Has anyone heard of this happening? (APA Question)

MrLucky said:
It was explained to me at a Nationals event that the entire reason for showing a 8 on the break and 8 out of turn scratch on eight in the proper manner on the scorecard was so that it was not counted as 0 innings or against the player as it would if not marked!;)
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It seems that that the answer to the question, regarding this issue, has been explained differently by two separate individuals.

I have no way of knowing which is correct, but I suspect my LO is correct because of the many instances of players SL being raised as the result of winning a match by default so to speak.

Steve
 
The first gentleman with all respect said "it was his opinion"

sde said:
It seems that that the answer to the question, regarding this issue, has been explained differently by two separate individuals.

I have no way of knowing which is correct, but I suspect my LO is correct because of the many instances of players SL being raised as the result of winning a match by default so to speak.

Steve
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I was relaying to you the answer given to me as a team captain by the APA in a Nationals event in response to my questioning this area in the scoring and how it affected my player who was raised to a 4 from a three! There are quite a few differences in an opinion and a rule answer from the folks that make the rules!
 
Just points out the reasons that I don't play league any more. I played for 2 sessions and had enough! Not to mention the LO in my area makes a killing of of people who like the game and play all session for a slim to none chance to go to Vegas for an even slimmer chance to win money. But you can get a plaque!
 
I've got a gal on my team, who is a pretty good 3. She can run a few balls sometimes but she dogs easy shots as well.

But she has a knack that's caused me to recently give her the nickname "sixkiller". Three sessions ago, finals for the playoffs, it's 2-2 and the other team has a 7 ready to go, and I've got this gal. I'd intended to play her on him anyhow, so it worked out. This guy manages to drop the 8-ball early TWICE in THREE shots.

A couple of weeks ago, again, finals for the playoffs. We're up 2-0. They throw a 6, I throw this gal. Her opponent scratches off the 8. A couple of games later, he dogs a shot leaving my gal a stupid easy three-ball out, which she pulls off.

This past Saturday, at the post-season tournament - we're down 2-0. The other team puts up their lone 6. I throw up this gal. First game, their 6 runs down to the eight, dogs it in a corner. My gal plays smart and plays safe, leaving him down on the same end of the table with some balls between the cue and 8. He kicks long, brushes the 8, scratches. Three more games go by - the 6 is just losing it. My gal has either gotten down on the 8, or one ball short of the 8, and nervously dogged a reasonably easy shot each time. Then finally, she gets up to a wide open table and runs six easy balls and gets the win. Best run I've seen her do all year.

Thing is - in every instance - her opponent has been the one doing most of the work for her, scratching on eights, knocking eights in early, etc. You can see some of their hands shaking while down on a shot. It's bizarre how freaked out playing a low-handicapped player can make someone!
 
MrLucky said:
I was relaying to you the answer given to me as a team captain by the APA in a Nationals event in response to my questioning this area in the scoring and how it affected my player who was raised to a 4 from a three! There are quite a few differences in an opinion and a rule answer from the folks that make the rules!
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Imagine my surprise when a three goes up to a five.

As far as I understand it, there's a little truth in that you mark SCR-8, or E-8 to compensate, but then, as it was explained to me, the innings simply get averaged among the other games in the match. In our situation, we had a one inning win by our three followed by an E-8 by his opponent, giving him a one inning per game average in a 2-0 match. What happened is that the E-8 didn't directly count against him, but it indirectly doubled the result of the previous game. Since it was only his 12th match since he started, it completely blew things apart. So you're right in that E-8's and SCR-8's are not supposed to directly affect the opponents handicap, but it is the indirect results depending on the other games in the match that really decide.

I still think this is absurd. A one point bump for the 2-0 win, fine, but a two point bump after his 12th match is just wrong.
 
8 on break skill shot?

I spoke with a friend of mine who is a league op and is very familiar with the "equalizer" handicap system and he assured me that snapping the 8 was in fact considered a skill shot by the apa. thus scored as a win with 0 innings.
 
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bigdaddygerald said:
i spoke with a friend of mine who is a league op and is very familiar with the "equalizer" handicap system and he assured me that snapping the 8 was in fact considered a skill shot by the apa. thus scored as a win with 0 innings.
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This is what I have been told by an LO as well.
 
With all due respect, The first gentleman with all respect said "it was his opinion"

MrLucky said:
I was relaying to you the answer given to me as a team captain by the APA in a Nationals event in response to my questioning this area in the scoring and how it affected my player who was raised to a 4 from a three! There are quite a few differences in an opinion and a rule answer from the folks that make the rules!
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The first gentleman was stating his opinion where I was NOT stating my opinion, I was relaying what was told to me by the local LO.

Perhaps when I said,
I have no way of knowing which is correct, but I suspect my LO is correct...
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I did not make myself clear.

I do not know which version is correct (no opinion implied), but I suspect the possibility that my LO is correct because of the many instances of players SL being raised as the result of winning a match by default so to speak.

If there is an opinion here, it is not mine, it belongs to the LO.

Steve
 
Over the 20 previous games that affect his score...

Da Poet said:
Imagine my surprise when a three goes up to a five.

As far as I understand it, there's a little truth in that you mark SCR-8, or E-8 to compensate, but then, as it was explained to me, the innings simply get averaged among the other games in the match. In our situation, we had a one inning win by our three followed by an E-8 by his opponent, giving him a one inning per game average in a 2-0 match. What happened is that the E-8 didn't directly count against him, but it indirectly doubled the result of the previous game. Since it was only his 12th match since he started, it completely blew things apart. So you're right in that E-8's and SCR-8's are not supposed to directly affect the opponents handicap, but it is the indirect results depending on the other games in the match that really decide.

I still think this is absurd. A one point bump for the 2-0 win, fine, but a two point bump after his 12th match is just wrong.
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you will probably see a averaging that will bring him closer to his proper level, I agree the handicapping methods do not address all contingencies and believe me I have had my share of battles with the LO and with the National officials over handicaps but I do understand the difficulty they have in making it both fair and equal and also trying to prevent sandbaggers from manipulating the scores so yeah it isn't a perfect world and IMO no system that I have seen yet is!
 
A player is typically only going to jump or drop 2 skill levels because they are still fairly new to the league. One of the reasons APA requires a minimum of 10 matches is because with less than 10 matches played, players are still not really established at their respective skill levels.

A player really needs 20 matches to really be established.

I like to use a free throw analogy that helps put things into perspective.

Da Poet steps up to the free throw line and sinks 3 straight free throws. What kind of conclusions can be drawn from these 3 free throws? Da Poet is 100 percent. Will he always be 100%? Probably not. Can we really pinpoint his true ability off of these 3 free throws? No.

Da Poet steps up to the line once again. He misses his 4th one. His percentage drops from 100% all the way down to 75%. That's an awful big drop, but the big drop is due to the small sample size.

Da Poet shoots 95 more free throws and has made 50 out of 99, which is 50.5%. When he misses the next one, he's a perfect 50%. The more times you shoot, the more accurate the information becomes.

If Da Poet shoots another 100 free throws next week and he makes 70% of those, he is due for a skill level increase because his free throw shooting accuracy is improving tremendously.

There is nothing unusual about a player with such limited playing time in the league bumping two skill levels. As your player becomes more established in the league, his skill level will fall in line with where it should be.
 
sde said:
You are welcome.

The LO also told me that it is in the best interest of the APA for the SL of players to go up. It forces teams to split and recruit new lower SL players and form two teams. More players = more teams = more $$$ to the APA and the LO.

Steve
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I'd find it pretty hard to believe an LO told you that. The natural progression is for players to go up. Who joins a league to become worse and go down in skill level? Most people join a league to become a better player. Not everyone. Some only play for the social aspects of league play and don't care whether they become better.

As an LO, I can tell you that teams generally don't split. They drop someone and add someone lower in skill most of the time. That dropped player might form a new team or he might join a team with more cap room.

The 23 rule was not designed for the sole purpose of splitting teams for monetary gain. It was designed to allow all teams to be competitive. Because players do become better, it does force teams that get top heavy to make roster adjustments, but it's not very often that teams actually split.

I've seen many leagues over the years that don't have a handicap. I can look at the rosters before the session starts and pretty much tell you who will win. It's usually the strongest team. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, if that's the kind of league people enjoy playing. APA recognized that having limits on team strength allows teams to only be good to a certain point. It's a thing of beauty, IMO. How many leagues have skill level 2's and 3's participating on teams at a National event. How many new players to pool become addicted to this sport by getting a chance to compete in weekly league play? How many other leagues would have given a skill level 2 a chance to play on a team?

I watched a skill level 3 become a skill level 7 in a little over a year and a half once he joined APA. I got a tear of joy in my eye when this player made it to a 7. I don't know who was more excited. Another player from my area was a skill level 2 in 9 Ball captaining a team session after session. She just played in her first WPBA tournament only 3 or 4 years later.

I'm sorry to read some of the posts in this thread from folks who had a bad experience in APA. APA isn't for everyone, and I won't pretend it is. But, I still have the same passion running APA as I had as a player in the APA. The 23 rule is one of the best rules APA ever introduced.
 
ajrack said:
I've seen it many times...A legitamite three who cannnot make a ball in the hole from 4 ft, happens to beat a 7 because the 7 scratches a couple of times and everyone complains they shouldn't beat a 7! AND then to make it worse they raise them to a 4 or 5!

gREAT SYSTEM!!!
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it is all based on innings ...
 
apa is not just a league its a business

when a player is dropped from a team due to handicap issues that is in fact a split. It seems to me that if your a LO drawing an income from the area you run, you should in fact treat it as a business and in that respect success can be measured by growth. If growth wasnt an issue then handicaps in 8 ball could easily move up to 9 or so to make each rung on the handicap ladder equal in skill gap.
 
APA LO said:
A player is typically only going to jump or drop 2 skill levels because they are still fairly new to the league. One of the reasons APA requires a minimum of 10 matches is because with less than 10 matches played, players are still not really established at their respective skill levels.

A player really needs 20 matches to really be established.

I like to use a free throw analogy that helps put things into perspective.

Da Poet steps up to the free throw line and sinks 3 straight free throws. What kind of conclusions can be drawn from these 3 free throws? Da Poet is 100 percent. Will he always be 100%? Probably not. Can we really pinpoint his true ability off of these 3 free throws? No.

Da Poet steps up to the line once again. He misses his 4th one. His percentage drops from 100% all the way down to 75%. That's an awful big drop, but the big drop is due to the small sample size.

Da Poet shoots 95 more free throws and has made 50 out of 99, which is 50.5%. When he misses the next one, he's a perfect 50%. The more times you shoot, the more accurate the information becomes.

If Da Poet shoots another 100 free throws next week and he makes 70% of those, he is due for a skill level increase because his free throw shooting accuracy is improving tremendously.

There is nothing unusual about a player with such limited playing time in the league bumping two skill levels. As your player becomes more established in the league, his skill level will fall in line with where it should be.
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I was having some really good high school basketball flashbacks until I became 50% at the line. :eek: :D

First I want to say that overall, I really enjoy our APA league nights, and my criticism is directed at a specific aspect of the scorekeeping method that I think hurts things more than it helps.

This was his twelfth match in the final week of regular play in his first APA session. He's been bouncing between 3-4 all session. Now through no fault of his own, he's probably not going to play until the next session, if he's interested in coming back, and even then, he and his team are going to have to put up with some likely early losses. All because of one stupid shot by his opponent?

There's a lot of things I like about the APA, but when no one is cheating, and something like this happens, it makes it tough to defend against any criticism about the handicap system. The system is the core of the league and as I'm sure we've all seen, if people lose faith in it they won't come out to play.
 
It's all in the averages. The more he plays the more he will average out. Just give it time
 
Da Poet said:
There's a lot of things I like about the APA, but when no one is cheating, and something like this happens, it makes it tough to defend against any criticism about the handicap system. The system is the core of the league and as I'm sure we've all seen, if people lose faith in it they won't come out to play.
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Amen brother. Something similar to this happened to my team. It's his first session of playing pool ever, and has only played for about a year in general. A SL4 makes an 8 in the wrong pocket, then scratches on the 8 for a 2 inning match. Now my new player is a 4 just short of a 5 and can hardly win a match over the past 6 weeks. I guess I'm just suppose to be patient, take losses, and perhaps miss playoffs. Yeah, that's fair.
 
MrLucky I here that your league operator is taking alot of heat because so many teams out of MrQ's did so well this past week end.
 
I emailed my LO about this and got this back:

"The answer is: yes, corrections are made. APA has a specific procedure for adjusting the winner's score so that this type of win will not result in a higher skill level. Basically, the score for that match is put at an average for the player's skill level."
 
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