APA 3-Way Tie-breaker FIASCO

First off, I would like to state that it is not my intent to bash the APA and/or my League Operator (LO). I like playing in the APA and I have no problems with the organization. My LO is actually a good guy. I believe he is fair and very generous to all the players that participate in his franchise. That being said, my LO agrees with me, reluctantly, that it is unfair for the team with the better record to lose, but he says, “The rule book must be followed”. His only recourse is to bring this up to corporate APA next week when he is in Vegas for Nationals.

My problem, and what I don’t agree with, is a ruling in the APA rule book on how a 3-way tie is determined. I have a problem with this rule because this just happened to my 8-Ball team at the end of the regular Summer Season. This week is the start of playoffs, and I believe the team who lost the most games out of the 3 teams, got rewarded and finished 1st in the tie-breaker, and the team that won the most games between the 3 teams finished last in the tie breaker. How could this happen?????

My purpose for writing this is
1. To inform all APA players about this unfair rule. It might have happened to you and your team in the past already.
2. To help initiate an immediate change on this rule as soon as possible, so that it doesn’t happen to any other team in the future.

Here’s what happened…

3 teams tied for 5th place. We'll call them teams A, B, and C.

TeamA played TeamB twice (2x) and lost 2 times.

TeamA played TeamC once (1x) and won their only match.

TeamB and TeamC played each other 2 times. The result is a complete tie between these 2 teams because each team won 1 match each, and the score for both matches was 12-9 and 9-12 points respectively.

1. My first argument here is, because Team A lost twice (2x) to Team B, then Team A should finish below TeamB in the 3-way tie.

2. My 2nd argument here is if you compare the records of all 3 teams when they played each other, it would be the following:

Team A = 1 win 3 Loss
Team B = 3 wins 1 Losses
Team C = 1 win 2 Losses

To me, CLEARLY, Team A should NOT have WON the overall tie breaker because TeamA had the worst record between the 3 teams.

What really happened is, Team A won the overall tie breaker!

This is how the APA rule book determines a 3-way tie breaker (3 or more)

The rule book can be downloaded here:
http://www.poolplayers.com/documents/2012-Team-Manual-FINAL_LR.PDF


Per the rule book…
“If three or more teams are tied - Break the tie by matching the teams against
each other according to which teams involved met first during the session.”

In our case, TeamB and TeamC played first against each other, the first tie breaker happens between them. In this case TeamC won the tie breaker.

Per the rule book…
Example: Teams #2, #5, and #10 all tied for 3rd Place in a session. Looking
back in the schedule, none of them met in the first week of play. Team #2
played Team #10 in the second week, so their tie is broken (as described
previously), and the winner is matched against Team #5. The winning team
advances to the Playoffs. The losers would be placed in the wild card draw.

In the example above,
TeamA = #5
TeamB = #2
TeamC = #10

The second (and final) tie-breaker then happens between TeamA and TeamC.
TeamA wis because TeamA beat TeamC in their only match of the season.

I believe TeamB got screwed here because they beat TeamA 2-0 during the regular season.

Out of the 3 teams that tied, the final result is:
1. The team with the worst record won the tie breaker.
2. The team with best record lost the tie breaker.

To me, the main fiasco in this rule is the 1st determining factor of “which teams involved met first during the season.” This is what allowed the team with the best record to lose the tie breaker. It allowed the team with the worst record to win the “second/final” tie breaker.

Is this fair?

Not to me.


I have playoffs tonite so I probably won't see/reply to anyone who posts back to this thread until tomorrow...

hang-the-9 said:

You lost me at "I like playing in the APA", but you are right, that is a silly rule. But only one of several in the APA so I guess they are consistent LOL. They need to look at the 3 teams overall in how they did against each other not who happened to play first in the season.

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This is what they should be doing. For a 2-way tie, they do this...

Per the manual, "If two teams are tied - Break the tie by letting their records against each other during regular session play decide the issue."

Why can't they do it for all 2,3,4, etc ties?

hang-the-9 said:

The league I am in is also a bit odd as far as ratings go, they pick top team by average points per set not win/loss record. I was on a team that had a 7-3 record or something like that, and we came in 3rd at the end of the season, both the teams ahead of us had less wins. If a football team finished 10-2 they are a better team than one that finished 7-5 even if the 7-5 team scored more points. Not sure why my league does that, but that's the only thing I don't like about it.

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Isn't this how APA 9-Ball is scored? You could have a losing team record 7-9, but if you score in the 49-51 range in all matches lost, and you score 68-32 range in the ones you win, you will come out on top by scoring the most points, and if the team(s) with a winning record(s) score marginal wins at 51-49 range. Your team would have a higher "average points per set".

DoubleD said:

It is a handicapped league. Handicaps are supposed to give everybody an equal chance of winning.

Thus, the only way to fairly decide winner is a coin toss.

dld

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I could accept a coin toss, instead of choosing "the first 2 teams that played first".

Celophanewrap said:

I see you're using the new 3 point scoring system. Not that this would have made any difference, but everyone of the higher-ups in the APA that I've spoken to has acknowledged that there are some "kinks" to be worked out with the new system. Still, from your prospective it seems unfair, I'm sure team A thinks it's perfectly fair, and so on...
It's been my experience that The APA is perfectly happy with their rules and it's highly unlikely they'd be compelled to change anything. I have found that's it's important to just win and not depend on one's ability to back in to the playoffs.
I know that sounded kinda rotten, please don't take it that way, I have been on a wild card team more than once, I just think it's futile to point out any of the APA's shortcomings to the APA whether you're a player or an LO.
Best of luck

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My team is doing just that, "just win". We do that, and then we're rewarded by losing out to a team that lost the most...where's the satisfaction in that?

Yeah, I knew beforehand that I'm pursuing a futile attempt to get a rule changed...but if I at least give it a try, something might come out of it...instead of doing nothing, and definitely nothing changes.

Luxury said:

Did you know you could win 21 games and your opponent could win 30 and you can still win the us open tennis championship?

As long as the rules our set in place before anything starts, all three teams have an equal chance of ending up in the position that you ended up in.

It's just like it's fair to have the final of a double elimination pool tournament and then it just being one set in the final because all players going into the tournament had a chance of being the guy that only loses once yet gets second place.

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I don't/can't play tennis, so I didn't know that. But isn't APA 9ball the same way (per my reply above).

Yeah, I agree with you with the tourney format 100%. I've had the benefit of winning/losing this way before.

TCIndepMo said:

The thing about tie-breakers (all tie-breakers, not just this one) is that someone has be on the losing end.

That person or team will ALWAYS be unhappy. They will ALWAYS reply with "but what if ...... ". They will ALWAYS want the rules changed after the fact to suit their side of the story because "we are just here to play and have fun .... ". Etc, etc, etc.

I love my job. (BTW my job is being an APA league operator for 32 years).

The 3 point scoring system is a big improvement for the APA players. Unless you are a sandbagger, in which case, it does make your life more difficult.

Cue the violins.

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I've been in tie-breakers plenty of times, and I wasn't upset then as long as it was explained to me how the winner was chosen. This instance upsets me because 2 different processes are being used.

I would really like to know if any other sport uses APA's

"Break the tie by matching the teams against each other according to which teams involved met first during the session."

This is just absurd!!

If "Break the tie by letting their records against each other
during regular session play decide the issue." used for a 2-way tie, why can't this be used also for 3-or more ties?