League play

[Bluewolf]

We have several leagues here and all of them seem quite wonderful. I have not been playing very long so havent had time to try out all of them.

Tonight we have apa league night. I have played 18 matches so far. I think once you get to 20, they do something funky with some of your numbers, like start dropping some or averaging the best ten, or something of that nature.

If any of that is true, my two-dom days are numbered.

Anyway, my stats so far cuz I was pretty cruddy when I first started and lost some,pretty many matches: is 9 wins out of 18 and now I am improving so it is six wins out of my last eight matches.

Sometimes I get tired by the time the mathes are over but I enjoy going to talk to people I know and I enjoy watching the better player so I can steal stuff from them. I figure it will help me one of these days.

Laura

 

[jjinfla]

Hi Blue, Now is the time to take advantage of your low handicap and enter some of the little tournaments at your local pool hall. they probably have them right where you play in the APA. many halls base your handicap on your APA rating. I doubt that they will start you at a 2, most likely a 3. You might as well get those spot balls and try and win some money now because it gets harder to win later on. Jake~~~just be ready for all the complaints that you are rated too low. LOL

 

[Bluewolf]

Hi Blue, Now is the time to take advantage of your low handicap and enter some of the little tournaments at your local pool hall. they probably have them right where you play in the APA. many halls base your handicap on your APA rating. I doubt that they will start you at a 2, most likely a 3. You might as well get those spot balls and try and win some money now because it gets harder to win later on. Jake~~~just be ready for all the complaints that you are rated too low. LOL

Jake,

They have already had the handicap review for this session. Two sandbagging sixes got bumped to sevens, one 3 got bumped to a 4. I played him and lost. He was one of my two losses out of the last 8. He wasnt sandbagging, just new.

Nobody thinks I am sandbagging because they know I play my best. In fact there is another two in our league who can beat some threes. I beat her, however. The other players also know how I feel about marking defensive shots. It is kind of a pet peeve of mine that most of the teams dont mark safes or will mark one or two so that they will not be red flagged.

I have the apa system in print from 3 years ago but they might have changed it some since then. No telling how it works.

Anyway, I just keep working on my two most difficult shots, just potting and doing shape drills. Like- I might set up an easy 'cheat the pocket' into the corner then do low ie, low oe with very soft ball speed to see where the cb ends up, then with a little harder speed, then the same thing with top. Then I will try same thing with other shots and eventually hope to be able to tell which to use or cb for the shot and where i want cb to end up. With this plan, I fill that I will be halfway decent, not great, just decent by six months.

I also practice cue muscle memory stuff so that just with the cb , i can send it down the long rail 3x,2x(lag),1x...for these i want to be within a half of a diamond Then the ones i practice that i want to be accurate within 2-4 inches are, hitting cb to side pocket, then to the foot spot. Then I try to hit it 2 inches, but sometimes it goes 1 or 4 inches lol. I think this helps with safes although i sometimes screw up, so probably need to practice this also with ob.

Anyway that is basically what I do about an hour a day with doing drills 2x a week and the rest of the time playing fargo or just potting.

And yes, there is a nice touranment here on sun that is handicapped. It has nice people too. I played in it once, and they let me play as a two, but have not made it back.

Laura

 

[Koop]

Hi Laura,

The APA usually has their own tournaments as well which are based on handicaps. Usually (2, 3, 4) and (5, 6, 7). These are a lot of fun and by what you have said you would probably do very well. Listen to Jake because it certainly does get harder and harder. I border between a 6 and a 7 and believe me, there are 7's out there who just swallow me up. Still a lot of fun though.

There are also tournaments in my area that are doubles with a maximum of 10. So even if you go up to a 3 you could still pair up with a 7. Funny thing about these tournaments is that my wife, who from the sound of it, shoots very similar to you and is rated a 3, paired up with an awesome 7 in our area and won the whole tournament last year. And in doing so knocked me out. Keep up the great work and you should be a 7 in no time.

Dave

 

[jjinfla]

Blue, I was at the local pool hall the other day and watched a girl practicing. She was very happy because earlier she had broke and run out in 9-ball for the first time. She is rated as a three there. Keep in mind that when you receive spot balls you usually don't have to think about running racks or even running 5 balls. Most of the time all you have to do is make two balls in a row to win. Your opponent on the other hand has to think about running out or else he loses. 4's,5's, 6's 7's do miss on a regular basis and they do not always play good, let alone perfect, safeties. So just play smart, sit back and let them miss, make your two or three balls, and take the win. Then be sure to smile at them, bat your eyes, and tell them you were lucky. Jake

 

[Bluewolf]

Blue, I was at the local pool hall the other day and watched a girl practicing. She was very happy because earlier she had broke and run out in 9-ball for the first time. She is rated as a three there. Keep in mind that when you receive spot balls you usually don't have to think about running racks or even running 5 balls. Most of the time all you have to do is make two balls in a row to win. Your opponent on the other hand has to think about running out or else he loses. 4's,5's, 6's 7's do miss on a regular basis and they do not always play good, let alone perfect, safeties. So just play smart, sit back and let them miss, make your two or three balls, and take the win. Then be sure to smile at them, bat your eyes, and tell them you were lucky. Jake

Thanks Jake. In the tourney here, you play 8-ball first. If you lose, you go into the losers bracket which is 9-ball. The time I played, I got to play this guy who is a very good shooter. He is a three now, although he was a four for awhile. Guess he just was not ready for fourdom. Anyway, he and I are great buds and see each other every night at league. I did not have a handicap. It was a race to two. It was a very close race and he got the match 2-1. This is the first time I had ever played nine ball in any match and I thorougly enjoyed it. I had nice company though.

There is another tournament here that is strictly 9-ball non handicapped. There are A players and some money players that attend. I do not plan on attending that one for some time.

Laura