APA, FARGO and the death of 8 ball.....

[HitHrdNDraw]

2 discussions here:

1. A buddy of mine started playing in an pool league for the first time last night... in his first game of 8 ball, he won in two innings.... the team captain came to him after the game and told him to "slow down, if your level gets too high it will hurt our team"..... This league reports fargo.... seems like a massive sandbagging scheme... is this prevalent in all leagues?? I dont play in any leagues


2. To me, the goal of 8 ball is and always will be to pocket your balls and the 8 ball before your opponent.... now with the league rules where you get points for making balls, this is not longer the only objective.... I was giving pointers to a guy who plays in leagues and encouraging him not to shoot all of his ball in unless he can run all the way out.... his response "but that is gonna cost my team point"... smh


No wonder USA is falling behind.... we are a bunch of cheaters and bangers with little motivation to get better....

 

[Texas Carom Club]

theres big sandbagging in every league , pool players love them an easy game than a tough matchup

 

[Cornerman]

2 discussions here:

1. A buddy of mine started playing in an APA league for the first time last night... in his first game of 8 ball, he won in two innings.... the team captain came to him after the game and told him to "slow down, if your level gets too high it will hurt our team"..... This league reports fargo.... seems like a massive sandbagging scheme... is this prevalent in all leagues?? I dont play in any leagues


2. To me, the goal of 8 ball is and always will be to pocket your balls and the 8 ball before your opponent.... now with the league rules where you get points for making balls, this is not longer the only objective.... I was giving pointers to a guy who plays in leagues and encouraging him not to shoot all of his ball in unless he can run all the way out.... his response "but that is gonna cost my team point"... smh


No wonder USA is falling behind.... we are a bunch of cheaters and bangers with little motivation to get better....

“Points for making balls” isn’t part of APA 8-ball.

 

[alphadog]

“Points for making balls” isn’t part of APA 8-ball.

He didn't say it was.

 

[Mobiker]

I haven't played APA in many years but never heard a captain encourage sandbagging. They have systems in place to pull sandbaggers from tournaments.

I also didn't know they report Fargo now. That would tempt me to join.

 

[Justaneng]

APA ignores Fargo, and doesn’t even use it as a dummy check for sandbagging (I.e. to see if there’s an established Fargo 450 SL-3 on the roster).

 

[Gatz]

I highly doubt this APA league reports to Fargo lol

 

[HitHrdNDraw]

I highly doubt this APA league reports to Fargo lol

It may not be APA... it may be VNEA,TAP, BCA or whatever... but it 100% reports...

 

[garczar]

2 discussions here:

1. A buddy of mine started playing in an APA league for the first time last night... in his first game of 8 ball, he won in two innings.... the team captain came to him after the game and told him to "slow down, if your level gets too high it will hurt our team"..... This league reports fargo.... seems like a massive sandbagging scheme... is this prevalent in all leagues?? I dont play in any leagues


2. To me, the goal of 8 ball is and always will be to pocket your balls and the 8 ball before your opponent.... now with the league rules where you get points for making balls, this is not longer the only objective.... I was giving pointers to a guy who plays in leagues and encouraging him not to shoot all of his ball in unless he can run all the way out.... his response "but that is gonna cost my team point"... smh


No wonder USA is falling behind.... we are a bunch of cheaters and bangers with little motivation to get better....

'Sandbaggin, holding back, whatever you call it is usually only possible if your 'robustness' is below 400games. Even then you can only move it a few points. I've heard of stuff like this in some league play. Typical of a lot of the nitty shit i hear/read about here and other places, especially when talking about APA leagues.

 

[Rocket354]

As mentioned, APA does not report to Fargo. But in a local APA-clone league I play on I've been told the same thing. "Don't win too good or they'll raise you up! We want you to stay where you're at!"

I always ignore them and play to the best of my ability--which isn't too "good" regardless of what the captain may think.

I play on other leagues that do points. And, yes, sometimes the "correct" play is to sink another ball to get an important point rather than play what otherwise would be a more strategically-correct safety. Example: when you need one more point to win the match but a runout is impossible.

I've done it, because you have to play by the rules as set forth. Ironically, it's almost an encouraged if non-deliberate form of sandbagging. One recent example was when I needed 5 balls to win the 8-ball match. I broke, made a ball, and had two balls that were impossibly locked up (caveat: impossible for this C+ player, although perhaps not SVB). But darnit if I didn't just sink the other 4 open balls to secure the match and then get caught in a mickey mouse game with my C- opponent where I could never get an open look just due to the nature of the table layout.

I'd been ahead in games 4-0, but he took that last game because I'd left myself in a horribly precarious position with how I played. So in some sense I played correctly and ethically/honestly and yet still "sandbagged" due to the nature of the rules.

 

[BigBoof]

I doubt the future pro is playing APA as you rarely have a sub-21 year old playing, but what holds pool back in the US is the idea that "I'm not going to play in this competition with X o to Y playing." People concede they are never going to get better so that is what happens. Maybe the people who say that ARE already at peak but hearing that drives me nuts.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

 

[Cornerman]

He didn't say it was.

I can see why I thought he was.

 

[muskyed]

Wife and I play in two leagues, one a two person team, and one a three person team. They both use a scoring system based on ball count and wins, but on one league you can win the match, even in the middle of a game, if you hit your average before your opponents. You are supposed to finish that game out though as your total count and wins affects your average.
The problem I see with that is the few that when one or the other that has won their match in the middle of the game will intentionally then throw the game by intentionally missing shots to loose and keep their average low. We only have a few players that will try to intentionally miss in that case, but it really sucks.
Had a sub try and do that to me after me winning the match on ball count. He was so bold as to shooting the cueball into a pocket to intentially give me ball in hand. His partner told me he was not going to win the game nomater what, so with ball in hand, and only a couple balls of mine left, I was easily able to position my 8 ball shot to scratch when making it to give him the win. He was really pissed, and his partner just looked at me and smiled. Only time I ever shot to not win.
I always try to win the game, but will say if I only need three balls to win the match, shoot to make those 3 balls first, then do everything in my power to finish out for the game win.

 

[skip100]

2 discussions here:

1. A buddy of mine started playing in an pool league for the first time last night... in his first game of 8 ball, he won in two innings.... the team captain came to him after the game and told him to "slow down, if your level gets too high it will hurt our team"..... This league reports fargo.... seems like a massive sandbagging scheme... is this prevalent in all leagues?? I dont play in any leagues


2. To me, the goal of 8 ball is and always will be to pocket your balls and the 8 ball before your opponent.... now with the league rules where you get points for making balls, this is not longer the only objective.... I was giving pointers to a guy who plays in leagues and encouraging him not to shoot all of his ball in unless he can run all the way out.... his response "but that is gonna cost my team point"... smh


No wonder USA is falling behind.... we are a bunch of cheaters and bangers with little motivation to get better....

Pretty much everything in this post is wrong, ill-informed, or missing the point.

 

[MitchAlsup]

To me, it is a mater of honor.

If your are of character to have honor, you will not sandbag. It really is that simple.

The problem is the paucity of people of character we have these days.

 

[The_JV]

Let's be clear... Not clearing open balls isn't necessarily sandbagging.

Smart players will leave the table cluttered unless they know they can complete the clearance.

Further... developing a pattern that will reward you with the necessary points to win a round, although it may not grant you the rack win. Also isn't sandbagging. It's called being a teammate and putting team success ahead of personal stats.

 

[Toxictom]

“Points for making balls” isn’t part of APA 8-ball.

It is part of the USAPL league I've played in the last few months. The games are scored like muskyed mentioned in his post. I'm not real impressed with the format. The USAPL is a spin-off of BCAPL and uses the same ruleset. Both are CSI franchises I believe.

 

[muskyed]

I'm pretty sure ours are csi franchises also. I will always shoot to win the match first in a team format, then still will shoot to win the game after. Other than that one time where my oponent was so flagrant at sandbaging, I would never sandbage to not win just to help my average.
Lately it has come up alot in league where the match is decided either way on that last game. Sometimes its just one ball needed, sometimes its seven balls or the win, you never know.

 

[HitHrdNDraw]

Pretty much everything in this post is wrong, ill-informed, or missing the point.

care to elaborate?

the following are facts:

1. My friend was in fact told to "slow down"

2. The same league reports to fargo

3. Many leagues have a points for balls system in scoring.

the rest, i would love to hear you opinions on it...

 

[justadub]

care to elaborate?

the following are facts:

1. My friend was in fact told to "slow down"

2. The same league reports to fargo

3. Many leagues have a points for balls system in scoring.

the rest, i would love to hear you opinions on it...

1) Your friends captain is cheating, and its wrong. Happens in every league

2) APA doesn't report to Fargo. (APA is in the thread title) BCApl and USAPL report to Fargo.

3) some BCApl and USAPL leagues use point per ball for 8-ball. APA doesn't, for 8-ball, but does for 9-ball

Those are the corrections.

Sandbagging sucks. People will do it in every league. As well as in gambling, ie "hustling", not showing your true speed in order to get people to bet more. Not everyone does it. Not every league is rampant with it either, despite what you may hear. It is what you tolerate. Each league has remedies to report suspected sandbagging, as well as scorekeeping properly (marking defensive shots) helps to alleviate it.