And that guy, Abrin, that was allowed to play was just listed on the top 200 players in the world...
APA/Fargo cut off?
- Thread starter benjaminwah
- Start date
Yes I’m not a Fargo hater by any means, nor am I a huge fan. Even if my rating was right what is the benefit of one? Having a rating between 650-700 just puts you the middle of thousands of no body pool players. If my rating were to actually get to 700 I’d still be a nobody. I can drive 50 miles from my house and nobody there knows me.
I played him once in a tournament and lost hill hill it was before any had even heard of him
Come to Clarksville once in a while. Everything at Classic is Fargo.
FYI, we have a 700 speed coming through tonight.
There is another guy just under that visiting from HI who has a local backer if you want a game.
I'll play you $100 sets on the big table once I can get out of the house. I'm only in the 600-650 range.
I have an injured dog who needs supervision so I'm sort of stuck at home for another month it appears.
I thought about them enough to make the comment, then you literally reinforced my comment.
Like I said, this is fun.
I get it.
I’m not really much of a gambler I just play some people mainly for the practice. I actually played in a Fargo tournament there a few years ago and it was probably one of worst performances ever that’s why I’m in the banger category now. I think I won one set.
That seems pretty arbitrary since they let Brian Parks play who is the same rating.
I think the APA would rather FargoRate didn't exist. They should, of course, change to it but they would have to admit their current system is not perfect.
If someone was trying to hide their speed, there is no benefit. If someone was trying to make fair handicaps or see how they play in relation to others or have a set goal to improve to, then there is lots. It's not your rating that matters, it's your skill. The rating comes from skill not the other way around. That 700 rating range, +- 20/30, A+ or Open player, is a very interesting spot, it's too high for most areas to want them playing in their normal weekly tournaments or leagues, but too low to go up against the pros and expect a win more than 10% of the time.
Yet, I would love to be that good even then, but I don't play to just win or show off or tell people "I don't play for less than $50" or come out trying to beat anyone, just play to not make mistakes and be able to play some fun and hard shots. The winning games comes secondary from that.
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You mean the thousands of their members and others complaining about sandbagging and wrong ratings has not gotten through to them enough to do some house cleaning, what a shocker
For a good handicap system, you either need an open system with tons of data from every source possible or honest players. Preferably both of those, but we all know that second one is not going to happen.
Heck there is a guy I met recently, never had a Fargo rating, is a 250 now, and he asked how he can get more robustness without his rating going up. This guy was playing $50 and $100 sets with two guys that were 550-600 Fargo and winning or holding his own. And thinks his 250 rating is OK to have. sigh... I'd bet that 250 rating came from dumping the 7 games he played. Sounds like a single tournament, race to 4 then 3 on the losers side.
The strangest thing about this whole thread is that any 600 and above player would want anything to do with APA. Yikes, you couldn't pay me enough, and I'm in the 500's. ha ha.
I know many good players play in the APA. They like the trips I guess, there are also a lot of tournaments that is run by the APA leagues only for APA players. Personally, every time I visit a national event for any league, I leave with a bad taste in my mouth due to all the sandbaggers I run into. I would say at least half the players I have seen are 1 or 2 levels, or more, under how they actually play. My brother in law is a 600ish Fargo, he had a hard time playing some 3 that ran out really well against him, a 3! If it was not for that, I would probably play in the APA and care about TAP league a bit more. I just get sick of having to not make a single mistake against players that use their fake handicap to win. So far the only national leagues that are close to fair from my experience is USAPL and BCA, both use Fargo, so any tournament results the players have outside of league are also entered into the system, no hiding in some closed system.
If it was not for TAP being at SBE I would only be playing in my local leagues that my son runs. I actually know two payers that are in TAP for the same reason, the nationals are held alongside SBE.
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I just recently went back to playing acs. Because of my current job I just can’t take off when we make the playoffs for the weekend or fly to vegas. I enjoy playing in the apa. It’s nice playing people who normally would stand little chance to beat you that now can but the sandbagging and trying to keep everyone under the 23 rule gets old. Unless you want your team constantly broke up you have no choice but to sandbag. In the end I only wanted to play masters division (which I still feel is my favorite league format) It’s nice being back in a league where you just play. No crazy score keeping. No handy cap stuff. Nut up or shut up lol
They added Fargo to the super billiards expo this year then didn’t report anyone’s games to add to it lol Let’s face it guys…. Until the day pool forces you to prove you are pro worthy and have to get a tour card to play in the pro’s we are always going to have an issue. Unfortunately american pool needs that dead money in the pro tournaments to fill the brackets.
They added Fargo to the super billiards expo this year then didn’t report anyone’s games to add to it lol Let’s face it guys…. Until the day pool forces you to prove you are pro worthy and have to get a tour card to play in the pro’s we are always going to have an issue. Unfortunately american pool needs that dead money in the pro tournaments to fill the brackets.
I don’t think my rating would be 700 if it was accurate but probably around 670-680. Just going by what other peoples rating are that I play with. Yes I’ve been barred from several tournaments. Everything is handicapped now. No such thing as a play even tournament unless it’s a race to 2-3. There are pro tournaments yes but there are very few of them within driving distance of me.
I play because I like to play I don’t do it to try and beat someone out of their money. I turn down games I know I can win all the time. I also work 2 jobs a lot of times so it keeps me from getting to far from home.
APA can be fun, there's no doubt about it. It has its place, and I'm ok with that.
High 600 and 700 is close enough that you need a bunch of current games against players to get it to be exact. If you think about it, 30, 20 points out of 700 is not even a 5% difference, which is easily as much as a normal day to day swing in ability for a player would be. I doubt anyone would notice if they were playing 5% or even 10% better for a day.
It's easy to forget that in a single match or even a tournament with a few dozen games your Fargo performance can be way off from your average. If two 700s race to 8 and the score is 8-2 -- not that uncommon -- that's the equivalent of 200 Fargo points apart.
I’ve seen plenty play. Free trip to Vegas. A local layer who has I belive a 720ish fargo (he couldn’t play the amateur at the expo this year because of it) would play just for the trip to Vegas and then wipe up on the money tables
maybe they just want a night out and play with thier buddies.
Wouldn’t playing races to 2-3 have about the same effect? Even if you play 700 speed you’re not going to beat 600 speed players 3-0 every time. So if you beat a 600 speed player 3-1 or 3-2 it doesn’t look like you played your normal speed. Where as if it was a race to 7 or 9 a player might turn that from 3-2 to a 7-2 win or maybe 7-3. Where in a short race the better player doesn’t have the enough games to show they are a better player.