I am not going to quote any post here, but this is what I've witnessed from my own eyes on two separate occasions concerning my LO and skill levels...one of them occurring a mere three weeks ago. I am only (for the sake of less typing) going to give you the one example.
The 8-ball team that our LO and his son play on sometimes has trouble getting four players to show up on league night. He had a roster of six players throughout the first nine weeks of the session. Although he didn't drop anyone from his roster, he magically added to new men players to his roster for week ten (which btw is not allowed by National APA rules). We were playing this team in week 12. I checked the rosters and player handicaps as I do before every weeks match and discover that these two men were rated as SL2's. One of them had played one match and lost, while the other had played two matches and won one of them. One of the new players didn't show up for our scheduled matches that week, but the one that had played two matches and had won one did and ran roughshod over one of our SL4's, displaying multiple ball runs and decent cue ball control, including the use of multiple rails for shape and a pretty sporty draw stroke.
My question is...how did this man ever drop from a beginning SL of 4 to a SL2 in two weeks while winning half of his previous two matches? Wouldn't you think at the very least, if he had a 50% win record that he could have never dropped down to a SL2? It would have taken a buttload of innings to have done that, and from what I saw, he wasn't the type of player that would need a lot of innings to make his eight balls (I must also add that he had a good idea of safety play without needing a time out to figure one out).
You can say what you want, but I would bet my house that these two men's handicaps were manipulated by the LO as an incentive for them joining the team so they were assured of having at least five players every week. I cannot see APA National office making either man a SL2 after just one week for one of them and two weeks (at 50% win ratio) for the other.
Couple that with some first-hand info that I got with my own ears several years ago from an opposing captain about two players that the LO promised to start as SL2's for his team to convince them to join makes this a very strong possibility that my LO has the power/ability to manipulate skill levels.
I am in no way bashing the APA. It is fun to get out with friends, have a drink or three, and shoot some pool as opposed to spending most of the evening/night in my reclining chair. My personal opinion is that an APA league can be as good an experience as the LO will allow it to be. If you don't like the handicap system and don't think it can be fairly done, then the APA does have a non-handicapped Master's league.
But not in a million years could you ever convince me that a LO cannot manipulate skill levels.
Maniac (sorry for the long-winded semi-rant)
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