Thanks for all the replies. The league starts in a few weeks. I am dissapointed to hear about the sandbagging. I expected some people in the league to do this but not the amount you guys have reported. I want to be competitive and one day make it to the nationals but I hate to cheat like this. I may be kidding myself but right now I am just going to work to be the best I can.
Thanks for all the replies.
I counted five posters "reporting" the sandbagging. Since I don't know any of them or where they're from, I cannot speak to the validity of their posts or what they have experienced for themselves. What I CAN tell you is that this handful of people are not representative of the pool-playing public in general. The average Joe league player doesn't even know AZBilliards exists. Take what is posted here with a grain of salt, because it could just be someone with an axe to grind (it sounds like at least one of them had a bad experience with a p.o.'ed league operator). That grain of salt includes me. I am an APA operator, and there's usually at least one response when I post that accuses me of drinking kool aid. I have in place all of the anti-sandbagging measures discussed here. I have a committee of higher-skilled players who are anonymous to the rest of the league and report to me. I have forms my players can use to report suspected sandbagging, and I am diligent in skill level reviews. I still have cheaters in my league. When I find out who they are I deal with them. Cheaters don't care if you try to catch or stop them - they will still try to cheat. You just do the best you can and make use of all the resources you have available.
I can also say that the APA as a national organization provides its operators with waaay more resources to battle the cheaters than any other amateur pool league organization in the world. An operator who is unwilling or unable to utilize those resources is doing a disservice to the APA as a whole. But don't let a handful of people here convince you that it's worse than it actually is. Truth be told, it was much much worse twenty years ago than it is today. Perhaps these folks haven't played in the league for a very long time. I don't know.
Enjoy your league night, don't cheat, and don't sweat the cheaters. They are the same people you would suspect of cheating in any other facet of life, and they can't keep you from enjoying yourself with your friends and teammates.