What does it take for an APA player or team to make it to the nationals?
There's team qualification then there's singles qualification. I will speak about teams, as singles is more straight forward.
12 - 16 weeks depending. 3 seasons per year. Summer, Fall and Spring.
Who and how many make it to the states or regional playoffs and whats that like?
This is where it depends on several factors. I will break it down in detail. First, you must understand how the entire qualification process begins from the start.
A league is the entire franchise. APA leagues are franchises owned by individuals who are League Operators. These franchises are geographical or territorial. The league is broken down into divisions. When you have a team, that team joins a division. Divisions are often based on the "night of play" ...and especially the game being played, 8-ball or 9-ball. Some divisions are "traveling" meaning matches take place in different locations (bars), as each team has a "home" location. Other divisions are in-house, meaning all play is at one location - almost always a pool hall of some sort with several tables, as opposed to a bar with 1-2 tables.
An APA division can be as small as 4 teams, or as large as 16 teams. If a division has 8 or less teams, that division qualifies (1) one team per SEASON. If the division has (9) or more teams, that division qualifies (2) teams per SEASON. There are 3 seasons a year, summer, fall and spring. The teams that qualify during ANY of those 3 seasons, from ALL divisions in that entire league, preceding a local team championship (cities) tournament are eligible to play in that tournament. If it is a large league, you can see upwards of 60 teams play in the "cities" ...
How does a team qualify? A team must finish in first, second or third place at the conclusion of regular season play to qualify for "playoffs" of that particular season. A fourth seed is called the "wild card" and is determined by random lot. In other words, randomly chosen from the remaining teams. This is done to create an incentive for mathematically eliminated teams to stay for the duration of the season and to remain competitive (and keep paying their dues). If a team doesn't pay, they aren't eligible to be a wild card team.
Playoffs are always two weeks. It is single elimination. There are two goals in playoffs. One is to win the trophy or the season championship. The other is to qualify for the "cities" which again, is the local team championship where teams compete for a qualification to go to Las Vegas for Nationals.
In order to win the trophy, a team must go all the way and win both weeks or both rounds. However, in order to qualify for cities, it depends on the size of the division. If a division has 8 or less teams, one team will qualify per season. As a result, to qualify for cities in such a division, a team would have to win both weeks of playoffs. In a division with 9 or more teams, (2) teams qualify each season, thus a team only has to win ONCE in the playoffs (the first round or first week) to qualify. A team can fail to win the trophy or championship, but still secure a qualification.
Now, here's some strategy for maximizing your team's odds. If you have a flexible team that is willing to play on any night or any location, you can definitely improve your teams odds significantly. Obviously, playing more than one night (in more than one division) also helps, but you also pay more to do so.
Here's how. It is best to find and play in divisions that have the least amount of teams. You won't be able to play in a division with 4 teams, because that division wouldn't exist until your team joins as 4 is the minimum. However, if you can find a division where the total number of teams is 5-6 with your team included, that gives your team the highest chances of qualifying.
Here's why: The biggest factor, above all, is maximizing playoff births. The more often you're in the playoffs, the greater your chances of winning are, and thus qualifying for the cities. In a small 6 team division, every season 66% or 2/3 of the teams, 1st, 2nd and 3rd + a wildcard play in the playoffs. 50% go to playoffs automatically, although they earn it by winning, it's not hard to be in the upper half of the division at the conclusion of the season. That leaves three teams who are not in playoffs, of which they will be candidates to be chosen at random for the wildcard. That means, if you're one of those teams - you have a 1:3 chance of being picked each time. There are three seasons, so that's 1:3 odds, 3 times a year (if you don't make playoffs).
That said, in such a division - your team will almost surely get a shot at qualifying for the cities. It would be hard not to. Now, if your team depends on the wildcard to do so, and not placing higher, while you may qualify for cities - this isn't a competitive team that will survive that tournament. But that's for another thread and subject.
The point is, maximizing playoff births which maximizes playoff chances. Compare this to a 16 team division. The 16 team division still only allows the top 3 teams in the playoffs plus a wild card. It's harder to finish in the top 3 spots in a 16 team division, and the wild card is chosen from the remaining 13 teams, giving you 1:13 odds, 3 times per year. Much worse than a smaller division. Now, some say this is offset by the fact that a division with 9 or more teams qualifies 2 teams per season. Yes and no. Here's how that works. If you place in the top 3, or get the wildcard in a larger division, you only need to win once. Just one match, which is the first week of playoffs. In a smaller division, you need to win two matches or two weeks of playoffs.
There's two reasons why that's not as easy as the smaller division:
1. Overall, what gets a team qualified beyond being competitive and playing well - is playoff births. Being in the playoffs more, maximizes your team's chances. Unless you are a top team that finishes first quite often, you will NOT get many playoff chances. Either way, it's single elimination. For example, some teams in a 16 team division get only one playoff birth per year (in 3 seasons)...that means their entire qualification for the cities tournament rests on literally one match, one night. If they win, they're in. If they lose, they fail to qualify and must again battle for a playoff spot in the next season or hope for a wildcard.
But in a smaller division, you have to win twice! which brings us to the second reason...
2. No matter the size of the division you play in, in the latter seasons (fall & especially spring) quite often there is a team or teams in the playoffs already qualified in a previous season. That means runner-ups get to qualify. In a small division, if win the first week, but lose the finals the second week to a team that is already qualified - you are qualified automatically by the very fact that you won that first week. After summer season, 1 out of the 6 teams is qualified, after fall, 2 out of the 6 are qualified. So by spring season, you're competing against 4 unqualified teams of which your team is one of them, of which 66% or 4 out of 6 teams makes it to playoffs every season. That said, it's pretty darn hard NOT to qualify in such a division. If you can't qualify in such a scenario, your team really, really sucks bad and isn't worthy of the cities tournament anyway. It is also a team with tremendous bad luck to miss so many wild card shots.
As you can see, smaller divisions are easier to qualify in. If choosing a larger division, then the smallest possible division is your best choice. That would be one that has 9 teams. That's the smallest division that qualifies 2 teams per season. Still, a 6 team division is easier than the 9 team, even though the 9 team qualifies two teams. Any Now, you can't simply dictate that such divisions will exist. It might be 7 or 8 teams on the small end. Or they might all be big 14-16 teams. Or maybe they're all the same around 9-10 teams each. This is based only on if you have a choice. I have seen leagues where one pool room has a 15 team division, yet another one a few miles down the road only has 5 teams. The division with 5 teams is the one you want if you want to make the process of qualifying as easy as possible. If you have the choice, and your team is flexible on night of play and location - you can vastly improve your chances.
Do keep in mind, your team still needs to be competitive. It's not just about getting a spot. The reason I wrote this is to get a spot in the cities. Since, if you're not in the tournament, nothing else matters. For example, there will be several competitive teams from a 16 team division that never goes to the cities tournament. Whereas, it was easy for your team in the small division due to the way the league is structured and the rules. The teams that qualify from larger divisions, on average, are stronger than those from smaller divisions. There are exceptions. For example, I've seen wildcard teams that were dead last, upset the 1st place team and qualify for cities. Because they only needed just one match win. Thus, a weak team goes to cities. But on average, that doesn't happen very often. Usually it's the teams that earned their top 3 finish that also qualify. That means they've had to be the best teams against many others to make it. Now, that also doesn't mean that teams from a small division are crappy. Sometimes a small division will have 1-2 teams that are extremely strong and just dominate. Big fish in little pond type of thing.
NOW, how many teams go to cities / local team championship? That depends entirely on the size of the whole league (all divisions). Every single qualified team, from every season and every division plays in the cities.
Here's how I understand that it works, 1 team per 16 teams playing in cities is qualified for the Nationals in Las Vegas. If there are 17 teams playing, that crosses the threshold, and now that league can qualify (2) teams for Nationals. That goes up to 32. At which point, once the line is crossed and there's 33 teams, (3) teams qualify for Nationals ...this goes up to 48, at which point 49 or more allows (4) teams to qualify for Nationals....this continues. Again, larger leagues can have upwards of 60 teams qualifying for cities.
Cities is single elimination - with a few rare exceptions. In cities, you must win your bracket, often a 16 team bracket, in order to qualify for Nationals. That means 4 rounds of play, or 4 consecutive team matches. Not easy to do. Remember, these are all top teams who finished at the top of their divisions, with a few lucky wildcard upset winners, and some from smaller divisions. But most are strong teams. (The majority are also all sandbaggers, but that is another topic entirely). The exception to the single elimination is when an odd number of teams qualify for Nationals. Say (3) teams. Two teams will have to play a second time (both having previously lost) to determine who is the 3rd place finisher in the tournament.
Some leagues combine all the teams in one giant bracket to make things more fair. Since there are byes and other circumstances that would make one bracket easier for some teams than another bracket.
What makes for a successful team is another topic, of which I have a lot of advice on if you're interested. I will just say that it is not easy to make it to Vegas. Although, it's all relative. Teams that made it quickly are either lucky or good (or both). But there are teams who have been in the APA for over 15 years, playing consecutively all those years and have not made it to Nationals. Bottom line, at the end of the day it's 1:16 that goes. And in order to even have that 1:16 chance or be one of those 16, you have to be amongst the top of your division. There are many teams who go over a year with out making divisional season playoffs at all. I knew some teams that played for 3-4 years before they got into the playoffs. They went that long without even getting a wildcard. Rarely do people see the downside or count the teams who are out. Think of it like this, only one team wins the Superbowl each year right? There are teams who have been in the NFL a long, long time and have not won a Superbowl.
I hate the APA. It is a scam, it is a sleazy league and it is infested by sandbaggers, cheaters and people with little to no sportsmanship or class. I know this because I was once in the APA. I know that league very, very well. The more I know about it, the less I like about it. Which is why I quit (and my game has thanked me for it and I have improved every since). I have a reputation on this forum as being an APA-hater or APA-basher. That is true, I will not deny it. But I base it on good reason.
