I've never played APA. I'm an off and on tournament player.I would love to pick up a mid week night out playing. So if I don't have a team and they just assigned me one, how does it work if it turns out these guys are a bunch of drunks?Do you just switch whenever you want or what? And the local rosters seem to have a lot of guys on every team at the place I want to play. How do you ensure that you play every week or is it not up to you at all?
Apa team question
- Thread starter us820
- Start date
The way APA is structured, you have 8 players on each team. Only 5 out of the 8 play every week, and there is strategy in how skill levels are matched up against one another, so normally all 8 show up each week. The team captains determine who plays each week. If you want to play APA every week, you'll have to play in the Masters Division, where there are no handicaps. These are 3-person teams. Other league formats focus on teams of 4-5 players that all play every week. These include BCAPL and VNEA, among a few others.
No you cannot just "jump ship" in the middle of a session. But, you have 4 weeks to be officially on a team roster, so if you found out early that you didn't jive with the other team members, you maybe could get on another team. If not, and you end up not liking the other team members, you'll likely have to quit that team, and get on a different team for the next session.
Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
No you cannot just "jump ship" in the middle of a session. But, you have 4 weeks to be officially on a team roster, so if you found out early that you didn't jive with the other team members, you maybe could get on another team. If not, and you end up not liking the other team members, you'll likely have to quit that team, and get on a different team for the next session.
Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
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Scott covered it pretty well. I am a captain on 4 teams . I try to pick players for my team that have certain qualities'.
1. Devoted to the team. That means I don't want to get a txt saying you can't make it tonight because you are taking your wife to the movies...save that for a night you are not playing. If for some reason you can't make it I expect a txt.and don't wait till match time to get around to txting.
2. Competitive. I want your best every week let me worry about your handicap.
3. Serious about your game. If I see a flaw in your fundaments be receptive to advice to correct it. Be receptive to time outs if needed. Way too many players hate time outs called on them.
4. Drinking is ok . If you drink to where it impairs your playing you are off the team. I don't tolerate drunk's
I realize people with that mindset don't want just a night out with the guys. They come to play pool. For that reason my rosters only have 6-7 players instead of the maximum of 8 and we play double jeopardy to ensure every one plays at least one game every night we show up.
I do play on an 8 ball travel leage I am not the captain of. I and another player rotate weeks we play where one of us stays home since we both cannot play the same night due to handicap limits.that way we are not both sitting there all night when only one of us is going to play.
1. Devoted to the team. That means I don't want to get a txt saying you can't make it tonight because you are taking your wife to the movies...save that for a night you are not playing. If for some reason you can't make it I expect a txt.and don't wait till match time to get around to txting.
2. Competitive. I want your best every week let me worry about your handicap.
3. Serious about your game. If I see a flaw in your fundaments be receptive to advice to correct it. Be receptive to time outs if needed. Way too many players hate time outs called on them.
4. Drinking is ok . If you drink to where it impairs your playing you are off the team. I don't tolerate drunk's
I realize people with that mindset don't want just a night out with the guys. They come to play pool. For that reason my rosters only have 6-7 players instead of the maximum of 8 and we play double jeopardy to ensure every one plays at least one game every night we show up.
I do play on an 8 ball travel leage I am not the captain of. I and another player rotate weeks we play where one of us stays home since we both cannot play the same night due to handicap limits.that way we are not both sitting there all night when only one of us is going to play.
Meet with the potential captain and teammates first before you join. You don't have to join their team, it that's your question.
Freddie <~~~ going to another meet and greet
I was in your position a couple years ago.
My advice would be, join a Masters team. It will be the most challenging. And most of the players take it seriously.
Plus, you won't be getting home around Midnight. Most of the time when playing Masters, your match will take 1.5 hours to play (or less).
Good luck.
My advice would be, join a Masters team. It will be the most challenging. And most of the players take it seriously.
Plus, you won't be getting home around Midnight. Most of the time when playing Masters, your match will take 1.5 hours to play (or less).
Good luck.
I'm a captain of a 9-ball APA team. Our LO is pretty loose in who plays on what teams, she considers it the player's choice. Because if you don't let a player switch who isn't happy with their team, they'll just quit, and at least in our division we struggle with keeping enough 9-ball interest to keep the division going. The exception is for Summer session (last session before LTC's) in which National decrees you can only change rosters up to week 4. The rest of the year people can switch at any time.
I don't think any of our teams have 8 players, even the 8-ball teams where there is more interest. So we do what we can to keep players happy and interested. I have 5 pretty steady regulars on my 9-ball team thankfully, probably the most reliable team in the division. We do have to deal with the occasional no-show, but it's not terrible. There are teams that sometimes have only ONE person show-up. Sometimes the captains don't even bother. It's pretty frustrating to those of us who take league more seriously, but APA is our only option here.
I don't think any of our teams have 8 players, even the 8-ball teams where there is more interest. So we do what we can to keep players happy and interested. I have 5 pretty steady regulars on my 9-ball team thankfully, probably the most reliable team in the division. We do have to deal with the occasional no-show, but it's not terrible. There are teams that sometimes have only ONE person show-up. Sometimes the captains don't even bother. It's pretty frustrating to those of us who take league more seriously, but APA is our only option here.
I just do not understand these guys that join a league and show up pretty regular then just out of the blue they dont show one night. We are BCA up here and we dont have 8 people show and play 5, there are 4 people on our team and they play every week. If you are going to be late or if you need to miss a night its not a big deal, let someone know, 1 of us can find a sub. Just do not decide you are going to do something else and not let anyone know on league night though, the team gives up an almost impossible amount of points to overcome. What is wrong with people like this?
I used to play bcapl and the lo also ran a poker league on the nights we played matches.
Quite a few people played both at the same time. Frustrating as hell when it was some ones turn to play pool and they were sitting at the poker table. We would yell to them its their turn and they would more often than not yell back to skip them and they would make it up at the end of the match.
Quite a few would try to pls all 5 of their matches back to back at the end of the night.
It was a real pain in the ass. If i had been captain I would have told them to play one or the other but they ain't gonna play both on my team
I wanna play on your team.
Others have it covered pretty well. Let me just add that if you want to make sure you play every week, you can join a team that only has five players. There is no rule saying you have to have 8 players....
The challenge with that is that inevitably someone can't come for any of a variety of reasons....work, family, sick, etc. Then you have to forfeit a match, if you only have 5 players.
Ths other challenge to five person team is the 23 rule. If you're new to APA, let me summarize it quickly. Every player has a Skill Level. (People also call it a handicap) A team can only play a total of 23 Skill Level points each night, to prevent stacking teams with too many strong players.
If your five-person team has too many strong players, their Skill Levels will eventually get raised, and you may not be able to play all five. Thus the need for more than five players, to have a few lower level players to balance out the stronger players and still be able to play five matches.
It may vary by LO and/or bylaws, but in our league during regular session we don't have to forfeit, we have the option to play people more than once if a team is short. Just not in playoffs or LTCs. Generally if a full team is playing against a short team, the captain of the full team gets to decide who the short team plays twice (the 23 rule still applies of course). And the full dues have to be paid, so either that player pays twice or the team splits the cost. If both teams are short then they can agree to decide for themselves. If people don't want to pay (and pay for) extra matches, their team can take a forfeit. Sometimes when both teams are short, they'll agree to double-forfeit the last match, therefore playing for only 80 total points instead of 100.
We've had weeks where only one person on a team showed and played all 5 matches themselves!
Me too, let me know when & where!!!:smile:
We do that here as well, but you have to tell them by the 3rd round it is going to happen, they pick and they have to keep you within the Rule of 23 and you can't play them twice in a row and they must be the last match.
Thus you can do it for 1 person, you can't do it for 2 or all 4 other matches as you said below was allowed by your LO.
We actually just had to do this last week for the first time in a year or so.
Congrats on your good start this session.