league play

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Putting things into perspective...

I understand that each league/organization will have its share of ongoing issues (correct averages, sandbagging, etc.), regardless of its size.

Realizing the '10-3' rule of customer service, I can see that there will be more complaints simply by the sheer number of players in the APA.

But it seems that some of the more ludicrous experiences have taken place in the APA, based on what I've read in these forums.

Tap,tap, tap! :thumbup:

I would like to echo all of KRRUNOUTs thoughts for my part of the world, as well.

The thing that amazes me in every APA-bashing thread is that the bashers never consider the effect of scale. The fact that APA is SO much bigger in scale and scope than all the others, probably combined, that there will ALWAYS be more occurrence of problems, by fact of simple mathematics. If BCA or any other alphabet soup variation got to be as big as APA is currently, we would hear just as many issues (though they might be different issues) as we do now with APA.

As to the "customer service" issue... Our LO here isn't the most gracious person I've ever seen. I personally have been in the customer service business and in management for over 25 years, so I'm familiar with the concept. After our recent Vegas qualifier tournament, I got to thinking about this where our LO is concerned. And how I'd be were I in his shoes. And I quickly realized that if you try to make everyone happy, you will soon end up with no one happy. Watching and listening to how pool players act, I realized that the LO has to remain distant to a certain degree, and to maintain a level of detachment in order to have a smoothly run operation. I f the LO is to start listening to each and every situation, and to start coming up with a case-by-case judgment, he will A quickly have a nervous breakdown, and B never have a consistent base-line for the rest of his territory. So yes, the well-run League will have an LO that may seem a bit too business like, and perhaps a bit less-then-friendly demeanor at times. It has to be the only way to make it work.

All this having been said, I realize that there are no doubt some areas where APA isn't being run reasonably. That is too bad. That doesn't make APA in general a bad thing, but it sure does show that an individual LO isn't doing the right things to make his business grow, and to thrive. Try to make constructive comments to them in a rational, civil manner, and if you don't see changes made to your satisfaction, show them with your dollars by going to another option. You might also inform them why you are no longer participating, again in a rational, civil manner. Perhaps that might illicit change in the future.

 

[justadub]

I understand that each league/organization will have its share of ongoing issues (correct averages, sandbagging, etc.), regardless of its size.

Realizing the '10-3' rule of customer service, I can see that there will be more complaints simply by the sheer number of players in the APA.

But it seems that some of the more ludicrous experiences have taken place in the APA, based on what I've read in these forums.

And that's probably true, too. The "more ludicrous" part. Once again the sheer numbers will give far more chance of a ludicrous experience occuring where there are many more people participating. Add to that the fact those people are playing primarily in bars, and that it is a league with a great many beginners, and the chances rise exponentially.

But I expect that those occurrences are still a small blip on the number of non-ludicrous experiences that take place every week. Last night in our league, there were 5 different matches taking place in one room. (That's a bit crowded, but hey, we're all playing.) I don't recall any ludicrous event taking place, between 10 different teams, in one place at the same time, while many were drinking, and having fun.

In other words, there are a lot of people playing APA that don't have a bad experience. A HUGE number of people. Once again, a case of one bad apple don't spoil the barrel...

 

[Cdryden]

The pool league I play in is a regional type thing with our own rules. We have around 23 teams. Handicaps are 2-6 so if your a 6 playing a 2 you have to win 6 games he has to win 2. The point system is a little different. If I'm a 6 and your a 2 and I beat you 6-1, you get 1 points and I get 7. ( a point for each game and 1 bonus point for winning the match. 5 players from each team play and you have a max handicap of 25 points, so 5 6's cant play. You have to use 3 6's and and 5 or any other combination that doesn't exceed 25 points.

I'm not saying this is a great system but we dont have to abide by anyone else's rules and we can change our system anytime we want with a majority vote by the captains.