I really enjoy playing APA and understand many of the built in limitations. Far and away, my biggest frustration with APA is the constant double hit fouls that occur when the CB and OB are close together. It would be a rare evening where I don't see it happen more than once in our matches. It doesn't bother me much when I see relatively new players that are 2, 3 & 4's do it (although I think they should have this explained to them by their team captain) but when I see more experienced 6 and 7's blatantly violate the rule and make no attempt to do anything other than drive their cue stick through the CB & OB, it really frustrates me. Equally frustrating is to see one or more people on their team (or the Captain) who have been playing pool for decades and have to know this is a foul and make ZERO attempt to correct their team mates play.
We got butt raped in a critical match in the playoffs by this rule. We asked an observer to watch for it and stupidly didn't ask him to clarify his understanding of the rule. It was a blatant foul that allowed the shooter to win the game (next shot was 8 ball sitting in pocket). I asked the observer afterwards how it wasn't a foul and he seemed shocked that I thought it was. Upon further conversation, it was clear he had zero clue about double hits.
I was playing a 9 ball match this past Tuesday against a 7. He had a shot where there was less than 2" between the OB and CB with a slight cut and they were around 6" off the short rail on the opposite end of where the next ball in sequence was. I saw him lining up and it was obvious to me what he was going to do. I hopped up and warned him he was going to foul. He was a bit of a trashbag and started arguing with me. He then turned around, took the shot with a huge follow through that drove the CB into the rail and down to the other end rail. The stroke happened so fast that I'm not sure he didn't drive the OB into the pocket. Either way it was a blatant foul.
Last night, my 6 team mate was in a tight 8 ball match with a 6 from the other team. CB flush to the rail, 8 ball about 1/4 to 1/2" from CB near direct in line with the opposite corner pocket. I saw the guy jacking up to take the shot and commit an obvious foul. This moron had ear plugs in and got all PO'd when I had to come to the table and wave out him. We got a knowledgeable observer, the moron continued with the same shot and had the foul called on him. I heard him cussing me and all PO'd because I'd interrupted him once he was ready to shoot. I suppose the fact he had the ear phones in and couldn't hear me when I first said something didn't enter into his limited thinking capability.
I'm wondering how other people handle this and I'm sure it comes up hundreds and thousands of time per day across the country. I've considered just ignoring it but I had a guy do this 3 times to me in a single game recently in one of the singles qualifiers. How do you explain to people, that clearly profess to not understand how this can possibly be a foul, in a way they can understand it? How would you handle these situations like I had the other night where the guy proceeded before I could even get a 3rd party observer?
I would add that I think it is a travesty and real negative towards the APA that this particular rule is covered minimally in their rules and they make no effort to clarify it with at least a video on their web site that could explain this quite clearly with some demonstrations and offer an alternative approach to acceptable taking the shot. Rather the ambiguity, it seems like it would make more sense to simply have a straight forward rule that absolutely requires hitting away from the line of the shot. I believe Valley Rules are clearer on this, not sure about BCA.