Introduction

This summer, the International Axe Throwing Federation (IATF) is establishing an annual integrated circuit of tournaments to foster competition among IATF players. Organizing tournaments into a circuit increases the profile of these tournaments, their hosts, their competitors and the IATF.

TL;DR at the end of the document.

Goals

Tournament circuit integration serves a number of key objectives:

• to promote more competition outside of players’ local leagues.
• to promote different skills levels of competition.
• to provide more opportunity for the best players in the world to secure placement at the International Axe Throwing Championship (IATC), including in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup.

Tiers of Circuit Events

Events on the circuit will be categorized into tiers: Majors, Grand Slams and the International Axe Throwing Championship.

Major Events

Majors consist of a marquee tournament for highly skilled players, accompanied by at least one additional supporting tournament for which registration is tailored to more intermediate players (i.e. supporting tournaments may have registration limited by average score, rating, etc), to feature a demographic (i.e. Women, Youth, etc), or to feature a game format (i.e. Big Axe, Doubles, etc).

Grand Slam Events

Grand Slams consist of a marquee tournament for highly skilled players, accompanied by at least two additional supporting tournaments for which registration is tailored to more intermediate players (i.e. registration limited by average score, rating, etc), to feature a demographic (i.e. Women, Youth, etc), or to feature a game format (i.e. Big Axe, Doubles, etc).

Circuit Integration

Top finishers in circuit tournaments will receive reserved spots in future circuit tournaments or at the IATC.

Major Tournament Circuit Integration

The winners from each Major tournament will be reserved a spot in a corresponding tournament held at the IATC.

• Winning a Major’s marquee tournament will reserve the 1st place finisher a spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup, securing a place as one of the final 256 competitors.
• Winning one of the Major’s supporting tournaments will reserve the 1st place finisher a spot in a comparable tournament at the IATC (i.e. a tournament for intermediate players would reserve a spot in a tournament at the IATC similar to 2023’s Under 65 or Under 55 tournament).
• The 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finishers from a Major’s marquee tournament will be reserved a spot in a later Grand Slam’s marquee tournament.

Grand Slam Tournament Circuit Integration

The top finishers from each Grand Slam tournament will be reserved spots in a corresponding tournament hosted at the IATC.

• Finishing in the top 4 at a Grand Slam’s marquee tournament will reserve these players a spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup, securing a place as one of the final 256 competitors.
• Winning one of the Grand Slam’s supporting tournaments will reserve the 1st place finisher a spot in a comparable tournament at the IATC (i.e. a tournament for intermediate players would reserve a spot in a tournament at the IATC similar to 2023’s Under 65 tournament).

Supporting Tournaments and Reserved Spots at the IATC

As stated, the winners of supporting tournaments at both Majors and Grand Slams will reserve the 1st place finisher a spot in a comparable tournament at IATC. Since the types of supporting tournaments is not 1:1 with the types of tournaments at IATC, this will mean each of these tournaments will be assessed to determine the best fit for which IATC tournament to reserve a spot. This assessment will be conducted by the IATF and coordinated with the hosts.

The 2023-2024 IATF Tournament Circuit

The schedule of IATF Tournament Circuit events is as follows:

Grand Slams

The top 4 finishers from each of these events’ marquee tournaments will be reserved a spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup.

Majors

The winner from each of these events’ marquee tournaments will be reserved a spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup.

* These Majors include two marquee tournaments that will each reserve the winner a spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup.

** The top tier of this Swiss tournament is categorized as a Major marquee tournament, so the winner reserves a spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup.

Regionals

Each IATF Region will host a Regional Tournament in January 2024. As in 2023, the winners of each of these tournaments will be reserved a spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup at the 2024 IATC.

Additions to the Circuit

As the Circuit develops, the IATF may include additional Majors or Grand Slams. New events will be added to the Circuit to allow for more complete geographical access and for more even pacing throughout the calendar year.

Interaction with the Wilson Cup

Reserved Spots

The Wilson Cup tournament has always been a balance between encouraging the highest level of competition and inclusion of players from all IATF member organizations. Reserving spots for winners of Majors and top finishers of Grand Slams means more top-level competitors will be in the Wilson Cup Round 2 bracket. It also means there are fewer spots available to distribute among the IATF members organizations’ players advancing from Round 1. With a field of 256 players, and potentially 40-50 spots reserved for players advancing from tournaments, there will still be ample room to ensure players from all IATF member organizations are still included.

Qualification

Players earning a reserved spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup tournament will be removed from consideration for qualification via league play. This means, when determining qualification via the Premier season Top 8 Rule and the Standard season Top 4 Rule, these players will not be part of the determination. More specifically, if one of these players would have been in the Top 8 of a Premier season, then the 9th place finisher will move into the 8th qualifying position. Similarly for Standard seasons, the 5th place finisher will move into the 4th qualifying position. This process is consistent with how winners of the Regional Tournaments and the previous IATC champion are removed from qualification via league play.

Round 1

IATF Tournament Circuit competitors who earn a reserved spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup at IATC will be seeded by their results in Round 1. These competitors will not be part of the determination of IATF member organizations’ players advancing from Round 1 to Round 2 of the Wilson Cup. This means only players who have not already earned a spot in Round 2 are considered when determining member representation following Round 1.

Players Awarded A Second Reserved Spot

Players can only occupy one reserved spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup.

If a player finishes in a position that would earn a second reserved spot, then the spot will be reserved for the next best finisher in the tournament. i.e. if it is a Major, the 2nd place finisher, if it is a Grand Slam, the 5th place finisher (with the 5th/6th place tie broken by the most number of rounds won in their last match, if still tied, consider the previous match, etc).

Tournament Rating System

Coming later this summer, to accompany the tournament circuit, we will be launching a tournament rating system to accompany the Collins Rating System (CRS) and provide a 12 month rolling rating based on tournament performance alone.

 
We believe this will be an excellent complement to the existing Collins Rating System, which features daily match-by-match rating adjustments, whereas the tournament rating leaderboards will be more stable, updating only when Tournament Circuit events occur.

More information on this coming this summer.

TL;DR

The top 4 finishers from Grand Slams will be reserved a spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup. The winner of Majors will be reserved a spot in Round 2 of the Wilson Cup.