just got back from apa nationals.

trob

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I just got back this morning and I have to say they are very well run. I have been to vegas many times before but I'm usually on the other end of the strip. It's the biggest I've been a part of and everyone there knows what there doing and keeps things moving. Not to mention everyone as usual with the apa was incredibly nice, Sure you have a few bad eggs but it is few and very far between. I was only their for master division. I played well and we got knocked out of the 3rd round. Just a few notes for anyone who hasn't gone since they changed location.

1) I stayed at the stratosphere and I'm glad we did. We really liked it there. The rooms were nice. people were very friendly. a lot of good restaurants on site (which is important to my wife and I) great swimming pool. Everything was perfect to me and we travel a lot. It was only a $10 cab ride or 15 min walk to the westgate. It's only a 5 min walk to to the monorail to head down town and a 10 min cab ride to freemont street. Not to mention there was a soul food restaurant across the street that was amazing. My wife and I were the only white people in the place but no one blinked an eye when we walked in and the food was so damn good I wouldn't have cared if they did lol the westgate looked nice enough but I felt the restaurant choices weren't for us and the one place we did eat the food and service was terrible. Everyone said the rooms were nice though.

2)Don't fly spirit airlines...just don't ! enough said

3) venders .. there were a nice amount of venders. it's amazing how many of the same venders I saw on the east coast event I see at the west coast lo

4)The monorail is the goods. Takes you from the strat down to the mgm in 10 mins. It's comfortable .. cheaper then a cab and a pass last's 24 hours. Definitely a good idea if you want to head down town drinking.

5) I think one of my few complaints about the tournament was the table situation. Valleys.. Most of the tables rolled bad. I'm sure from sitting on carpet for a week before I got there. I don't make excuses but I had to adjust to the valley cue ball .... It's not very consistent in my opinion. I did adjust and played well but that cue ball is just funky lol the other thing was some tournaments you had to pay and some you didn't. Masters you had to play $1 a game. I get paying for your practice tables but either the tournament tables are free when your playing in the tournament or they're not. It shouldn't be some where between. charge me a greens fee and make the players wear some kind of badge when they're in tournament arena's ... I would be cool with that.

6) The apa rented out the whole pool area and had a monster party twice that week. Good times and the pool area was beautiful.

7) had to edit to add The mini's lol how could I forget that. I didn't play in any. They sold out 24 hours in advance and believe me they sell immediately when they come available. They have a tournament desk that only deals with them and 2 huge screens telling you what is coming up in the next 24 hours. People buy in not even knowing if they could play and then sell them off if they can. People wait in front of that desk all damn day for this. the second the director says one is available someone yells I'll take it before it comes out there mouth lol

looking forward to going again and I still say apa masters is the best league format a round. the long races give you a chance to catch a stroke and let 2 strong players battle.
 
Last edited:

lorider

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Nice write up. The valleys are what they are. You can expect the unexpected with them. Glad you made the comments you made concerning them. All too often people blame the table for their losses without realizing their opponent played on the same table. I went 3 years years ago and yea I had a few issues with a couple of tables but they were no where bad as some tables I play on locally so I could not complain.

A few friends stayed at the stratosphere when I went....wish I had also but we stayed at circus circus which was not bad.other than negotiation through crowds of kids a few times lol.

I agree completely with you about masters....best league format by far. Speaking of masters....i play in it and am only a 5. A while back a poster on here stated he would be offended if he wound up facing me in masters in Vegas because of my lowly handicap. How would you feel facing me ? Would you feel offended or would you feel glad you may have an easy win lol
 

trob

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Nice write up. The valleys are what they are. You can expect the unexpected with them. Glad you made the comments you made concerning them. All too often people blame the table for their losses without realizing their opponent played on the same table. I went 3 years years ago and yea I had a few issues with a couple of tables but they were no where bad as some tables I play on locally so I could not complain.

A few friends stayed at the stratosphere when I went....wish I had also but we stayed at circus circus which was not bad.other than negotiation through crowds of kids a few times lol.

I agree completely with you about masters....best league format by far. Speaking of masters....i play in it and am only a 5. A while back a poster on here stated he would be offended if he wound up facing me in masters in Vegas because of my lowly handicap. How would you feel facing me ? Would you feel offended or would you feel glad you may have an easy win lol

Lol that's silly. Good for you for stepping up. I was the only guy on my team that is a 9/7 and they held there own. If we would play I would respect you as a player no matter what your handy Capp was.
 

benjaminwah

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
This was my 5th time making it in 9 years. The Westgate is good. If you stay there they have a thing called Concierge level. $40 extra a day you get a room on a no smoking level, access to their concierge room which has free breakfast from 6-10 am everyday. Sausage, bacon, eggs, fruit, yogurt, biscuits and gravy and much more. You also get a 4-7 pm happy hour with free drinks and food, stuff like egg rolls, chicken wings, pizza etc. free coffee, water bottles, juice and snacks all day. Well worth $40 extra a day for my wife and I.

Minis- it's much easier during 9 ball. 486 teams for 9 ball, 735 for 8 ball. 249 less teams with 8 people per team, so way less people during those days. It's much easier to get the minis you want.

This was the first year I've faced a team that was severely under handicapped. Not due to dumping, they were from Toronto and played on 9 ft tables with 4" pockets. The pockets in Vegas were huge to them. They got knocked out 2 rounds after us. Nice people though!
 

benjaminwah

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Next time if you want a good laugh ask a ref what's the craziest thing he's ever seen there. Some great stories. My favorite was it was a hill hill game to see which team advanced to the next round. Shooter was on the 8 ball and someone threw a shoe on the table.
 

justadub

Rattling corners nightly
Silver Member
Nice report, Trob.

Someday I hope to make my own report. Not counting on that any time soon, but I can dream... :p
 

jus4funbilliard

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I also just returned, made it last year also in eight ball. Tables rolled pretty good last year, this year every table I played on had a roll. First two nights stayed Spring Hill suites right across the road five minute walk if that. Nice breakfast good room, would stay there again. First two nights at Westgate room had no coffee maker or microwave called front desk was told they pulled them all out. Friends room had one. Got upgraded for rest of week to new room guess what ? New room had both. APA does a great job running a tournament this big I think.
 

JoeyA

Efren's Mini-Tourn BACKER
Silver Member
Trob,
That was quite a report. Thanks for sharing. If I ever get back in the APA and go to Vegas, I will probably stay at the Stratosphere.

I said in my green rep that I didn't read how you did in the tournament but slowed down reading your great report the second time around.

It's nice to see people giving props where they belong.

JoeyA
 

Billiardsfan

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Since you went for Masters, did you watch the finals match? One of my teammates was there and said that it was 1 to 1 and the third match went like this:

Player 1 breaks three nine ball breaks in a row, then gets an early 9 in game 4. Played out game 5 and player 1 wins. Then player 1 breaks two more 9 ball breaks to win the match!
 

Jimbojim

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Since you went for Masters, did you watch the finals match? One of my teammates was there and said that it was 1 to 1 and the third match went like this:

Player 1 breaks three nine ball breaks in a row, then gets an early 9 in game 4. Played out game 5 and player 1 wins. Then player 1 breaks two more 9 ball breaks to win the match!

Player 2 needs to learn how to rack.
 

ElLeon

Headshot
Silver Member
I went for 9-ball and only have these points to add:

1) There is effectively no shot clock at the nationals. Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, yes, there ARE rules about shot clock (in no less than 4 locations within all the paperwork they give you). But there is no enforcement of the rules. One 9-ball match between two skill level 3 players took 1 hour and 45 minutes. Their player averaged over 1 minute per shot (not per inning). We tracked with a timing app.

Part way through the 1st rack I informed their captain of his slow play. He didn't care.

I informed the judge. He told me directly "there is nothing I can do, we have been instructed not to talk to any team, captain or shooter about slow play. All I can do is call a floor manager".

Floor manager shows up and watches for about 5 minutes (approximately 5 shots) and says "Yes, he is definitely going way over the shot clock. I will ask the head judge".

Nothing happens at all. The match spans approximately 1 hour 20 minutes after that point. Not a single damn thing.

Had we not hurried with a big win in match #2, the third match would have been sudden death. We avoided sudden death in the third match by approximately 5 minutes.


2) Judges do not know the rules for 9-ball. Specifically the "stalemate" rule. Nor do they stop play to consult a rule book if they do not know the rule (while admitting they are unsure of a rule).

3) They will deny a captain from looking up the rule that they are miss-interpreting and allow a shooter to shoot. Then say "sorry, we should have stopped play, but now they shot so there is nothing we can do".


So aside from those, it was nice. Westgate is an improvement over Rivera for sure. But the judging and enforcement of rules down there was absolutely pitiful.
 

Celophanewrap

Call me Grace
Silver Member
I went for 9-ball and only have these points to add:

1) There is effectively no shot clock at the nationals. Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, yes, there ARE rules about shot clock (in no less than 4 locations within all the paperwork they give you). But there is no enforcement of the rules. One 9-ball match between two skill level 3 players took 1 hour and 45 minutes. Their player averaged over 1 minute per shot (not per inning). We tracked with a timing app.

Part way through the 1st rack I informed their captain of his slow play. He didn't care.

I informed the judge. He told me directly "there is nothing I can do, we have been instructed not to talk to any team, captain or shooter about slow play. All I can do is call a floor manager".

Floor manager shows up and watches for about 5 minutes (approximately 5 shots) and says "Yes, he is definitely going way over the shot clock. I will ask the head judge".

Nothing happens at all. The match spans approximately 1 hour 20 minutes after that point. Not a single damn thing.

Had we not hurried with a big win in match #2, the third match would have been sudden death. We avoided sudden death in the third match by approximately 5 minutes.


2) Judges do not know the rules for 9-ball. Specifically the "stalemate" rule. Nor do they stop play to consult a rule book if they do not know the rule (while admitting they are unsure of a rule).

3) They will deny a captain from looking up the rule that they are miss-interpreting and allow a shooter to shoot. Then say "sorry, we should have stopped play, but now they shot so there is nothing we can do".


So aside from those, it was nice. Westgate is an improvement over Rivera for sure. But the judging and enforcement of rules down there was absolutely pitiful.

I can agree with the first part of your first sentence, " there is effectively no shot clock..." and there isn't. If you read that rule it says how long a shot should take, but there is no hard and fast rule, if it becomes an excessive issue then I'd expect other measures to be taken, and I'm sure they would be, but taking too long once or twice I'd hardly call excessive.
Misinterpretating rules? because you think they were misinterpreted? Did you consider that your interpretation might be incorrect.
As to the stalemate rule, you mean if neither player will make use of a ball in hand?
What do you think should happen and what actually did happen?
I don't think anyone can deny you looking up a rule, what did they do? Take your rule book
away? I'm sure you can look it up all you want, but don't expect the match to stop so you
can satisfy your ego. Did you lose the match you're talking about.
How many times did you actually call for a referee and we're they incorrect each time?
 

ElLeon

Headshot
Silver Member
I can agree with the first part of your first sentence, " there is effectively no shot clock..." and there isn't. If you read that rule it says how long a shot should take, but there is no hard and fast rule, if it becomes an excessive issue then I'd expect other measures to be taken, and I'm sure they would be, but taking too long once or twice I'd hardly call excessive.
Misinterpretating rules? because you think they were misinterpreted? Did you consider that your interpretation might be incorrect.
As to the stalemate rule, you mean if neither player will make use of a ball in hand?
What do you think should happen and what actually did happen?
I don't think anyone can deny you looking up a rule, what did they do? Take your rule book
away? I'm sure you can look it up all you want, but don't expect the match to stop so you
can satisfy your ego. Did you lose the match you're talking about.
How many times did you actually call for a referee and we're they incorrect each time?

Your points:

1) Shot clock:
A: This topic was clearly and directly discussed during the team captains meeting (and corresponding paperwork) that excessively slow play would result in BIH fouls called by the referee.

In practice the referee stated that he did not have the authority to talk to any team/player/captain about slow play. Therefore a logical fallacy is created whereby there effectively becomes absolutely no time limit in any capacity.

The match lasted 1:45 for two skill level 3 players to try and get 25 points (49 points in the event of a hill-hill match), there were a total of 21 innings in the match. Assigning an arbitrary period of time to rack, physically walk to address the cue ball and the one time out per rack, there is no reasonable argument that a match such as that should have taken 58% of the total time allocation given for the five matches that go into a single game. Your argument and question is as invalid as your sentence structure is.

Aditionally, i'll support this assertion with some source material to please your bleeding heart.

Team manual, page 7 directly addresses the ediquite of slow play:
http://media.poolplayers.com/TMRB/Team-Manual-English.pdf

When I return from Burning Man in a few weeks, i'll also post scanned images of the documentation for the APA World Championships discussing the shot clock and enforcement of the rules.

Taking ego out of this (which apparently you intoned) an average of over 60 seconds per shot is a clear violation of this rule. Stated dispassionately and without vitriol, so you can understand this clearly.

2) Stalemate interpretation:
A: Again, i'll be direct here so you can understand this simple concept as you used your heart instead of your brain to assess what was said:

"Even after having addressed the cue ball a player may, if
not satisfied with the placement, make further adjustments
with his hand, cue stick or any other reasonable piece of
equipment. A foul may be called only if the player fouls the
cue ball while actually stroking at the cue ball, meaning a
double hit of the cue ball (sometimes called double clutching).
The ball-in-hand rule penalizes a player for an error. Without
this rule, a person can actually benefit by accidentally or
purposely scratching or otherwise fouling. In the unlikely
event that a game should ever become stalemated, meaning
that neither player wants or can make use of ball-in-hand,
then the balls are reracked, the same player breaks and
the innings for the stalemated game are crossed off the
scoresheet."


Source: Official 2016/2017 rulebook, page 6
http://media.poolplayers.com/TMRB/Rules-Booklet-English.pdf

3) Being denied the opportunity to look a rule up:

A: Yes, the referee directly said "I will not pause play for you to look up rules"

4) Did it directly impact the game?
A: Yes it did. Their player quickly grabbed the cueball at their team captains urging and used the favorite rule of all APA players... "Any Pocket A-hole!" and smashed the balls as hard as possible. Resulting in one slop point, then ran the remaining 4 balls for the win as he was 5 points from the total needed to win the match at the time of the rules discussion.


5) How many times did you call a referee?
A: As you like to be a dunce about this, i'll ask you to further clarify your statement. Do you mean how many times was a referee called over to watch a shot, or how many times was a referee called to apply a ruling aside from "good/bad hit"?

6) Your un-asked question:
A: ABSOLUTELY!!! There is often a time to compose a proper sentence, organize your thoughts and write about them clearly. Give it a try! Even my 10 year old can do it. Some day you'll be there if you give it a try sometime soon!
 

LegitStick1234

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I went for 9-ball and only have these points to add:

1) There is effectively no shot clock at the nationals. Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, yes, there ARE rules about shot clock (in no less than 4 locations within all the paperwork they give you). But there is no enforcement of the rules. One 9-ball match between two skill level 3 players took 1 hour and 45 minutes. Their player averaged over 1 minute per shot (not per inning). We tracked with a timing app.

Part way through the 1st rack I informed their captain of his slow play. He didn't care.

I informed the judge. He told me directly "there is nothing I can do, we have been instructed not to talk to any team, captain or shooter about slow play. All I can do is call a floor manager".

Floor manager shows up and watches for about 5 minutes (approximately 5 shots) and says "Yes, he is definitely going way over the shot clock. I will ask the head judge".

Nothing happens at all. The match spans approximately 1 hour 20 minutes after that point. Not a single damn thing.

Had we not hurried with a big win in match #2, the third match would have been sudden death. We avoided sudden death in the third match by approximately 5 minutes.


2) Judges do not know the rules for 9-ball. Specifically the "stalemate" rule. Nor do they stop play to consult a rule book if they do not know the rule (while admitting they are unsure of a rule).

3) They will deny a captain from looking up the rule that they are miss-interpreting and allow a shooter to shoot. Then say "sorry, we should have stopped play, but now they shot so there is nothing we can do".


So aside from those, it was nice. Westgate is an improvement over Rivera for sure. But the judging and enforcement of rules down there was absolutely pitiful.

It would take a lot for me to call on a referee for slow play. No offense to you because I agree it does get frustrating at times, but some people play at a slower pace and some people use it as a shark. I just sit back, hang out, and wait for my turn.
 

Skippy27

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I just sit back, hang out, and wait for my turn.

Which is fine until they force your team into a sudden death situation.

Slow play should not be tolerated at all PERIOD. If you abuse it, you get warned. You abuse it again and your entire team gets put on the clock for the remainder of the tournament and you begin giving up BIH and forfeiting games. Those are the rules and that is exactly how it should be called every single time.

With that I am not saying, nor would I expect them, to clock 20 secs every single shot and 45 for more difficult situations. However, if you stand over an easy shot for 30 secs virtually every time and sometimes take more than a minute to stand over the shot before calling a coach, then your team should start to be punished. Whether it is your pace of play or how you feel comfortable is irrelevant. Learn to play at a faster pace just like any other skill you need to improve on or suffer the consequences of failing to do so.

I personally don't mind slow play typically, but I would shark the hell out of them by harassing them about it. I would get their entire team up in a frenzy if they didn't get their player to shoot faster.
 

Celophanewrap

Call me Grace
Silver Member
Your points:

1) Shot clock:
A: This topic was clearly and directly discussed during the team captains meeting (and corresponding paperwork) that excessively slow play would result in BIH fouls called by the referee.

In practice the referee stated that he did not have the authority to talk to any team/player/captain about slow play. Therefore a logical fallacy is created whereby there effectively becomes absolutely no time limit in any capacity.

The match lasted 1:45 for two skill level 3 players to try and get 25 points (49 points in the event of a hill-hill match), there were a total of 21 innings in the match. Assigning an arbitrary period of time to rack, physically walk to address the cue ball and the one time out per rack, there is no reasonable argument that a match such as that should have taken 58% of the total time allocation given for the five matches that go into a single game. Your argument and question is as invalid as your sentence structure is.

Aditionally, i'll support this assertion with some source material to please your bleeding heart.

Team manual, page 7 directly addresses the ediquite of slow play:
http://media.poolplayers.com/TMRB/Team-Manual-English.pdf

When I return from Burning Man in a few weeks, i'll also post scanned images of the documentation for the APA World Championships discussing the shot clock and enforcement of the rules.

Taking ego out of this (which apparently you intoned) an average of over 60 seconds per shot is a clear violation of this rule. Stated dispassionately and without vitriol, so you can understand this clearly.

2) Stalemate interpretation:
A: Again, i'll be direct here so you can understand this simple concept as you used your heart instead of your brain to assess what was said:

"Even after having addressed the cue ball a player may, if
not satisfied with the placement, make further adjustments
with his hand, cue stick or any other reasonable piece of
equipment. A foul may be called only if the player fouls the
cue ball while actually stroking at the cue ball, meaning a
double hit of the cue ball (sometimes called double clutching).
The ball-in-hand rule penalizes a player for an error. Without
this rule, a person can actually benefit by accidentally or
purposely scratching or otherwise fouling. In the unlikely
event that a game should ever become stalemated, meaning
that neither player wants or can make use of ball-in-hand,
then the balls are reracked, the same player breaks and
the innings for the stalemated game are crossed off the
scoresheet."


Source: Official 2016/2017 rulebook, page 6
http://media.poolplayers.com/TMRB/Rules-Booklet-English.pdf

3) Being denied the opportunity to look a rule up:

A: Yes, the referee directly said "I will not pause play for you to look up rules"

4) Did it directly impact the game?
A: Yes it did. Their player quickly grabbed the cueball at their team captains urging and used the favorite rule of all APA players... "Any Pocket A-hole!" and smashed the balls as hard as possible. Resulting in one slop point, then ran the remaining 4 balls for the win as he was 5 points from the total needed to win the match at the time of the rules discussion.


5) How many times did you call a referee?
A: As you like to be a dunce about this, i'll ask you to further clarify your statement. Do you mean how many times was a referee called over to watch a shot, or how many times was a referee called to apply a ruling aside from "good/bad hit"?

6) Your un-asked question:
A: ABSOLUTELY!!! There is often a time to compose a proper sentence, organize your thoughts and write about them clearly. Give it a try! Even my 10 year old can do it. Some day you'll be there if you give it a try sometime soon!

Shot clock - I fail to see anything except a guideline. I see where it gives a guideline, what is it? 20 and 45 seconds or something like that? I'm sure that at the 21 second mark you were right there screaming for a referee and demanding a foul. If the match was lasting way too long for your taste I would think that perhaps players, both players, we're nervous and missing shots they normally wouldn't miss and the players, both players, we're over thinking and taking too long. That's a product of poor coaching, on both sides. Page 7? You mean the portion that gives the time GUIDELINES? I'm still missing where this says ball in hand foul, will you point that out, please. Also, in looking over the rules of whatever the APA calls it now - World Pool Championship, I still see guidelines. I don't recall ever hearing that a referee could issue a ball in hand foul for the ficticious shot clock violation. I believe at the national level a shot clock violation is a sportsmanship violation and would need to be brought to the attention of a floor manager or tournament director and a warning would be given before any such violation was called.
In some areas I know they impose an actual shot clock, but that would be considered a local rule which I'm sure you know isn't applicable on the national level

Stalemate - I have read that portion of the rules too. That's what I also understand the rule regarding a stalemate to be. We're you in a stalemate situation and it was not handled according to the rule?

Looking up a rule - So if I understand you correctly, the referee confiscated your rule book and didn't allow you to look up a rule? If that's not what happened I'm not sure why you didn't feel free to look up all the rules you wanted. But stopping the match so you could do so, that would be wrong. If you feel the ruling was wrong you ask for the floor manager as we were instructed to do, if you still don't agree and you think it impacted the outcome of the game / match you pay your fee and file a protest. If you really fell you were right you should have no problem doing this.

How many times was a referee called? - I wish I could say it slower for you, how many times did your team call a referee regararding a game related situation is - "watch a hit," "what's the rule?" You know, things like that. How often were they right/wrong? How often did you bring this to the attention of the floor manager? How often did you make use of the vehicles available to you and file a protest?

My apologies if you had a hard time understanding what I had posted previously, I've tried to be a little more organized this time so it would be easier for you read and comprehend.

I imagine I'd be right if I were to guess your team didn't win the 9 ball event. While at the APA event I overheard many conversations filled with all sorts of excuses, "the felt was bad", "the tables rolled bad", "those guys were a bunch of sandbaggers", "I was hung over", "the tables were too close together"..... I think only once did I actually hear, "my opponent was just better than me today". Surprisingly rare was the excuse blaming the referee, but as usual you don't disappoint. If you manage to qualify next year maybe, since your experience was as bad as it was this year, maybe you shouldn't go.
 
Last edited:
Top