With Suresh Krishnan becoming the latest official qualifier for the 2023 Tournament of Champions, we're going back in time to discuss those who barely missed the cut in their qualifying years.
I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't even occur to them to have alternates for the first few until they had some kind of close call and realized they needed a backup, kinda like how they didn't rethink the rules about a triple-zero in the semifinals until after it happened in the 2013 Teen Tournament (what would have happened if two or all three semis ended with triple zeros?).
Semi-related, i'm wondering how alternates are going to be handled for Champions Wildcard, since every eligible player who could be there will already be there. Probably just the other Second Chance finalists i guess? Or maybe it'll be some kind of format where the total number of players is flexible enough that if someone dropped out they wouldn't need to replace them.
With the way Lechner described his experience being the alternate for 1989, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if he were the first.
The Second Chance finalists seem like a good bet for Champions Wildcard alternates... I don't tend to focus on other tournament alternates as much tbh, mainly just because TOC alternates are way easier to verify just by going through the archive.
I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't even occur to them to have alternates for the first few until they had some kind of close call and realized they needed a backup, kinda like how they didn't rethink the rules about a triple-zero in the semifinals until after it happened in the 2013 Teen Tournament (what would have happened if two or all three semis ended with triple zeros?).
Semi-related, i'm wondering how alternates are going to be handled for Champions Wildcard, since every eligible player who could be there will already be there. Probably just the other Second Chance finalists i guess? Or maybe it'll be some kind of format where the total number of players is flexible enough that if someone dropped out they wouldn't need to replace them.
With the way Lechner described his experience being the alternate for 1989, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if he were the first.
The Second Chance finalists seem like a good bet for Champions Wildcard alternates... I don't tend to focus on other tournament alternates as much tbh, mainly just because TOC alternates are way easier to verify just by going through the archive.