fxskater said:
I got no problem with you at all, just wanna get that outta the way before you think its personal.
From what you say the APA sounds a little better than it did. But lets say im a damn good runnout player and a damn good safety player. Could i alter my handicap by playing a safe game with a 1 ball average per inning, vs breaking and running averageing 8 balls an inning. I feel that the balance in the region is better than nationwide balance unless the nationwide is perfect. I seriously think that for local balancing it can't be done much better than the way our league does it. I see what your saying about points on balls and such, but look at the 9 ball handicapping that the APA uses. If you scratch an 8 you get 7 points your opponent gets 10. All wins are 10 points, all losses are between 0-7. It sounded stupid when i started at the begining but now we are halfway through a season i see how well it works. You can sandbag in this league only if you are the 4th (sometimes) 5th to play in the round and your team has already gauranteed a win. This doesn't happen all that often and when it does people arent sandbagging they are changing strategy slightly. Instead of shooting for the runnout when they need only 2 points they will go for the easiest 2 hangers, i kinda like this. It puts a different kind of pressure on you if you need the game and if you don't you can play a little more relaxed. It adds strategy to deciding the playing order of you players. I have never seen it abused where someone purposely lose to change thier handicap just because thier team won/lost a round. Handicaps are fairly stable after about 8 weeks, you can't have a bad week and have your handicap go down. It takes a few weeks of bad play to ruin your average. go to
www.kelowna8ball.com and read the BCA 8 ball league rules there. I can't remember if they describe the exact format, i know that some rules on there are out of date and not used anymore.
Well, this is the APA's biggest problem. It relies heavily on the honor code. That is to say, if you are a safety player, the scorekeepers for both teams must record each safety. This is dubious since most scorekeepers don't know how the APA defines a safety and even if they did, only an experienced player can interpret a player's intent and most scorekeepers are less than experienced. In the end, there needs to be a proactive effort by league members to maintain accurate statistics and will oftentimes require better players getting involved in scorekeeping.
The APA 9-ball league isn't 9-ball. I don't know what to call it but 9-ball isn't appropriate. It is, however, very similar to your point system. The underlying problem with a point format, although you said you are fond of it, is that it takes on a different strategy. I can think of numerous situations where a point system will influence decisions that may run contrary to winning the game. In the APA, the results are even more dramatic since a player can win by points yet lose every game.
In my opinion, a league has a responsibility to the entire sport. When you create a handicap, it's important to try to keep as much of the game intact as humanly possible. 8-ball is a brilliant game that requires experience similar to what you might see in one-pocket players and the talent exhibited by the finer 9-ball players. 8-ball can be a tightly played, defensive game but if points are the primary concern, players will be much more apt to try and run-out. I feel some of the game's beauty is lost this way.
The amount of handicap abuse you see is always based on the prize size. Give out a million bucks to first place and I assure you, you'll have some serious sandbagging going on. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It simply might mean you haven't picked up on it yet. But as I said earlier, this isn't a major concern. Sandbagging is a much smaller problem than most people realize. The bigger problem is a perception of sandbagging. You don't want people believing the system can be manipulated, even though it can be. This is another APA problem that is related directly to their honor code. Because their handicap is honor code based, people question the rest of the league's honesty. As a result, everyone is ranting and raving about how everyone is sandbagging. The problem isn't sandbagging. The problem is everyone thinks everyone is sandbagging. As a business, the APA has to acknowledge that this is their achieles' heel, their sole weakness. It is the lone reason why they will lose customers to competing local leagues.
In the end, APA players will be diluted by the culture, even taking personal ownership of their handicap ratings as though they have exclusive influence over it. You'll hear players say things like, "I'm not quite ready to be a 4 but I think I'll do it anyway next season" or "My goal is to be a really good 4 and that's it." Although this is fine for the APA, it's bad for pool. This doesn't speak of improvement and they view the league as the end-all-be-all. When I played in the APA, people often asked when I was "going pro" not knowinging there was a HUGE gap between the highest APA rating and a professional caliber player. They honestly believe the two are the same. To me, I see this player as having blinders with no desire to ever venture beyond what the APA has to offer. Even though some great players may pass through the APA, the APA will never breed a great player because of this culture.
How did their handicap structure influence this even though the game of 8-ball is intact? You can look at the spectrum the APA chooses to grade. The lowest ranked players are truly horrible while the highest ranked players range from mediocre to semi-pro. An APA 7 (8-ball) can be anywhere from a C level player to a guy capable of cashing in the US Open yet there are five degrees of suckiness (2 through 6). Had their structure been designed to accommodate better players, they probably would have attracted significantly more high level amateurs and less beer drinkers.
Jude M. Rosenstock
