I thought i would start a new thread,because nobody gets past the first page and my post would have been on page 4....lol. Well the problem with handicapping is you have people that dont play pool or are room owners and play at an APA 3,4 level doing the handicapping and dont have a clue what they are doing. How can a 3 or 4 possibly know what it takes to go from a 5 to a 6 or 6 to 7,they havent played on that level yet. They dont know all the special shots and moves that it takes to go from one level to the next. My local room has theirs totally screwwed up moving people up and down every other week and listening to the wrong people about how some of the players play....the room hustler isnt the person to listen to,he is going to slat everything to suit him,obviously. A handicap should never make things fair,it should make it FAIRER, the better player should always have a slight advantage,they paid their dues to be there. Like golf or bowling they give you 75 or 90 % of your handicap not 100% of it,so the better player has a slight advantage and the lesser player has a better chance to win then he would playing scratch,(even). Why should you punish the guy who has played for 20 or 30 years and been a student of the game,and let a guy who just started playing be able to beat him,that to me isnt fair. What kind of work ethic are you teaching that person, they should have to get some heart and get in there and grind it out with the better players and earn their right to win,if they dont have the heart for it then they need to play just for fun,and lets face it there are some who will never be great players,for a variety of reasons. Really they should have tournaments for all levels of players in the room, where they compete with people at their level only or with very little handicapping needed. They can even give the lesser players their own bracket in the tournaments,and have them meet up with the main bracket in the end guaranteeing them to cash. I must admit i feel like Dave in the other post,you will get better a lot faster playing with all the better players, i have seen this over 25 years of playing. Also deciding when to move people up should be based on winning percentages against players on your own level,if i am a 6 handicap and i am beating all the other 6's 60 or 70 % of the time then maybe i should be moved to a 6.5,and give them all the first break when playing them in the tournament. If i am still winning at the same percentage,then i need to go to a 7 and give up a full game to them in the tournaments. The reason foe half increments is the more you can break things down, the closer you get to nailing down a persons playing level. Lots of guys are borderline, if you go a full game its too much,so move them a half a game and make them give up the first break. Any handicapping system is a lot of work,for the owner,thats why most dont do it right,they dont care who wins as long as they are getting a full field and making money,and thats too bad,especially like in our town where there is only one pool room, and he has a monopoly on pool.
handicapping and pool
- Thread starter Lucky_Lew66
- Start date
I tend to agree with your post. I'm not a huge fan of handicapping personally, but I guess it brings in more players and if it's going to be done, I'd like to see it as accurate as possible......I think you're right about alot of the handicapping being done by low to mid range players being a bit off. They may be able to handicap people around their speed but getting an accurate handicap for players that play above them doesn't seem to work that well. I'm not sure what the best solution is because other than basing handicaps off results and known ability it's tough and alot of the people that run tourneys or leagues aren't top tier players and I guess it kind of is what it is.....I've played in a couple handicapped tourneys before where the top players have to give up so much weight that they have to outrun the nuts and some, to go far. I don't really think that's fair considering all the dedication they've put into the game. Then somewhere in the tourney you end up playing someone where you have to spot them a game and your thinking that if anything you should be getting a game lol......It's really kind of a crapshoot especially with tourneys but with leagues unless people are sandbagging, one should get to a fairly accurate handicap within a month or two even if they are a new player. Unfortunately, for various reasons, you always get a few that won't play their true speed and that can mess things up for all
I couldn't read all of this post for the reason mentioned above, but much of it is wrong. There are simple, fair, easy-to-run handicapping systems. They are freely available. The ratings adjustments are simple, automatic and impartial.