Handi-Cap Leagues and Tournys' destroying the quality of American Talent?

[Scott Lee]

Pops...That's what I was thinkin' too. Sounds like sour grapes. Shane Van Boening came up through the league system (VNEA), and he's currently the top ranked American player in the world (#15 according to WPA rankings...the next closest American is Archer at #80!). Without league pool there would possibly be zero fan base for professional pool, which is already quite small. Handicap leagues and tournaments are responsible, in part, for the formation and growth of this site...which is certainly the most far-reaching and broad access to information about pool world-wide.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

It sounds like crying to me.
If it's handicapped and you don't like it, don't enter.
randyg

 

[Scott Lee]

brophog...Great post!:thumbup:

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

I find a huge fault in this potential causation argument:

The implication that the players who would take the spots would otherwise be top talents if a handicap system were not available.

It's a huge problem when you look at the general personality of championship players, in all endeavors. The kind of player that rises to the very top are generally strong type A personalities with an almost unhealthy appetite for competition.

The kind of player who has the natural talent and appetite for competition is not going to fight to stay a 4 in the APA. Their desire for perfection simply won't let them. They're more likely the type of player who looks for other avenues of competition.

When I read these arguments, I liken them to the suggestion that the YMCA is killing the NBA, or that flag football is harming the NFL, or company softball games are detrimental to MLB. Those arguments sound preposterous because the scale of those sports creates a disconnect between professional athlete and amateur player, whereas pool is seen as a recreational game, with a single pool of players, and therefore the necessary disconnect between amateur and professional doesn't seem obvious.

 

[enzo]

There were hustlers WAY before handicapped leagues or tourneys.

The "hustle" is revered among a certain subset of our community. Just read most any thread here and eventually someone will find a way to make the point that "if you don't gamble you ain't playing real pool" or something of the sort. Those who don't gamble aren't as good as those who do, and the only way to prove who is best is long-set high-stakes matches.

No one is driving the good players underground. That is precisely where they wanna be...

yeah, make it lucrative for good players to be upfront and all these guys will stay on the hustle. i guess you are entitled to your opinion, however flawed. the fact is most of these guys are great at obtaining the litttle money out of pool that is available, im not sure where you get this philosophy. even the fact that i have to explain this above point (that pool players, like golfers, will go where the money is) seems so ludicrous to me-- all part of the big problem i guess.

 

[enzo]

It sounds like crying to me.
If it's handicapped and you don't like it, don't enter.
randyg

you live in dallas, maybe a good pool city, i would not know, but when there are say 5 tournaments a week in an area, and a player is barred from 3 and the remaining 2 handicap him so he cant win.... sure, dont go..... but are you seeing the implication? from that point this one player (the ONLY one showing promise) cant play competitive pool. AGAIN, only in pool (and look where we are).

i once read a famous author by the name of sarte, one of his fmous quotes is "hell is other people." this guy was onto something no doubt.

 

[enzo]

Pops...That's what I was thinkin' too. Sounds like sour grapes. Shane Van Boening came up through the league system (VNEA), and he's currently the top ranked American player in the world (#15 according to WPA rankings...the next closest American is Archer at #80!). Without league pool there would possibly be zero fan base for professional pool, which is already quite small. Handicap leagues and tournaments are responsible, in part, for the formation and growth of this site...which is certainly the most far-reaching and broad access to information about pool world-wide.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

your own post supports the exact opposite of what you are saying. there are now 2 american pool players in the top 80 in pool, while leagues are at their strongest ever. 10 or 20 years ago when leagues were much less prevalent, america dominated pool. look, go to the philippines, see if you can find any leagues. do they do what is best to promote good pool playing? and pointing out that svb is a league player.... that supports me even more.... ie EVERYBODY plays leagues while american pool is in the doldrums.

being an instructor, im sure it is very advantageous to you to have a large number of pool players that kinda half know what they are doing... and thus leagues are "good" for you. but if you come in here with some false logic to promote your career, youll get called on it.

 

[enzo]

i will gracefully bow out now, ill let my points hitherto speak for themeselves. i just hate repeating points i feel are very simple. thank you for the discussion, however misguided i feel some of you may be, i am certainly glad we can all post our thoughts here.

cheers!

 

[calcuttaman]

Without handicap system or giving a weaker player the chance to win, pool would lose a great deal of money. People call it "ruining pool", but really its just ruining their ability to rob people. League players and B/C level players make up the majority of pool.

Wow, you really nailed it on the head, I couldn't agree more.

 

[justadub]

yeah, make it lucrative for good players to be upfront and all these guys will stay on the hustle. .

Exactly whose responsibility is it to "make it lucrative" for the "good" players, mine? Nope. How about the people running the tournaments? They need bodies, as many as possible, so should they protect the "good" players? Same with the room owners...

There are so many more lesser players than the few "good" players you speak of. If the ABP makes some headway and gets an actual "pro" tour going at some point, perhaps it can become "lucrative" for all of you better players that get offended at handicapped tourneys and leagues. But for the LARGE majority of people who play pool (and spend money doing so, far more than the few "good" players) it makes a geat deal of sense to make those events attractive to we, the 'lesser" pool players in the US. Sorry about that.

i guess you are entitled to your opinion, however flawed. the fact is most of these guys are great at obtaining the litttle money out of pool that is available, im not sure where you get this philosophy. even the fact that i have to explain this above point (that pool players, like golfers, will go where the money is) seems so ludicrous to me-- all part of the big problem I guess.

You underestimate the gambler mentality. Spend a little time reading the threads in The Action Room forum. Really read into it. These players aren't interested in tourneys, even if they weren't handicapped. They want to beat one person, not a whole field of competitors. They also want to haggle over "the spot" so that they can get the odds in their favor. That is the culture that pool has created, at the top level, in this country. I'm quite sure there are indeed top level US players that would love to play in tourney's were they available, but I expect that there are MANY, MANY more of them that far prefer the "match-up", one on one for the cash.

However flawed my opinion is....

 

[bboxgrinder]

your own post supports the exact opposite of what you are saying. there are now 2 american pool players in the top 80 in pool, while leagues are at their strongest ever. 10 or 20 years ago when leagues were much less prevalent, america dominated pool. look, go to the philippines, see if you can find any leagues. do they do what is best to promote good pool playing? and pointing out that svb is a league player.... that supports me even more.... ie EVERYBODY plays leagues while american pool is in the doldrums.

being an instructor, im sure it is very advantageous to you to have a large number of pool players that kinda half know what they are doing... and thus leagues are "good" for you. but if you come in here with some false logic to promote your career, youll get called on it.

The leagues are always good for those like Scott who suck money from the unknowing newbies. As you will notice he is the fast and furious to jump in and defend them. But then again I guess anyone who makes a living doing something would defend their income. :shrug:

 

[duckie]

And how would you explain "what pool is all about"?

Certainly, leagues are not all things for all people. Certainly, there is a whole lot of other things in the pool world. But I keep hearing that sort of sentiment, without any sort of explanation of showing a league player "what pool is all about"...

The leagues are the best organized thing in the pool world today. If the pro's were as well organized (both the players and the promoters) we wouldn't be having the explosion of threads that we are seeing today.

What is it all about? I'm just a dumb league player.

Oh wait, I forgot. It's a gambling thing..... sorry, I keep forgetting that is what pool is all about. Silly stupid me.

Well, since you asked.

Pool is a individual sport, not a team sport.

Pool is about playing you're best game heads up and not getting any spots or handicap nor is it a race to three or any other form of a short race.

Its about either nutting up or shutting up.

 

[justadub]

Well, since you asked.

Pool is a individual sport, not a team sport.

Pool is about playing you're best game heads up and not getting any spots or handicap nor is it a race to three or any other form of a short race.

Its about either nutting up or shutting up.

It is? Who said? Other than you, I mean...

I'm pretty sure that since there are well over 300,000 of us playing league pool, it's obviously NOT all about "nutting up or shutting up" to alot of people.

But then again, we're just lowly league players, and our opinion isn't worth anything. Apparently our money is worth something to the room owners and equipment manufacturers, though...

 

[justadub]

Well, since you asked.

Pool is a individual sport, not a team sport.

Pool is about playing you're best game heads up and not getting any spots or handicap nor is it a race to three or any other form of a short race.

Its about either nutting up or shutting up.

And since it's all about playing heads up, how come some of the best players in the sport here in the US spend an awful lot of time haggling over "the spot" any time they wanna match up? Again, I trust you read the threads in The Action Room. Pretty much all of the big names get thrown around pretty regularly, and it's usually offering the 8 and the breaks or some other spot, in order to make a game.

I thought pool is about playing your best, heads up?

 

[brophog]

your own post supports the exact opposite of what you are saying. there are now 2 american pool players in the top 80 in pool, while leagues are at their strongest ever. 10 or 20 years ago when leagues were much less prevalent, america dominated pool.. but if you come in here with some false logic to promote your career, youll get called on it.

False logic indeed.

The false logic being that correlation does not equal causation. In other words, because two events co-exist does not mean one event caused the other.

 

[walrus_3d]

Okay, now I'm totally confused.

You say golf doesn't bar pros from entering tournaments or handicap them. Golf INVENTED handicapping. Ask any amateur golfer (A/B/C/D players), they have a handicap. Scratch golfers (shortstop/A players) are amateur golfers with a handicap in low single digits. Pros (yeah, pros) have a handicap of 0. There are amateur golf tournaments, which (shocker) professional golfers aren't allowed to enter. That and the definition of "professional" golfer is someone who makes more than 50% of his income from golf, be it teaching or playing. How many pool players fit that description?

So yeah, let's make pool more like golf. Hold amateur tournaments separate from the professional (or "Open") tournaments, set a handicap system so it's your best game vs your opponent's best game, and.. and.. wait, we already do that. The only thing we're lacking for pool is NCAA sanctioning as a collegiate sport. Where's the support for NCAA billiards?

Children don't get into pool because it's not something you can do at school, so their parents don't want it to take away from their studies. If we actually had pool as a recognized high school or collegiate athletic event (like golf and tennis), you might just get a wider base of younger players, and start growing a larger pool of excellent pool players.

I don't know, I'm crazy.

 

[Donny Lutz]

Handicap leagues were largely responsible for the success of bowling beginning back in the '50s. The same for pool beginning i the '70s. Handicap systems and scratch systems are not mutually exclusive. If you have enough players, you can have both. The only real problem with handicap leagues are the ones that encourage sandbagging. In an equitable handicap system, there is very little or no advantage to sandbagging. The same goes for tournaments. We can have it both ways!
I've been "banned" from numerous amateur tourneys over the years, and would much rather have given a spot rather than not played at all. Some of you may respond with something like, "if you're a real player you'd just be gambling and not playing tournaments anyway". But don't gamblers give spots all the time? And those of us who've gotten a bit burned out on gambling after 50 years or so, or aren't in good enough shape to gamble around the clock anymore, still like to compete in leagues or tournaments. And we have no problem with FAIR handicaps.

 

[ignomirello]

Wow Justadub you are so right

Wow Justadub you are so right!!!!!!

Basically, it appears the OP would prefer to have a lot fewer players playing. Because that's what would happen if his wishes were put into practice.

"I'm a really good player, and anyone that isn't really good needs to practice more, and gamble more, and then maybe you'll be good enough to play me."

That's the mentality, and that's cool, if thats the way ya wanna be. But if that was the only way to play and enjoy yourself, you would find 80%-90% fewer players in the current places to play. Because we all can't fit into that description.

I will never be able to play at the level you folks describe. I started too late in life, work too much and have a busy family life. Should I stop playing because I can't play like you guys, and never will? Or can I play in a handicapped league setting where I can have a chance, even against stronger competition? Don't ya think that there are some who come to the game through the league system that eventually graduate to being a hotshot gambling player?

It apprears there are far more of "us" than there are of "you". Our money spends just as well at the pool halls and bars, and at the equipment retailers. But apparently we, the league players, are destroying pool... sigh.

 

[cuesmith]

I agree and with the 23 rule that penalizes players for improving it compounds the situation. I think that if you're going to have a handicapped tournament, instead of handicapping them with games do it with odds on the money instead. Make the strongest players pay higher entry fees and the weakest players almost nothing. This would give the weaker players some incentive knowing they could enter for $1 and win $250 if they got lucky without risking anything. The better the player, the higher his entry fee so he's risking more if he doesn't perform.

 

[walrus_3d]

I agree and with the 23 rule that penalizes players for improving it compounds the situation.

The purpose of the 23 rule (in the APA) isn't to penalize players for moving up, it's intended to keep the spread of players in a particular match... actually spread. Instead of one team posting 5 top players every week, you have to play your B, C, and D players as well. The motivation from there is to help your weaker players improve so they're not guaranteed losses.

Once your players have progressed to the point that you can't field the same team within the 23 rule, you're supposed to go out and recruit new players. Split the original team in half and find 8 more newbies, so now you have two teams instead of one, and the league expands a little. Added to that is the fact that your brand new 2 or 3 is going to be in high demand among other divisions in the league, so you might just start somebody off into a lifetime of pool. Anyway that's the two-part theory behind the 23 rule, more or less a summary of what my League Operator said a couple months ago. I think it's pretty valid. That's how my wife got started in the APA while I was on deployment, and then she got me into it. I wouldn't be playing any pool at all if she hadn't been recruited by someone trying to fill out a new team.

I think that if you're going to have a handicapped tournament, instead of handicapping them with games do it with odds on the money instead. Make the strongest players pay higher entry fees and the weakest players almost nothing. This would give the weaker players some incentive knowing they could enter for $1 and win $250 if they got lucky without risking anything. The better the player, the higher his entry fee so he's risking more if he doesn't perform.

This part, I definitely agree with. It's no fun having tournaments without a real field to play against, and it's even less fun paying more for the higher level tournaments when you know you don't have a snowball's chance of winning. I wouldn't consider kicking at the ball three times in a race to 5 a "constructive loss".