My Masters team won our regional playoffs. Another entry into the Vegas nationals (in 2021).
This is our 4yr straight, but I personally think our sweetest. Finished 4th after the season ended, and were not the favourites at all. We got it done...
I didn't get to play in the finals unfortunately. My team mates ended it before I got the chance. I lead off the first two rounds, (7-0, 7-3), and played well enough they wanted to move me to anchor for the finals.
It's been a while so my apologies for the long post
Congrats, we lost our masters regional this last Sunday. We have 4 players on our team and one of them is 74 and in poor health. He and I met a couple of years ago and we've grown pretty close so I got him into the league. He's a decent player (currently and APA 6 in 9B) and when he's on he's on and when he's not he's not. I chose to play him instead of our SL7 due to the fact he doesn't have much time left on this planet and I would like him to experience the thrill of the chase and the agony of defeat - and he's all for it. So we had a 9, an 8, and a 6. We didn't have to wear masks but we started off wearing them so they could stream (our LO won't stream or post pics of people not wearing masks). I lost my first match, then our 8 won 7-0 so my buddy needs to win and now we're into sudden death and he only has to win two. He got BIH with 3 balls left (8B) and didn't get out, then the other guy played a great game 2 so we lost the first set.
The second set I was down 5-2 and said f it and took my mask off and ended up coming back and winning 7-6. Our 8 lost 7-3. Then my buddy gets up and you can tell he's off and it's not going to be good. After a few safety battles his opponent took him down 2-0 and we're done.
The team that won has never played APA, they're local players and all are good at pool and usually just play tournaments or cash games at the local hall and they got together to win Masters and they did it. They're all good guys (well all but one) and we had a good time. It's four Asian guys and their team name is 4 Asian
For the Fargo people out there here are the Fargo ratings
They had 539, 550, and 587, I couldn't find the Fargo for one of their players but I'm going to peg him at 600. I'm a 612 and I've won 3 of 4 we've played. We had a roughly 450 (the old guy), a 490, and 612. The guy I left off is a 462.
Set 1
Match 1 - 539 (them) def 612 (us) 7-3
Match 2 - 490 (us) def 587 (them) 7-0
Match 3 - 600 (them) def 450 (us) 2-0
Set 2
Match 1 - 612 (us) def 529 (them) 7-6
Match 2 - 550 (them) def 490 (us) 7-3
Match 3 - 600 (them) def 450 (us) 2-0
We were clearly underpowered in this one.
The part that really woke me up was when I told the 7 I was going to have the 6 play. He got all butt hurt and didn't show up and really showed his true colors. Could he have won, maybe, and I would've considered playing him in the second set but that's irrelevant now. Either way, he's off the team and my life just got a bit easier.
And my streak ended. It actually ended last Monday but I only lost 3 games out of the 13 we played and won 75-58 against an 8. Last night I lost by 1 point against 4. I won every game but 2. He was on the hill and I needed 2. I broke and made a ball and was hooked. Played a good shot to hit the one but hit a bit too hard and the CB went in the drink. Other guy gets BIH and pockets the 1 for the win.
Going back to the BCA comments. Here's a few perfect examples of why the APA handicap is way harder than BCA.
In my last 4 matches I have lost 5 games out of the roughly 45-50 games played. These are all lower skilled players (except the 8) so it seems trivial except in APA two of those matches were fairly close and I lost one.
In APA 9B you play for points and then that is converted to a 20 points system for your match and a total of 100 points on the night (5 matches played).
Match 1 - I won every game yet my opponent scored 9 of 19 points so the 20 point split was 16-4. In BCA I would have skunked her.
Match 2 - I won every game yet my opponent scored 25 of 31 points so the 20 point split was 13-7. In BCA I would have skunked him.
Match 3 - I won but lost three games. My opponent scored 58 of 65 so the 20 point split was 13-7. In BCA I would have skunked him as I won the first 6 or 7 games and in our league you only play a few games.
Match 4 - I lost by one point but only lost 2 games, late in the match. The 20 point split was 12-8. In APA I lost but in BCA I would've skunked him as well.
EDIT: APA total for me was 50-30 in BCA it would've been 16-0.
So, it's not that I'm some god on the table but the APA scoring system really does even things out. I see a bunch of couples moving from APA to BCA lately and I've told my friends, they'll be back because the women (and the lower skilled men) are going to get tired of getting their asses kicked after a while with zero handicapping on each game. They do handicap but it's applied to the total points for the night and not each individual game.
LOL, and when I was searching for the stats earlier I noticed I won the MVP standings for our skill level division this session. I hadn't been following that so it was nice to see.
EDIT: Although APA doesn't focus on games won in 9B I have been posting it because I have been focusing on it for two reasons. To see the true difference between BCA and APA and most importantly because I'm working on controlling the table. APA has softened me up in that I only play for points anymore and could care less if an SL 4 makes the 9 - as long as I make the other 8. Well, lets just say I went to a regional tournament and didn't fair well against the two better players I played. I beat the guys (fairly well mind you 7-2 and 7-3) that were my skill level but the other two did a great job of controlling the table and I instantly found the weak spot in my game if I want to start playing more regional tournaments.
