how are ya'll doing in league ?

lorider

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
You sound like you're a SL6 to me!

Maniac

While it is true that this particular match he played sounds about 6 level I would not consider anyone a true 6 unless they could do it consistently.

Heck I am a 5 and have won 4-0 in 3 innings. Yea....one rack was a break and run. The thing is I can't do it consistently ....the pool gods have to be with me to have a match like I described above.

The same with 9 ball. A couple weeks ago I beat a 7 38-27 in 9 innings. A few weeks before that I lost 31-25 to a 4 in about 25 innings. A lot of how you do depends on the break and the layout. The majority of my breaks end up dry and then a lot if clusters to deal with which results in numerous innings . Therefore while I am capable of running a rack.....everything has to be perfect ....a ball on the break and an open table with no clusters.

When everything goes right people complain I oughta be a 7. When the layout is tough and innings run up people claim I am sandbagging. Just human nature to complain I suppose.
 

stevenw00d

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
While it is true that this particular match he played sounds about 6 level I would not consider anyone a true 6 unless they could do it consistently.

That is exactly my case! I am getting better but am not consistent enough to be a SL6. Most of my APA season i was a SL4 and finished at 7 of 11 matches. I don't plan on dropping to a SL5 because I plan to work hard, but I also think I will struggle to maintain. Hopefully I am wrong and really have improved this much. :)


Ched, really sorry to hear about your injury. Stick with PT when you get to it, it makes all of the difference in the world.
 

drv4

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Continued the good season. There are 5 7s in our 8 ball league and I beat the highest rated one last night to move to 8-2 on the session and into the top spot. Feels good after feeling like I was a weak 7 to improving to the point where I feel like I can play with anybody. I did get lucky and prob should have lost the match as he couldn't close out the last two racks when he should have. I came back from 2-0 down then 4-2 down to win 5-4.

9 ball I destroyed the same guy, I'm a 7 and prob will get moved to an 8 soon. So close to making it to my goal of a 7/9.
 

MattPoland

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Turned out pretty good. 1st place.

eb737c5ce1eb5a9abda7519d3601a45e.jpg
 

MattPoland

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Which one of those distinguished looking gentlemen is you?



And....congrats!



Maniac



I’m thinking you could probably guess. I’m the smiling guy 2nd from left in a Mosconi Cup jersey holding a cue with a Revo shaft. Not that that means anything. But if you had to guess which guy posts on AzBilliards, there’s your sign. *wink
 

Maniac

2manyQ's
Silver Member
Back from the depths of despair....

My ass is out there somewhere. I knew right where it was two weeks ago because I had it handed to me by another SL6 in a 5-0 loss. It was one of those nights where I couldn't hit my ass with a stick of dynamite and he was making sensational shot after shot. Seriously, I'm not sure I could have shot the cueball straight into the pocket with any consistency.

Didn't play last week.

So last night I got a shot of confidence by beating another SL6 5-1 in 21 innings with about a dozen defensive shots between the two of us. I only missed one fairly easy makeable shot (too much green). I stayed down (as opposed to having the "jumps" two weeks ago), had good focus, and was stroking with confidence. Feels good to be back!

The team won 10-3 in points (APA 8-ball) and we were already in first place by three points, so...no worries there. I improved my record to 8-2 for the session, having lost both my matches to the same individual. Regardless of what happens from here on out I am going to finish the session with a winning record, while not important, is still pleasing to a man who will turn 65 in two months and is on nine different medications for various maladies, and has been playing guys less than half my age (and all but one were SL6's).

Maniac
 
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BC21

https://www.playpoolbetter.com
Gold Member
Silver Member
We are going to finish in 2nd place. We beat the 1st place team last week, but they are still a few rounds ahead. It's a USAPL BCA eight ball league, but I don't think we have the same rating/format as most do here, like being an SL6 or APA5 or whatever.

We play 5 on 5, five games each for a match total of 25 games, like the VNEA league. Ratings are simply based on total points earned out of total points you could've earned if you'd won all games played.

How do other types of leagues determine ratings?
 

stevenw00d

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Congrats Matt and Maniac. Sounds like your sessions went/are going great.

We had our local semi-finals last night. Our team was dead last in the division, but drew the wildcard into the 4 team playoff.
Our captain is the owner of the APA in the area and has been our recruiting for next session, so he hasn't been there in 3-4 weeks. Our stand-in captain hasn't been there in over a month, and hasn't even talked to anyone on the team. He decided to show up last night.

He didn't ask anyone about the first match and threw my wife out. She has a serious mental block against playing in a 2-2 race and that is what she ended up in when paired against another SL3. She was pissed and could not get her head in the match. She battled and it took FOREVER. She was able to win the first game, but with some very ugly tables she just couldn't get the next two.

Already in the hole against the #2 team in the division, the other team put up their best SL5. Our captain actually asked me if I was good and said otherwise he was going to put a SL7 on him. I had been playing terrible, but knew we shouldn't waste a SL7 on this guy, and if we did I wasn't going to get to play. I have been the strongest player on the team all season,so I said I would do it.

BRUTAL is the only way to describe the match. I played absolutely terrible. Every shot was a challenge. I lost the first game and by the end of it I was already exhausted. I battled. I tried to play smart, and I got a few lucky breaks with my opponent missing a few that he shouldn't have. 11 innings, and a combined 8 safeties, later I finally won game 2. My shooting didn't get much better, and thankfully my luck stayed the same. I stuck with it and worked my ass off to pull out a shocking 4-1 win.

We won the next match (SL4 vs SL4) and then our "captain" played their captain, who is one of the best SL7s in the area and got skunked 5-0.

The deciding match rolls around and we have to throw out either an SL2 who has been improving but is incredibly unpredictable or an SL4 who said he was shooting like crap and had no confidence. We threw the SL2 and they put a good SL4 against her that beat me the last time I played her. Our girl didn't get a game, but played her butt of and did everything she could.

Our season is over. As a team we didn't do well, but we saw good improvement out of every single player and we had a good time. I finished the season 8-4 and bumped from an SL4 to a SL5, so I'm happy with that.
This team won't be back next session and my wife and I are switching over to in-house so we can play 8-ball and 9-ball without it being on back-to-back nights. This Monday/Tuesday thing is killing me. I'm too old to be out this late (I'm 38.) :)
 

lorider

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Congrats Matt and Maniac. Sounds like your sessions went/are going great.

We had our local semi-finals last night. Our team was dead last in the division, but drew the wildcard into the 4 team playoff.
Our captain is the owner of the APA in the area and has been our recruiting for next session, so he hasn't been there in 3-4 weeks. Our stand-in captain hasn't been there in over a month, and hasn't even talked to anyone on the team. He decided to show up last night.

He didn't ask anyone about the first match and threw my wife out. She has a serious mental block against playing in a 2-2 race and that is what she ended up in when paired against another SL3. She was pissed and could not get her head in the match. She battled and it took FOREVER. She was able to win the first game, but with some very ugly tables she just couldn't get the next two.

Already in the hole against the #2 team in the division, the other team put up their best SL5. Our captain actually asked me if I was good and said otherwise he was going to put a SL7 on him. I had been playing terrible, but knew we shouldn't waste a SL7 on this guy, and if we did I wasn't going to get to play. I have been the strongest player on the team all season,so I said I would do it.

BRUTAL is the only way to describe the match. I played absolutely terrible. Every shot was a challenge. I lost the first game and by the end of it I was already exhausted. I battled. I tried to play smart, and I got a few lucky breaks with my opponent missing a few that he shouldn't have. 11 innings, and a combined 8 safeties, later I finally won game 2. My shooting didn't get much better, and thankfully my luck stayed the same. I stuck with it and worked my ass off to pull out a shocking 4-1 win.

We won the next match (SL4 vs SL4) and then our "captain" played their captain, who is one of the best SL7s in the area and got skunked 5-0.

The deciding match rolls around and we have to throw out either an SL2 who has been improving but is incredibly unpredictable or an SL4 who said he was shooting like crap and had no confidence. We threw the SL2 and they put a good SL4 against her that beat me the last time I played her. Our girl didn't get a game, but played her butt of and did everything she could.

Our season is over. As a team we didn't do well, but we saw good improvement out of every single player and we had a good time. I finished the season 8-4 and bumped from an SL4 to a SL5, so I'm happy with that.
This team won't be back next session and my wife and I are switching over to in-house so we can play 8-ball and 9-ball without it being on back-to-back nights. This Monday/Tuesday thing is killing me. I'm too old to be out this late (I'm 38.) :)

Only 38 ? Wait till you get to 63 like me and try back to back nights lol. I did not get home till 12:30 this morning . I woke up normal time but just could not get moving and wound up a half hour late for work. I have skipped work on tuesday twice this session because I was so tired. Thankfully my sunday division moved up to a 6:00 starting time so I usually get home by 10:00-10:30 but if I have a hard day at work mo day then a late night Monday I am really draggin on Tuesday .

One of those night has to go. Its just a hard decision. I have been captain of my Sunday team for 7 years....of course non of the original team is there. Although we are only in our second session I really love usapl on Monday night.
 

lorider

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
We are going to finish in 2nd place. We beat the 1st place team last week, but they are still a few rounds ahead. It's a USAPL BCA eight ball league, but I don't think we have the same rating/format as most do here, like being an SL6 or APA5 or whatever.

We play 5 on 5, five games each for a match total of 25 games, like the VNEA league. Ratings are simply based on total points earned out of total points you could've earned if you'd won all games played.

How do other types of leagues determine ratings?

I am in my second session of usapl and we use Fargo rate for handicapping. We play both 8 and 9 ball and they are both points based games just like bcapl 8 ball.

Unlike bcapl we play a race to our handicap. I am going to try not to make this confusing because it really is simple.

Although you are playing for points your Fargo rating is based on how many racks you win in your match...not how many points you earned. Now its may sound confusing here.. The points you need to win your match is based on your Fargo rating. Confused ? Lol.

One other thing about usapl. Unlike apa where the match is over when you reach your required points to win you ha e to finish the rack out in usapl and sometimes your opponent can come from behind in the last rack and win the match.
 

BC21

https://www.playpoolbetter.com
Gold Member
Silver Member
I am in my second session of usapl and we use Fargo rate for handicapping. We play both 8 and 9 ball and they are both points based games just like bcapl 8 ball.

Unlike bcapl we play a race to our handicap. I am going to try not to make this confusing because it really is simple.

Although you are playing for points your Fargo rating is based on how many racks you win in your match...not how many points you earned. Now its may sound confusing here.. The points you need to win your match is based on your Fargo rating. Confused ? Lol.

One other thing about usapl. Unlike apa where the match is over when you reach your required points to win you ha e to finish the rack out in usapl and sometimes your opponent can come from behind in the last rack and win the match.

Ok....I think I understand.

I don't have a Fargo rating yet. This is my first year in a long while playing league pool. I've won about 75% of my games, but only play 150 for the season. Anyway, thanks for the explanation.
 

stevenw00d

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Only 38 ? Wait till you get to 63 like me and try back to back nights lol. I did not get home till 12:30 this morning . I woke up normal time but just could not get moving and wound up a half hour late for work. I have skipped work on tuesday twice this session because I was so tired. Thankfully my sunday division moved up to a 6:00 starting time so I usually get home by 10:00-10:30 but if I have a hard day at work mo day then a late night Monday I am really draggin on Tuesday .

One of those night has to go. Its just a hard decision. I have been captain of my Sunday team for 7 years....of course non of the original team is there. Although we are only in our second session I really love usapl on Monday night.

I know... I have a long road ahead of me. We are dropping the Monday night and switching to Sunday, which starts at 4:00 or 4:30. That should make my week much easier. I have also skipped one Tuesday this session. We were out till 12:30 last night as well and this morning was brutal. I think my wife walked into the closet 5 times before she remembered what she went in there for.

As for league... we had in-house last night. As I mentioned last week, they has screwed up tracking my matches, so when I showed up last week I jumped from a SL4 to a SL6. I played an SL6 and won. I show up this week and I'm a dang SL7! I couldn't believe it. After talking to several people we think the operator set me up as an Unranked 4 instead of an Established 4 when I joined. This allows my rank to move a lot faster for the time being. I completely get that I started as a SL4 and have won 7 straight, mostly against SL5-6s, but that still doesn't make me a SL7. I guess I have a long road ahead of me.:yikes:
 

Koop

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I am really liking the USAPL / FargoRate system. It seems that most weeks, unless I am shooting lights out(which ain't often) most matches typically go hill-hill.
This past week I believe I was around 549 and we play both 8 and 10 ball. Both matches the other team threw low on me so the races were crazy. I played 10 ball first. I won every game but because it's ball count for the loser we wound up hill-hill which I wound up taking.
Then 8 ball, same thing. I win the first 4 racks, he wins the 5th and it's hill-hill. Alternate break, he broke dry and I ran out for the win but both matches were nail biters.
The week before I played Roy, the LO who is rated higher than me. We split, I won 8 ball and he won 10. Both went hill-hill.

I played APA for nearly 20 years and won't bash it but I do find myself enjoying this format much more.
 

lorider

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I am really liking the USAPL / FargoRate system. It seems that most weeks, unless I am shooting lights out(which ain't often) most matches typically go hill-hill.
This past week I believe I was around 549 and we play both 8 and 10 ball. Both matches the other team threw low on me so the races were crazy. I played 10 ball first. I won every game but because it's ball count for the loser we wound up hill-hill which I wound up taking.
Then 8 ball, same thing. I win the first 4 racks, he wins the 5th and it's hill-hill. Alternate break, he broke dry and I ran out for the win but both matches were nail biters.
The week before I played Roy, the LO who is rated higher than me. We split, I won 8 ball and he won 10. Both went hill-hill.

I played APA for nearly 20 years and won't bash it but I do find myself enjoying this format much more.

I am in my second session of usapl and really like the format and Fargo rate. However I am seriously debating dropping usapl for several reasons.

First and foremost is having to play back to back nights which really wears me out.

The next reason is we went to a paperless scoring and we have a quite a few people that refuse to keep score and some of them that do keep score tend to fvck it up once in a while....even clicking the wrong prompt and reason everything . Damn.

The WA its set up is one team keeps 8 ball and the other 9 ball. Every team we fave refuse to keep 9 ball at all because you have to pay attention to ever shot and give the appropriate ball to the appropriate player whereas 8 ball you can do whatever you wanna do and just mark the score at the end of the rack.

My one and only player that helps me keep score was pissed off due to this crap last Monday and threatened to quit. We did not have this problem last session when we filled out scoresheets.
 

Koop

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I am in my second session of usapl and really like the format and Fargo rate. However I am seriously debating dropping usapl for several reasons.

First and foremost is having to play back to back nights which really wears me out.

The next reason is we went to a paperless scoring and we have a quite a few people that refuse to keep score and some of them that do keep score tend to fvck it up once in a while....even clicking the wrong prompt and reason everything . Damn.

The WA its set up is one team keeps 8 ball and the other 9 ball. Every team we fave refuse to keep 9 ball at all because you have to pay attention to ever shot and give the appropriate ball to the appropriate player whereas 8 ball you can do whatever you wanna do and just mark the score at the end of the rack.

My one and only player that helps me keep score was pissed off due to this crap last Monday and threatened to quit. We did not have this problem last session when we filled out scoresheets.

Yeah, that would bother me too. Thankfully, we still score paper sheets and it's one night, Monday, both 8 and 10 ball. Great format.
 

lorider

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I just noticed my usapl team team is in first place this session. It just amazed me to see that because my 2 best players have missed more nights than they have played. Damn !
 

Coop1701

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I just noticed my usapl team team is in first place this session. It just amazed me to see that because my 2 best players have missed more nights than they have played. Damn !

Congrats pal...

I lost 15 - 5 last night in APA 9 Ball to a drunk lady. She could barely bridge the cue. Missed the cue ball 3 times when she tried to break. I have beaten her the last 3 times I have played her. last one Being 18-2. I am so mad at myself over this I wanna drop out of the tournament I am suppose to play this weekend. :(
 

Koop

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Congrats pal...

I lost 15 - 5 last night in APA 9 Ball to a drunk lady. She could barely bridge the cue. Missed the cue ball 3 times when she tried to break. I have beaten her the last 3 times I have played her. last one Being 18-2. I am so mad at myself over this I wanna drop out of the tournament I am suppose to play this weekend. :(

Hang in there, man!
You're never supposed to lose that match but sometimes we do. It's those losses that you need to learn from. Never take an opponent for granted and always give every shot your utmost attention. If you do that you will very rarely, if ever, lose to someone like that.

Play the tournament and put it in your rearview mirror
 

hang-the-9

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I am in my second session of usapl and really like the format and Fargo rate. However I am seriously debating dropping usapl for several reasons.

First and foremost is having to play back to back nights which really wears me out.

The next reason is we went to a paperless scoring and we have a quite a few people that refuse to keep score and some of them that do keep score tend to fvck it up once in a while....even clicking the wrong prompt and reason everything . Damn.

The WA its set up is one team keeps 8 ball and the other 9 ball. Every team we fave refuse to keep 9 ball at all because you have to pay attention to ever shot and give the appropriate ball to the appropriate player whereas 8 ball you can do whatever you wanna do and just mark the score at the end of the rack.

My one and only player that helps me keep score was pissed off due to this crap last Monday and threatened to quit. We did not have this problem last session when we filled out scoresheets.

Sheesh, I get upset when I have a night that I am NOT playing pool LOL

The team captain and maybe the guy running the league needs to have a talk to players and say that if you are on the team, you have a team job to do, which is keep score at times when others are playing. Doing nothing but drinking and playing can be done on the crappy 7 footer in the corner with the bangers.
 
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