how are ya'll doing in league ?

oh no krupa i did not mean captains going was bad. :embarrassed2:

i meant the nationals itself was the one negative thing i can say about napa.

you know the problems with low turnout, low pay out , confusion over whether valleys or diamonds etc.

coming from a captain who went to nashville and the southern classic.:thumbup:

i did not go to atlanta due to a conflict with my apa ltc.

Gotcha... yeah they definitely dropped the ball this year with the Nationals. They have said that they will do better next year... we'll see I guess. I can drive to next years event in Michigan and may go for an event or two... again, we'll have to wait and see.
 
There are very few people that could manage a really high winning record consistently without sandbagging. Taking a look at how the wins happened is very important as well. Winning by an opponent's early 8 or scratch on the 8, games that take 8 turns a piece, etc. Justadub was saying that he ran 100% for that season. It certainly isn't impossible, but if you asked him his overall win %, I guarantee you it won't be anywhere close to 100%. Spimp has a pretty nice win %, I think somewhere in the high 70's? Also, if you think somebody can play as a 7, but can't play well on a beat up Valley, they're a very weak 7 or maybe an overrated 6. I personally like the handicaps and it makes you play well/hard or you risk giving away games that can easily come back to haunt you. 9b handicap is the better of the two, though it's more like a straight pool game. Of course, I suck at 9b, so maybe I'm just biased. :embarrassed2:

57.48% in 8-ball, 57.59 in 9-ball

Last night was a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Played another SL5, went ahead 2-0, lost the next four games. I should have won that match, I feel that I am a stronger player than my opponent (slightly) but I just didn't execute properly. The Equalizer cannot account for the human element.

Or am I just sandbagging? After all, I won all 11 matches last session, so I must need to be bumped up, right hang-the-9?
 
Both 8&9 ball teams took 1st in my league. Second season I've played and trophied. I went to a 5 in 8&9 ball for APA. Moving to TAP and can't wait...
 
Several people on my team have gone up in SL so now we have 2 6s, 1 7, and 1 8 on our 9 ball roster, and we have 2 6s and a 7 on our 8 ball roster. Not to mention others have been floating between 4s and 5s depending on the week. You can't really have a team with that many high SL players so I won't be playing next session. Today I got asked to be on a Tuesday night Valley team and I said yes even though I've never played the format before. The level of competition should be much better so I'm looking forward to that.
 
Several people on my team have gone up in SL so now we have 2 6s, 1 7, and 1 8 on our 9 ball roster, and we have 2 6s and a 7 on our 8 ball roster. Not to mention others have been floating between 4s and 5s depending on the week. You can't really have a team with that many high SL players so I won't be playing next session. Today I got asked to be on a Tuesday night Valley team and I said yes even though I've never played the format before. The level of competition should be much better so I'm looking forward to that.

do what i do ...play in all the leagues.:D

well actually i am just playing in 3 leagues a week now. 5 nights a week was just too much lol.

i currently play apa 2 apa divisions...2 napa divisions and a money league.

i play apa and money league both on tue nights.

apa on sunday nights

napa on wed nights

and napa on every other sat.

wed night session just started tonight.

i won the lag and chose 8 ball. 3-4 race and i won 3-1.

oh yea... just found out i am already eligible for next years napa nationals by virtue of our team coming in 1st place last session. did not need the captains auto eligibility.:D
 
NAPA 8-ball last night, I had to go to 6 in a 6-2 race.

I didn't play very well; I had runnable tables but would get bad position early or tie up my own balls, etc. I would get bad shape on the key ball or knock it into bad position and would spend 5 innings wallowing in one ball hell: coming to the table with little to no shot. But, my opponent has a lot to learn and would eventually scratch or just leave me a shot. I went up 5-0 before giving up a game.

Finally won 6-1.
 
Individual 9-ball:
After beating my first three opponents, who are also Ds. I asked the league director to raised me to a D+, and see if he could put some more higher level skilled players on my schedule. So far, I seem to be holding my own. With one more match left in the seaon, I have 8 wins, 5 losses, and 2 forfeits.

Team 8-ball
We're losing 11-3. Two more matches left in the season, and then the suffering stops. My team members do not like the new format, and are taking a break to explore other leagues and poolhalls. Chris Lynch, my teammates miss you as league director.

No APA this summer
Team members decided to take a break due to fatigue. Last season we came in first in our division, but lost our shot at the Tri-Cup because we didn't continue the summer season.
 
57.48% in 8-ball, 57.59 in 9-ball

Last night was a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Played another SL5, went ahead 2-0, lost the next four games. I should have won that match, I feel that I am a stronger player than my opponent (slightly) but I just didn't execute properly. The Equalizer cannot account for the human element.

Or am I just sandbagging? After all, I won all 11 matches last session, so I must need to be bumped up, right hang-the-9?

your post got me to wondering how i am doing.

well i looked up both apa and napa. strange ????

noticed a decline in win percentage every year in apa and an increase every year in napa.

i know there is probabably a lot of variables at work here...such as matchups etc but i still find it puzzling.

i have went from a high in apa of a 67% win record as a s/l 6 in summer of 2012 to a low of 38% as a s/l 5 last session.

i began napa in 2010 as a s/l 50 and won 50% . 50 % in 2011 and 60 % in 2012

so far this year i have a 70% record as a s/l 60.

i am wondering if the more i play napa the more i am disliking apa ?

i think most of you are aware i have always been a pretty staunch supporter of apa but sometimes i have went on a rant about higher level players resorting to slop.

here is a perfect example.

last time i played this particular guy in apa he won 4-0.several slop shots kept him at the table....as you know..if you don't get to the table you dont win. i played him last tue in napa and i won 3-1.

i know on any given night any body can beat any body...well almost :D but it seems to be a pattern where i lose to several guys in apa and beat them in napa.
 
Despite having several weeks where we had to forfeit multiple matches due to people being gone my team is in 2nd place in 9 ball and 3rd place in 8 ball. Amazing. Earlier this session we had pretty much just written it off, but we've been playing really well since. This is my last session in APA for now though. I'll be playing in a Valley league next session instead. Ready to play against better players.
 
I'm doing a lot better in leagues now - I don't have any pressure when playing, and I realized that I was dropping my shoulder and popping up on some shots. Now, when I head into a match I'm cognizant of how my stroke feels in the pre-swing - if it feels off then I get up and plant myself down again.

I'm still a SL 4 but in these past 3 weeks I've been telling my captain to throw me against the higher SL players and I've been beating 5s and 6s =)
 
Frustrating yet rewarding night last night. We came into the night 38 points back of first place with this week and next week left in the session. Needless to say: we're in a rough spot with that. We needed sweeps and we needed them bad. I led off the show for us and lost the lag. His first break damn near dropped the 8-ball on me. As it was a 4-2 race I knew I had no margin for error. Took solids, and started rolling around. Got it down to 2+the 8 on the table and got position to shoot the corner all the way across from the 8's location. A make sets me up to drop the other ball in the corner pocket close to the 8. Unfortunately I'm off, the ball comes all the way back, and just nips the 8 into the pocket.

From there I played even more conservatively, he didn't have a lot of shots in his bag. I held on and won the next four games. But the difference was a 14-3 win instead of a 20-1 win. After our next guy won, and our third guy lost our captain got the rackless and gave us a strong victory. We saw online that the team in first had posted a poor week, and moved ourselves within 9 of them. My getting that sweep out would have been incredibly huge. I'm happy with the win, but I know that that one mistake cost us a much tighter situation going into the final week. They're playing the last place team, and we're playing a team near last. We're going to have to kick ass and say some prayers. A few more points would have been so valuable.

So happy, won... Moved to 7-1 this session. My handicap keeps going up, so I'm starting to see things I haven't seen before. This week every guy on the other team only had to win 2 against me. It really makes things more difficult. I absolutely can't afford mistakes now with these ever-tougher races. I'm enjoying the additional challenge and I'm going to try to keep up.
 
Didn't win mvp which I am OK with.

Do have a question for anyone in a 8 ball apa league. We ended up tied points wise for 1st how do you know who actually takes first?
 
The Blazin' Mazen's

The Tap team that I formed in Mike Mazen's name is kickin ass! We won everything last session. I think this team is capable of making it to nationals.
 

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played in my sat napa league today.

i won the lag.

race matrix
4-4 8 ball
3-4 9 ball ..me going to 3
3-4 10 ball..me going to 3

i chose 8 ball. he won the 1st rack mostly due to a missed shot and a screwed up safety by me.

aa the match progressed i started shooting better and better to the tune of a break and run in the 5th rack winning 4-1.

apa double jeapordy tom night . been shooting bad in that division lately for some reason. oh yea tom night is last night of this session. my team is 3rd in 9 ball and dead last in 8 ball.we always seem to do good in one or the other every session.

never good in both at the same time lol.
 
played in my double jeapordy last night.

9 ball i faced a 6 and won 14-6...8 ball i faced a 7 and lost 5-2.

i changed my pre shot routine and it has helped me stay focused better.

in 9 ball my opponent played several safes and i found myself getting frustrated a few times. my new psr helped me settle down and stay relaxed ...yet focused.

in 8 ball i beat myself by letting negative thoughts creep in. twice i missed make able shots on the 8 ball . that old thought ....if i miss ...he is gonna run out crept into my mind.

that thought never happens against any one except the top players in my league. i gotta get out of that. :mad:
 
So I did something interesting last week. I dumped a match. Not to get my skill lowered but to play a new 7 in our league.

Funny part is the guy I was playing, who was a 6 like me, ran out best I've ever seen him after I "missed" so I just had to basically miss like 4-5 shots the whole set for him to beat me pretty easily.

My thinking was this, we had a ghost player, and that was the last match, they picked the ghost. If I played badly, they would likely pick me since the other games would have been 2-6 or 3-6. If I played it would be a 5-4 race. If I lost, we would be tied 2-2 with that last set the decider.

I really wanted to see what this 7 had in him, so I played my first set to get matched up against him. And it worked. The other team picked me to play last set.

Guy played well, smooth shooter but he got beaten by the crappy bar table like I often do. He just got bit by it first leaving an open table for me often.

I ended up winning 4-3 with both of not breaking any records for good league play, I think every game we both had 2 innings if not more.
 
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