NEWS
Touching the BURNING LINE
New rules will be on force from now on
Igor Kovacic (Sweden) in the final moments of the Grand Final, fighting for the title of the World Champion. His burning line of competition cigar is millimeters from the ring.
Development of the CSWC is very connected with creativity of the competitors and their wish to push the limits. Sometimes in their desire to push the limits they are going too far, and CSWC is there to frame that desire, to control it by adjusting some of the rules.
There is always something new in the portfolio of competitors' tactics and new ways of slow smoking. I am sure they all are pushing the limits on that way without intention to go far away, but still sometimes that desire is too strong and we need to frame it with strong, clear rules. - Filip Boban, CSWC Judge
One of these pushing of the limits came in the way of touching the burning line of the cigar. In that way competitors were able to control the burning of their cigar, especially when the cigar started to burn unevenly, which can be very difficult for slow smoking, and fixing that problem can make that competitor speed up smoking time a lot. Another benefit of touching the burning line of cigar competitors can get especially by the end of the game, when their cigar comes with fire almost to the competition ring. how burning of the ring is bringing 15 penalty minutes and instant stopping of smoking time, to avoid competitors using the tip of the finger to shut down fire on the burning line closest to the ring.
Darren Cioffy (USA) former World Champion using finger to check heat of the cigar by keeping it very close to the burning line of cigar.
In that way they were using additional outside support and not just smoking techniques to avoid burning of the ring, which CSWC was considering out of the main point of slow smoking, where smoking skills are the only way competitors should use to maintain burning of competition cigars. Because of that, the CSWC Judge board brought the rule that it is forbidden to touch the burning line of the cigar, and that it is recommended not to touch the body of the cigar below 1 cm of the burning line.