Folks:
I have a couple friends (and acquaintances) that play in the APA, and I like to cheer them on in support when they qualify and go to APA Nationals in Las Vegas. One friend of mine even says, "I play in the APA specifically for the purpose of 'punching my ticket' to Vegas." That's cool -- he has a reason and a goal every session.
However, I noticed something recently in the way APA Nationals' results are posted that makes it non-trivial to see how a certain person performed at the Nationals. I know they've been doing it for a while, but APA "color codes" the different skill-level brackets without mentioning what those skill-levels are. And, it appears the media reporting those same results does the same.
Example: in the June 2014 issue of Stroke Magazine, they have a very nice article about the APA Nationals results on pages 28-30:
http://issuu.com/strokemagazine/docs/estroke6-14
However, there's not a single mention of skill levels in the whole article, and everything is referred to by color, e.g. yellow tier, red tier, purple tier, etc.
So, here I'm thinking, "oh, they must go by the sequence of colors in the rainbow, with red on one side (lower side) and purple on the other (high) side of the skill-level spectrum." You know, us science guys would think like that. Nope, doesn't work out like that *at all*. Just looking at the reported results, you can't make heads or tails out of the skill-level of the players within those color tiers.
When trying to look up the definitions of the color tiers, it's not easy to find on the APA website. In fact, you have to use the Search field, and even then, you get only this very-brief mention on a *single* page:
http://poolplayers.com/?s=color+tiers&submit=color tiers
I'm just curious why the APA chose to "obfuscate" the skill-levels, and instead refer to them by color -- and even then, with the colors not being in any particular order e.g. according to the rainbow/color spectrum, seemingly to "shuffle the deck" on those colors so as to obfuscate any hierarchy of the skill-levels?
Thoughts from any APA players out there?
-Sean
I have a couple friends (and acquaintances) that play in the APA, and I like to cheer them on in support when they qualify and go to APA Nationals in Las Vegas. One friend of mine even says, "I play in the APA specifically for the purpose of 'punching my ticket' to Vegas." That's cool -- he has a reason and a goal every session.
However, I noticed something recently in the way APA Nationals' results are posted that makes it non-trivial to see how a certain person performed at the Nationals. I know they've been doing it for a while, but APA "color codes" the different skill-level brackets without mentioning what those skill-levels are. And, it appears the media reporting those same results does the same.
Example: in the June 2014 issue of Stroke Magazine, they have a very nice article about the APA Nationals results on pages 28-30:
http://issuu.com/strokemagazine/docs/estroke6-14
However, there's not a single mention of skill levels in the whole article, and everything is referred to by color, e.g. yellow tier, red tier, purple tier, etc.
So, here I'm thinking, "oh, they must go by the sequence of colors in the rainbow, with red on one side (lower side) and purple on the other (high) side of the skill-level spectrum." You know, us science guys would think like that. Nope, doesn't work out like that *at all*. Just looking at the reported results, you can't make heads or tails out of the skill-level of the players within those color tiers.
When trying to look up the definitions of the color tiers, it's not easy to find on the APA website. In fact, you have to use the Search field, and even then, you get only this very-brief mention on a *single* page:
http://poolplayers.com/?s=color+tiers&submit=color tiers
"National Singles Championships
This event offers five Skill Level Tiers: Blue Tier (SL2&3), Yellow Tier (SL4), Red Tier (SL5), Orange (SL6) and Purple Tier (SL7)."
This event offers five Skill Level Tiers: Blue Tier (SL2&3), Yellow Tier (SL4), Red Tier (SL5), Orange (SL6) and Purple Tier (SL7)."
I'm just curious why the APA chose to "obfuscate" the skill-levels, and instead refer to them by color -- and even then, with the colors not being in any particular order e.g. according to the rainbow/color spectrum, seemingly to "shuffle the deck" on those colors so as to obfuscate any hierarchy of the skill-levels?
Thoughts from any APA players out there?
-Sean
