APA screwed our very own sleinen out of a national championship

I Got Lucky

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
It's a Valley barbox. Any AA player can break and run 10 racks. Ridiculous to ban anybody for good play.

There are maybe 10 guys who make a living off pool anymore. So calling every decent player a pro is a misnomer.

APA is killing pool. All they want is the Benjamin's. Paying back maybe 30% of the take, whoever plays it doesnt deserve better.

Wait, what? The championship is played on a barbox? That ain't even a real table. You couldn't pay me to travel to Vegas to play on a barbox.
 

alphadog

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Just to clarify, when I say 'nonsense', I mean both actual sandbagging and false positives like what happened to the OP.

If someone has said what happened in the dq I haven't seen it in this thread?

What's a false positive?
 

newcuer

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
"False positive" would be falsely accusing someone of having deliberately sandbagging in the past only to be playing at their true speed in Vegas.

I am sure there are both accurate claims of sandbagging and false positives. But if they made people win it at the the table during the regular sessions, none of this would even be an issue.
 

Runnintable

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
DQ'd

I thought it was if two players on roster get bumped up by 2 ranks than they team is DQ'd

I remember Sean, sorry to hear he was involved, I am also surprised he played in the APA
 

shasta777

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Just food for thought.... hummmm

If this Sean or others/team were supposedly sandbagging... why didn't the APA officials just "RAISE" their skill level to what the APA thought it should be... in other words:

If Sean level was say a skill level #6... then all APA had to do is move his skill level to skill level #7 for the next match. --- Problem Solved!!! ... that would go for (ALL players & teams) No one should ever have to be DQ'd…

So just raise their skill level as APA does anyway!!! Instead of all this drama which does hurt the pool sport...

Only way someone should get DQ'd is cause they are PRO pool player...
just my opinion... :)
 

Cory in DC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
For those who haven't heard..sleinen on here was on an APA team (against his better judgement), and made a run all the way to the finals in the APA national 8 ball championship, only to get disqualified by the APA, all prize monies revoked, and a two year ban.Plus, apparently his League Operator gets a $25,000 fine?

For those who do not know Sean, he is exceedingly honest person, and would never sandbag under any circumstances. (I believe he is the highest rated player on the team anyways.. I believe him when he says that his team simply rose to the challenge and showed a lot of heart.

The APA is such a complete and utter joke.

-Shortbusruss

What was the stated reason for disqualification? I presume Sean was playing as a 7, in which case it would have to be other players on his team.
 

sixpack

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
If this Sean or others/team were supposedly sandbagging... why didn't the APA officials just "RAISE" their skill level to what the APA thought it should be... in other words:

If Sean level was say a skill level #6... then all APA had to do is move his skill level to skill level #7 for the next match. --- Problem Solved!!! ... that would go for (ALL players & teams) No one should ever have to be DQ'd…

So just raise their skill level as APA does anyway!!! Instead of all this drama which does hurt the pool sport...

Only way someone should get DQ'd is cause they are PRO pool player...
just my opinion... :)

I don't think Sean was one of the players whose handicap was raised. I think it was other players on the team. Lower ranked players who worked really hard to improve.

I think the whole thing stinks. Go to Vegas to win the world championship...but you have to play average to do it. If you play too good you'll get booted out, forfeit prize money, be banned from APA for two years and your LO will be fined $25k.

It seems obvious that the only people who would have a chance to win and not get DQ'd would be the professional sandbaggers who know how many innings they need to stretch games out to. And how close they need to keep the points while still winning.

As I've often said, an honest person doesn't stand a chance against a professional liar when it comes to being believable.

This seems like exactly that. The fact that they played as hard as they could and beat teams by as much as they could is a good tell that they were playing their heart out and playing to win IMO.

To the winning team: How does it feel to win and know you were not even close to the best team there?
 

trob

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Who cares ..they spend money on the game. You want to goto a golf course and see how many guys have $3000 clubs and break 100. I love this game.. but I hate the nit jack ass’s like you that hold it back.

The APA is a JOKE!

I just left Hawaiian Brian's because the Sunday league came in and took all the tables.

I usually sit around for an hour, or so, watching them, but it drives me bat shit crazy. I have nothing against players of a lower skill level, but some of these people come in with $1,000 carbon fiber cues and can barely hit the cue ball and they'll talk about "low deflection". It's insane.

And then the "higher" level players will try to coach them and they are clueless, too.

The whole thing is a waste of money IMO.
 

trob

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Wait, what? The championship is played on a barbox? That ain't even a real table. You couldn't pay me to travel to Vegas to play on a barbox.

So 99 percent of the league plays on bar box’s then and you think you should take these amateur players and put them on a 9 foot tables in nationals.. Do. You think they should make the basket higher and smaller for the nba finals? Lol of course it’s bar box.
 

Eric.

Club a member
Silver Member
What was the stated reason for disqualification? I presume Sean was playing as a 7, in which case it would have to be other players on his team.

It looks like Sean was playing as a 6, so it's possible that he got flagged, then raised.


Eric
 

trob

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Typical az thread with az snobby better then everyone else assholes. You got a half story with no real details on why exactly they were disqualified nor any real knowledge of the Apa rules to get you dq’d but lets rail the Apa. In some of these posts you have someone accusing the Apa of not caring about sandbagging But complaining about them doing something about it. Lol They don’t care who wins!! Having lower handy cap players win only helps them show their anyone can win in our league that they push to players.
If your 9/7 you can run as many racks as you want... your not getting dq’d for that!

I can tell you I’ve been to acs,bca and Apa nationals. The Apa is bigger and better run then all of them. Everyone is there having a great time and enjoying the game. Who cares if they buy expensive cues they don’t need. Or kamui chalk or whatever. Their money is supporting the industry so let them buy whatever they want. As someone who has played the game for 30 years I would rather spend time with people like this that genuinely love the game then you bunch of wanna be pro’s who turn your nose up to them like you woke one day and could run a rack and knew everything about the game.
 

jokrswylde

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
APA is killing pool. All they want is the Benjamin's. Paying back maybe 30% of the take, whoever plays it doesnt deserve better.

I don't know this situation, but surely this is hyperbole. Killing pool? Heck for a large part of the population around here, apa is the only exposure folks get to pool.

I'm sure predator, kami, and all the other companies would hate to see the apa fold up...
 

WillyCornbread

Break and One
Silver Member
Our side of the story

Hey all, I’m actually the captain of the team that was disqualified. Just landed back home and when I can get to a laptop in a few hours I’ll post what happened and clarify more. Wanted to check in now to maybe prevent speculation and bad info.

A couple quick points:

Sean is not on the Dqd team. He plays on my eight ball team while it was my nine ball team that was disqualified.

We were DQd because I had five players go up one skill level by the end of the semi finals. On the surface this appears damning but happened truly because we all played better than I’ve ever seen any of us play. We were notified of being watched and still played our hearts out without laying down. I realize now that the only way to avoid being accused of cheating would have been to cheat and lie down during a match.

Players of all different skill levels went up. This wasn’t a two running racks, or a nine playing as a seven. In this level of competition I’d expect that your have to have people playing their asses off to win 9 in a row against actual sand baggers in many cases.

We lost many matches and some close ones as well. I had a 2-2 player get raised. I’m not sure why teaching a proper stance to my two makes her a sandbagger. I’d say if the captain isn’t teaching their twos it’s in order to keep them from improving, which isn’t what I/we do.

We teach our lower level players how to think and how to play defense.The equipment I play on weekly is trash, you can’t roll a ball straight so you aren’t playing a lot of touchy safeties. Of course our safeties went up when we were playing and coaching with this motivation.

The pocket size, shelf and facing angle made it so I made probably 15 shots during my matches that wouldn’t have gone in on any table I’ve ever played on before. That and actually giving a shit about matches should be considered.

Because of this our handicaps were raised progressively. This wasn’t the case of us getting behind in a match and then having everyone show some “real” skill level to get us out of it. Raising the SL was its own consequence of our good play and we had to fade that every round as we did. Is t that the point of the handicaps? We played better got raised, dealt with the lineup and weight changes and grinder through a toug tournament to the finals.

I have players who have received 2year bans, they play on four and five APA teams and their social lives and their pool lives to a degree are centered on this.

I wrote this in the cab on my phone so forgive any typos, I plan to add more later.

I also have some FB messenger screenshots between myself and Sean as well as one of my cocaptains when I was asking him to join which I hope will help addrsss any questions of character or my intent for this team when I started it two years ago. I can’t post these from my mobile phone but will shortly.

Thanks.
 

Tom1234

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
If this Sean or others/team were supposedly sandbagging... why didn't the APA officials just "RAISE" their skill level to what the APA thought it should be... in other words:

If Sean level was say a skill level #6... then all APA had to do is move his skill level to skill level #7 for the next match. --- Problem Solved!!! ... that would go for (ALL players & teams) No one should ever have to be DQ'd…

So just raise their skill level as APA does anyway!!! Instead of all this drama which does hurt the pool sport...

Only way someone should get DQ'd is cause they are PRO pool player...
just my opinion... :)

My SL was raised from 4 to 5 AFTER MY FIRST MATCH in 2001 while at the APA championship. I played a 5 and it took 16 innings to win. No way this guy was a SL 5 in my league back home. We went hill/hill; either one of us could have won.
 

rh1919

Registered
During my second year of APA, about 6 years ago, I asked my league operator about the methods that were used to establish handicaps. His answer: The "computer" does it. No further explanation. I finished the season, but haven't and won't go back.
 

sfleinen

14.1 & One Pocket Addict
Gold Member
Silver Member
Stuck at LAS airport at the moment, but here's some helpful info

Hi folks:

Sean Leinen here. I am currently stuck at the airport in Las Vegas (flight cancellations all night long). However, I wanted to share a wide-open (permissions-wise) post on social media that explains my involvement in this situation:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?st...ref=m_notif&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic

(I would normally try to type the situation out as a full post, but it's difficult and tedious on a phone touchscreen. However, anyone should be able to click on the link and access the full post.)

Bill Jackson also has some screenshots that you folks should find very telling and enlightening.

Best,
-Sean
 
Last edited:

ChicagoJoe

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Just my opinion, having 5 players get raised and bragging on Facebook that you “destroyed” the team that finished first is probably not a good look.

The people on the Facebook page don’t seem too upset about not playing APA anymore either.
 

Eric.

Club a member
Silver Member
On a side note...

This is why we, the jury/peanut gallery, shouldnt be too quick to deliberate before hearing all the facts.

I suppose the retarded thread title didnt help much either.
 

Hits 'em Hard

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hi folks:

Sean Leinen here. I am currently stuck at the airport in Las Vegas (flight cancellations all night long). However, I wanted to share a wide-open (permissions-wise) post on social media that explains my involvement in this situation:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?st...ref=m_notif&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic

(I would normally try to type the situation out as a full post, but it's difficult and tedious on a phone touchscreen. However, anyone should be able to click on the link and access the full post.)

Bill Jackson also has some screenshots that you folks should find very telling and enlightening.

Best,
-Sean

It’s hard to follow exactly what you’re laying down. But it sound shady as hell. Restructuring a roster after the spot was already won?
 
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