his death, Roy together with Nigel (his replacement as Head Admin prior to Season 13) discussed plans to bring in geographic regions rather than leagues. Roy produced a graphic of the world map and split continents into feasible teams. The plan got no further than initial discussions and they decided to retain the leagues format because of time restraints. Eventually, following a few seasons of ill-feeling between certain leagues and the dubious tactic of stacking (recruiting quality players without league activity), Nigel decided to adopt the geographic regions format for Season 24, agreed in principle by his fellow admins Sandi and Shelle.

So the 24th season of UIC Swiss started with all existing members being allocated to geographic teams to replace leagues. These were America Pacific (prefix: AP_), America Central (AC_), America Eastern North (AEN_), America Eastern (AEM_), America Eastern South (AES_), ASIA (same prefix), Canada (CAN_), Europe (EUR_), United Kingdom (UK_) and Rest of the World (ROW_ ). After week 4 of the season, it was agreed to allow players to enter two tournaments instead of one, which increased participation. Attendance figures reached around 40 per week which was an improvement.

Also introduced were play-offs at the end of the regular season, with separate Gold, Silver and Bronze tournaments applying based on final individual standings. At the beginning of Season 24, Nigel adopted a new slogan for UIC Swiss – Embracing World Online Pool which appeared in the banner.

Prior to Season 29, after five seasons of having the geographic regions format, the Admin team decided to return to the old league v league format and scrap the 30 seconds timed tables which had been in use since Season 18. Also introduced were league eligibility rules (25 games on the league's ladder) and the number of jumpers per tournament (restricted to eight per league). For season 30, the points system was modified with simpler scoring (bonus tourney win points removed) and a new unavailability compensation scheme was adopted to help players missing up to two weeks – both rules geared towards making the individual competition closer and more competitive.

All in all, UIC Swiss has embraced new changes to enhance what has been – and continues to be – a successful and popular online pool competition within the Gamedesire community.