THE HAGUE — The Tribunal of the International Cribbage Association has issued an extraordinary determination confirming Mr. Douglas Ronne, presently a Pi Level holder of the Association, as the undisputed holder of the 2025 World Title. The Title is conferred under the operation of Article X § 1 of the standing bylaws — the so-called Convening Rule — in respect of a three-handed engagement aboard the Cullen family sailing tender off the Bahamian cays in January MMXXV, the result of which has been the subject of sixteen months of concealment by the two losing parties.
The engagement was contested between Mr. Ronne, then newly inducted at the Pi Level on Mr. Cullen’s own motion at the Dubai Sector Meeting of the preceding November, and the two Masters holders Mr. Tony Cullen and Ms. Alicia Lake. The format was best of three; the variant the three-handed game as defined under Article VI § 1 of the standing rules.
The Tribunal’s determination records, on the agreed evidence of the parties and of a fourth party present in the capacity of galley steward, the following:
“In the first of three, Mr. Ronne held both Mr. Cullen and Ms. Lake below the ninetieth-point skunk line, effecting the simultaneous skunking of two Masters holders — a feat without recorded precedent in the modern history of the federated game. In the second of three, Mr. Ronne defeated both parties soundly and decisively by margins the Tribunal characterises as not subject to any reasonable construction in the losing parties’ favour. The third match was, in consequence, not played. The 2025 World Title is therefore conferred upon Mr. Douglas Ronne, full stop, and entered into the standing register of the Association accordingly.”
Mr. Cullen and Ms. Lake have, since the date of the engagement, consistently denied that it constituted a sanctioned title match. The principal ground advanced by the two Masters holders has been that Mr. Ronne’s official Pi Level certification card had not, at the date of the engagement, been physically delivered to him — the card having remained aboard the Executive Director’s helicopter pending a subsequent ceremonial delivery (the November MMXXIV ceremony having been frustrated by Mr. Ronne’s absence from his last-registered hotel address).
The Tribunal rejects the contention. Footnote 9 to the Convening Rule, the determination observes, addresses the point directly: “Cards or certifications not yet physically delivered to the inductee do not, for the avoidance of any doubt, operate to remove the inductee from the operation of the Rule; induction by resolution of the Council is sufficient.” Mr. Ronne’s induction at the Pi Level having been effected by the unanimous resolution of the Dubai Sector Meeting two months before the engagement, the operation of the Convening Rule upon the engagement was absolute and immediate.
The Tribunal further finds, under Article X § 2, that the sixteen-month concealment of the engagement by Mr. Cullen and Ms. Lake constitutes conduct injurious to the dignity of the federated game. The determination characterises the conduct as “a singular embarrassment to two senior holders of the Association, the more so for the persistence of the denial in the face of the bylaws’ perfectly explicit provision.”
Executive Director Pat Thornenberg, in a written statement issued through the Secretariat upon receipt of the Tribunal’s determination, formally commended Mr. Ronne on the 2025 World Title. “The Title was Mr. Ronne’s on the day it was won, and it is Mr. Ronne’s to-day,” the Director said. “The Association regrets that two of its most senior holders should have judged the technicality of the undelivered card to constitute a sufficient basis for the concealment of a result they were, on the day, plainly unable to accept. The Association’s register is the Association’s register, and shall reflect what is properly entered upon it.”
The Director’s statement extended the formal censure of the Association to Mr. Cullen and Ms. Lake in respect of the concealment, the sanction to be entered upon the standing record of both Masters holders in addition to the provisional suspensions previously imposed in the principal proceeding.
Mr. Ronne is the 2025 World Title Holder. The Title is held concurrently with the Pi Level certification, the Office of the Director having indicated that no proposal for the elevation of Mr. Ronne’s formal rank is presently before the Council.
Mr. D. Ronne (Pi Level, 3.14, and now 2025 World Title Holder) remains the lowest-ranked individual ever to hold a World Title, and the lowest-ranked individual ever to have simultaneously skunked two Masters holders in a single engagement. The Title does not, of itself, alter Mr. Ronne’s Pi Level certification, which the Association continues to regard as the appropriate certification for the present.
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