Arizona rating system

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powderburner

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I finally got rated. No real idea wheither the rating of 8 is good,bad or even realistic. I did play a guy rated 10 and was quite impressed. i.e. got whupped up on badly!

Would like to hear anyone's comparision of this rating system with APA's.
 
I was rated a 6 at Kolby's and getting bumped to a 7 (this was based on 9-ball tournament play) just before my move to Texas.

It is nothing like the APA. In my case, it was based strictly on my tournament performances at Kolby's weekly 9-ball tournaments and was decided upon by their Tournament Director.

Most 10's in AZ are strong players.

Don't know if that helps but...

Regards,

Ken
 
If I had been rated on tournament play it would be much lower! :o

I think in general the rating system is a good idea, if cumberson. Using the ABC version of handicapping doesn't appear to give anyone 8 or under much chance of winning over a 10. But I think the better players are supposed to win most tournaments anyway.

My gripe is all those 7 and under tournaments I can't enter. :(
 
PowderBurner
My gripe is all those 7 and under tournaments I can't enter.
Click to expand...

That is the ONE thing that sucks about being an 8 or higher. Most of the tournaments with decent turn-outs are "7 and Under" formats.

I might suggest you find someone on the Ratings Committee, ask for a "re-evaluation" and get really tanked up before you meet with him for a game. Wear shoes that are too small, underwear that are too tight and poke yourself in your dominant eye with a dirty finger just before you walk into the pool room. One other thing...use a house cue.

This might get your rating down.

Regards,

Ken
 
"I might suggest you find someone on the Ratings Committee, ask for a "re-evaluation" and get really tanked up before you meet with him for a game. Wear shoes that are too small, underwear that are too tight and poke yourself in your dominant eye with a dirty finger just before you walk into the pool room. One other thing...use a house cue. "

Ain't that sorta like cheating? :D Uh, well, might try the house cue. Have to stay away the the first guy, seems to reconize me for some reason. Maybe because the 9 went on the snap first rack and I pretty much stayed lucky after that. Even though missed several balls.....didn't have to try to get lousey shape, the table had just been recovered and was faster than a speeding bullet.
 
Powderburner - Where did you get rated at? Do you know who rated you?

Here is the way it goes. Basically, if you cant run more than 3 balls, they rate you an 8 at Mainstreet billiards in mesa. BJ over there is very protective of his target market, which is 15-19 year old wanna be rappers. If you win more than 2 bucks off of anyone in there, they come out from behind the desk and break it up. Also watch out for 'ricky' if he still plays there. I watched him push the cueball in the pocket on a guy who had made a 9 ball break, and turned his back for a sec.

Clicks - Dave is a good guy, and pretty liberal with his ratings. Dave understands the bounderies that get created when people get ranked above a 7, and Dave wants to generate as many players per tournament as possible. If you get a 'bad' rating, dave will give you an 'in house' rating that applies only at clicks, allowing you to play more realistic competition. This is why many of the really top level players don't play dave's tournaments - to many 6s that should be 7s and 7s who should be 8s - etc.

Kolbys - Kolbys is probably the most 'real world' place as far as ratings go. Tough players in that place, and tough players in the tournaments mean accurate ratings.

I play on the east side, and those are the big 3. I don't know much about the west side any more...
 
I was rated at Main Street Billiards in Tucson. Don't remember the name. From watching others play there the 8 seems pretty reasonable, if I happen to be having a good day. Mainly just sort of courious how bad I am in relation to others around the country. And ain't good enough to put up much money to find out.

Lost to a 6 at Pockets in Tucson (a nice place, BTW) but there were exterantrous distractions. Young gal, real nice looking, and she was having a lot of fun. Something I don't see enough of, male or female.

Was in Kolbys once, nobody there in the middle of the day. 60 different kinds of beer, or so they claim. Must be a college joint.

We have one of those cheating jerks that occasionaly shows up in our local little bar tournaments. A fairly good player, suspect he just likes to see what he can get away with. Bar also has some of the god awfullest fiberglass bar sticks in existence, somebody gonna wreck one over this fool's head one of these days.
 
Powderburner - There is nothing more fun than scamming a scammer. If you want to set something up sometime, let me know ;)
 
AzBlueMach1....sometimes that can get to be too much fun! Did a little of that in my younger days when I was a much better player.

Or at least that's the way I remember it.

Best one was when a fellow paid me to go bust a jerk in another town. Now that was fun and profitable to boot but stopped any action for me over there. Turned out the jerk was a player, game took two days with a little sleep inbetween.

Matthew....I don't really know how the ratings work. From looking over the rating sheet on pooltournamentsonline.com a bit I haven't seen anything under 4. And one 11, very few 10. Bunch of 7 and 6.
 
i'm pretty sure a 4 is the lowest and i know a 10-2 is the highest...meaning that he goes to ten and you take 2 games offof what you have to go to...the guys name at main st. in tucson is jack...when you see him again tell him jeremy from mississippi said hello..i used to live out there a couple of years ago
 
railbird25....The web site shows an 11, must mean 10-1. So 10-2 would mean he goes to 4 and I go to 1? Or maybe I don't understand the ABC system. Need more weight than that if the 10 I met is any indication. That guy beat Nick Varner a game of 1p last month! Think I would try anyone with a spot of 10 to 1 on the wire. Just too much luck in 9 ball.

With the other handicap sceme a 10-2 goes to 7 and a 8 goes to 3? That isn't anything I want much money on either. Longest run I've made in the year since starting to play again is two racks, and that was on a bar table. Have yet to run a rack on a 9 ft.

Not sure when I'll be back in Tucson, but will tell Jack hello for you. And try to get all this figured out.
 
Powder - I think you have it about right. If you were playing a 10 in a race to 7 tournament, you would go to 5. If you were playing a 10-2, you would go to 3, he would go to 7. Just depends on the tourny format.

The AZ rating system sucks out loud. it is purly subjective, and should only be used as a baseline when matching up. You are right about there being a ton of 6's and 7's in az. Mostly the 9s and 10s end up playing each other alot, but the 10's will give serious weight, because they have a hard time getting action.

here is my opinion of how the ratings break down:

A six is going to miss 1-2 shots per game of 9 ball. Thier Cueball control is not where it should be yet, and they don't recovgnize patterns as well as they probably should .

A seven is a little stronger on cue ball control and pattern recognition. A 7 should run a rack of 9 ball with ball in hand and no real trouble clusters maybe 60% of the time, and tougher racks 30-40% of the time.

An eight should be able to run a rack of 9 ball with no trouble balls and ball in hand more like 80% of the time, and a troublesome rack 60% of the time. Good Safety play and few mental mistakes.

The difference between an eight and a nine is safety play and decision making. A nine will play excellent safeties, and will run out if he gets a descent shot.

A 10 is about 6 months of solid work on thier game away from the pro tour. Everything a nine has, plus the ability to kick-safe you back. If a 10 can see the object ball directly, your probably toast.

Those are my rules about what I EXPECT a player of a given ranking to play like, and what I use to set the weight when I am playing someone I don't know (but I know thier handicap ranking). There are pleanty of sandbaggers out there, though (I can think of 2 sixes who are really solid 8s off the top of my head), so be careful out there.
 
I sure need to improve my almost non-exesient safty play! More difficult than decent position to me.

My excuse is all that bar table time. I get on one of those fast 9 footers and flounder around like a fish out of water.

Appreicate your discription of what a ranking ought to do.

I live across the line in New Mexico and is a long drive to any pool hall. Sort of getting a rep for that crazy old fart that keeps swapping cb on the bar tables.
 
4 is the lowest...10-2 is the best
almost no 4's only a few 10-1's...Roger griffis was a 10-2

the only way to make this system honest is to have "ONLY " tournaments...5's only...6's only and so on...with a gradually larger prize fund as you go up in your ratings..
the minute you have 7 and under tourneys with a $1500 added , you invite cheating...which happens often.

I have seen players stay a 6 in their own house for months and then go to other tourneys as a 6 and clean up!
but, if you go to their house and just cash at all, your rating goes up at the next meeting.
also, they say if you are a 7 on a bar table you are also a 7 on a big table!!
since many players play better on a small table, you are penalised because you cannot just get up on a big table and perform the same way.
unfortunatly, if you get to an 8 rating, the prize funds dry up and very few tourneys are available.
 
The easy solution for this is to have rated and unrated tournaments. The pool hall near me used to have tournaments on tuesdays and thursdays, one was rated and one was unrated meaning anyone could play, enter at your own risk, I never really payed any attention either way I just wanted to play competitively, Efren Reyes could have showed up and I still would have entered. Anyway at least this way all your patrons get an opportunity to play and don't have to look for action just because they got rated to highly.

I think another reason you get so many sandbaggers is that a ton of people get rated when they first really get into playing but despite the fact that they quickly improve they don't win any tournaments and no one takes a second look because there are usually a couple of house pros that win everything that comes up, so before you know it you got a pool room full of 6's that should be 7's etc etc. I mean let's face it, half the time it's on the honor system anyhow and if someone wanted to they could cheat pretty easily. We just have to deal with it for love of the game.
 
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