Consistency of APA Ratings

I used to be an APA League Operator, but retired a month ago. Haven't been out of the saddle long.

I used to "play favorites" all the time. The category of players I would favor is the honest players who keep score properly, don't pad their innings and reported any suspected sandbagging for my followup. I would favor them by giving some extra weight to their opinions and input. This category usually make up over 95% of my membership.

The other 5% would be the sandbagging crybaby cheaters who were alway there. One would quit and be replaced by another. Never failed.

So to use the term "playing favorites" is sometimes a matter of semantics as to exactly who we are talking about. If you were honest in my league I "favored" you; if you were not honest in my league I did not "favor" you.

IMO for a LO to run their league in this way always worked to the advantage of the honest players. If a crybaby wanted to get mad at me about things like I took it as a compliment. When a sandbagger quit I was happy to say BYE. You honest players, whatever your SL, will always have the cheaters outnumbered and you are the category that the APA and the LOs have always (since 1979) been serving.

Thanks for your participation in my league area. But I have been retired for about a month so you can stop asking me questions about your SL every time I walk in a bar. LOL.
 
As the original poster of this thread I want to thank APA Operator and TCIndepMO for adding their voice of experience to this topic.

The original intent was to discuss variance between players SL's with similar ability from different APA leagues. I think I have come to the conclusion that that phenomenon may be affected by varying levels of dedication to the enforcement of defensive shot scoring by players and perhaps LO's. It wasn't my intent to discuss intentional cheating or sandbagging.

One thing that perhaps either of you can answer if you chose is how a player can have two different ratings in the same game in two different APA leagues. It happened a couple of years ago with a player on an 8 ball team I played on. A player also played in a different APA league in another part of the state. He was either a 3 or a 4 depending on what league he played in. It wasn't underhanded or intentional as far as I know and he ended up having to quit due to work commitments so he didn't play in both leagues long and he's not currently playing. All things being equal wouldn't he be the same SL in both leagues and his matches, no matter where played, affect his SL?

I know that if he wasn't honest or if perhaps his name wasn't entered or spelled the same in both leagues this would create the situation I described. But all things being honest and equal is it possible for this to happen?
 
top101cav said:
In regards to the sandbagging definition, thank you, but how would one go about doing that.
In regards to your other comments and opinions your way of base. Win/lose is part of the game any game. Can't be a good winner without being a humble loser. Not accusing anyone of anything at this time. I do know the LO, don't have anything against him one way or another.
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How would one go about that? I really don't know. I understand the intent behind the term, but I believe that there really isn't an APA player that plays at a high enough level to actually "sandbag" effectively. I know some claim to and I know people complain about it all the time, but I find those things more of an excuse than anything else. Either way I really have no interest in the "how to", I worry about my game, not yours.

I think we all go through good and bad cycles but not because we wake up one morning and decide we won't miss a shot for the next week and after I I'll only be able to beat low level opponents. It happens to everyone. ie - The last time I played you, I beat the snot out of you, shut you out 5-0, but this week, we'll I didn't play so well and you beat me 5 - 3, was I sandbagging? or did I just play poorly? or maybe you were sandbagging the first time we played?

I may have misinterpreted your posts and comments, if I did I apologize. But what you're saying really does smack of an accusation, at least a couple. People that try to manipulate the system will always be there and The APA is a huge organization, accept that there are times that some people will fall through the cracks. What I have learned in my time with The APA is that things even out and if you just play your game and don't worry so much about my game everything will pretty much take care of itself. It's true - the cream does rise to the top.
 
Two different SLs from two current APA areas is possible because each area inputs ONLY THOSE SCORES from their own area into their database. (similar to a softball player in the Monday night cut throat anything goes league where every game is playing as a blood sport and his Monday BA is only .250 vs his play on Wednesday in the local co-ed beer league (where you get to take the beer with you to the outfield, but don't leave the emptys out there) where all the pitchers are horrible and hence our hypothetical player is batting over .700 on Wednesday It's all softball but two different experiences and two averages. Not the greatest analogy, but hoping you get my drift) LOs can manually check on the current SLs from other areas but the software does not do it automatically at this time. Also LOs have available a report they can access manually that will do a quick records check comparison and print out any players from this category. Then it is up to the LO to determine what to do with that info. It is not automatic that a LO will change a SL just because of what a player is able to do 20, 50, whatever miles away. Many factors go into that decision. APA just wants all LOs to "be consistent" here. NOTE - it is not to the LOs advantage to be thought of as "he always plays favorites" or as one who just doesn't care.
Think about it. The league is how the LO makes his living. It is his income every week! The vageries of the game are such that it can be very difficult to accurately know an opponents SL when you only see him/her two times every fourteen weeks. The LO has access to at least 14 weeks of scoresheets for comparison, so the LOs picture/opinion is going to be more comprehensive. Obviously this requires the score keepers to be paying attention, etc but I hope you can follow my line of reasoning. You players that keep score provide the LOs with the first line of defense vs the cheaters. We want you to get your six dollars worth, every match.
Sermon over. (and I have been retired from APA LO ownership for a month, just think how windy I could get if I was still on the job). LOL.

To further clarify the above example the Monday batting average of .250 would be calculated ONLY from the Monday games performance. The Wednesday average of .700 would only be calculated from the Wed games. The two different nights of performance numbers WOULD NOT BE COMBINED into one overall average. At least that's how they run the softball leagues around here. So a pool players scores from play in my league on Monday WOULD NOT BE COMBINED with scores achieved by play in another APA league franchise 40 miles away. Therefore the same player can be a SL 5 in my league on Monday and a SL 4 on Wednesday when he plays in that other part of town. And he is not cheating and neither LO is playing favorites.
 
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TCIndepMo said:
Two different SLs from two current APA areas is possible because each area inputs ONLY THOSE SCORES from their own area into their database. (similar to a softball player in the Monday night cut throat anything goes league where every game is playing as a blood sport and his Monday BA is only .250 vs his play on Wednesday in the local co-ed beer league (where you get to take the beer with you to the outfield, but don't leave the emptys out there) where all the pitchers are horrible and hence our hypothetical player is batting over .700 on Wednesday It's all softball but two different experiences and two averages. Not the greatest analogy, but hoping you get my drift) LOs can manually check on the current SLs from other areas but the software does not do it automatically at this time. Also LOs have available a report they can access manually that will do a quick records check comparison and print out any players from this category. Then it is up to the LO to determine what to do with that info. It is not automatic that a LO will change a SL just because of what a player is able to do 20, 50, whatever miles away. Many factors go into that decision. APA just wants all LOs to "be consistent" here. NOTE - it is not to the LOs advantage to be thought of as "he always plays favorites" or as one who just doesn't care.
Think about it. The league is how the LO makes his living. It is his income every week! The vageries of the game are such that it can be very difficult to accurately know an opponents SL when you only see him/her two times every fourteen weeks. The LO has access to at least 14 weeks of scoresheets for comparison, so the LOs picture/opinion is going to be more comprehensive. Obviously this requires the score keepers to be paying attention, etc but I hope you can follow my line of reasoning. You players that keep score provide the LOs with the first line of defense vs the cheaters. We want you to get your six dollars worth, every match.
Sermon over. (and I have been retired from APA LO ownership for a month, just think how windy I could get if I was still on the job). LOL.

To further clarify the above example the Monday batting average of .250 would be calculated ONLY from the Monday games performance. The Wednesday average of .700 would only be calculated from the Wed games. The two different nights of performance numbers WOULD NOT BE COMBINED into one overall average. At least that's how they run the softball leagues around here. So a pool players scores from play in my league on Monday WOULD NOT BE COMBINED with scores achieved by play in another APA league franchise 40 miles away. Therefore the same player can be a SL 5 in my league on Monday and a SL 4 on Wednesday when he plays in that other part of town. And he is not cheating and neither LO is playing favorites.
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Thanks for taking the time to reply. I think I get what you are saying. While league data feeds to the national in some way it is not automatically connected to any other data entered by other leagues.

Can't say I'm not slightly disappointed that skill ratings are not part of a unified national database. But it does explain why some say there are inconsistent ratings across league area's.

If for example player A played in a strong league with many strong players he/she may be a fairly strong 5 in some area's but only a four in his current area due to a "league difficulty factor". (Strong pitchers in your softball analogy)

Similarly Player B is a big fish a in small pond. (Weak pitchers) He may be a 6 because his competition is weaker but if player A and player B meet in a match at some point their actual abilities may be fairly close. The Equalizer System however will favor the lower rated player through the handicapping system. In this scenario Player B would most likely think Player A is a sandbagger and feel he had been wronged by a cheater. But in reality he was just a victim of the system.

I might have misunderstood your explanation, and my conclusion inaccurate, if so please forgive me. I do appreciate that you've taken the time to provide some info.
 
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The waters can get real muddy, real fast but essentially - it seems like you get it.
Neither league operator A or league operator B is playing favorites and they have zero control over what another LO does in another area. All LOs report to the same APA authority in Lake St Louis but the APA gives LOs a lot of local freedom as to how to operate their own franchise in their own area. For instance, all Local Bylaws originate with each LO, but all Bylaws have to be approved each year by the APA national office.
Actually it doesn't take much for the APA to remind some LOs to "mind your own business" when it seems a LO might be sticking their nose into another area's way of doing things.
It's a recreational sport to the players. It's a business to the LOs, and that is ultimately to the advantage of all of the 275,000 (approx, at last count) APA players. Everybody pays the same $6 (or whatever) a week; everyone gets treated the same.
 
I always felt sandbagging was equal to what happened with steroids. How many pro sports players used steroids because in the end they knew other players were doing it and felt they couldn't compete if they didn't do it also? Transfer that to pool. How many players are doing it because there afraid of getting to nationals as an 8 or 9 and watching somebody who's a 4 string racks on them ?

I'm glad I don't take Apa that serious. It's a pool league. I play to win and don't really worry about all the political non sense. Fortunately we have great lo's and there really isn't any sandbagging going on.
 
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