Sandbagging in the APA

juanbond

juanbond

Software Engineer
Silver Member
This is the one thing I really dislike about the APA, at least the leagues in my neck of the woods. I joined my first team last fall, and quickly learned that to be a good "team" player, I should strive to keep my skill rating as low as possible, so as to have better chances to win matches when they really count (deciding matches, city tourney, etc). So naturally, this meant keeping my innings high, and losing to better players.

I found this atmosphere to be terribly frustrating and against the spirit of competition. I play league to compete. I pride myself on being a terrific team player in any sort of environment, but if it means artificially keeping my APA skill rating low, count me out. I understand that this helps the team possibly get to Vegas or whatever...but I really don't care about that if it means I have to sacrifice my integrity and honesty.

An elder woman friend of mine who also shoots in this league, while having a similar conversation, told me "there's two types of players in the APA; team players, and ego players. You either keep your skill rating low and help your team, or you get it as high as you can and stroke your ego." Personally, my ego has very little to do with my interest in league play. I'm not trying to impress myself or anyone else. I just love this game of pocket billiards, and I love to compete. I could care less if I am a five or six or seven. I just want to be rated what I should be. I want to play my best in every match.

Anyhow, I also play BCA and enjoy that far more than the APA. I deserted the APA after one session, although I would consider joining another team if I liked the captain's and teammates' attitudes regarding this subject.

Is anyone with me? Is sandbagging common in your local APA leagues? How do you feel about it? What can the APA do to remedy this?

[/rant]
 
I wrote this a few months ago:

I was hesitant to reply then I said what the heck. I've played in the APA for 5 years, and I can say that I've had my share of frustrations as well. But, here's some advice that I can share.

1. Captains - put together a team of like minded people, if you want to just have fun fine, if you want to be serious fine, but be of the same mind set with the same goals.

2. Put together a team with a core of 5 people in some cases 4, this group is the team that will alway's make up your squad session to session, the other 3 or 4 people have to come in with the understanding that they will only be kept on the team as long as handicaps allow, they are your role players. Now that doesn't mean that they don't play to win they do and should but, it's up to you the CAPTAIN TO CORRECTLY THROW YOUR PLAYERS based on when you need a win or not, if they win great if they loose it's okay because if they weren't supposed to win the match based on the match up who knew. This is how you help to control your handicaps. If you have a 2 that's been winning to much, throw them in a few matches that you technically know they shouldn't win, they don't have to know that their lambs being sent to slaughter, their going to go out and do their best as they should.

3. The skill levels are directly linked too:

a) Who you beat, handicap level
b) Winning percentage
c) Average number of innings per game

4. Alway's, Alway's, Alway's did I say that enough, MARK ALL SAFTEIES if it wasn't a shot attempt, it was a defense period your opinion is the only one that matters, they don't have to equal the other teams number. Nor do inning counts have to match they should be relatively close off by 1 or 2 but, if you honestly feel that your count is right don't change a thing. This is one of the biggest way's that people get away with sandbagging you have the ability to stop it.

Hope this help's, Black Cat

To be successful a team needs a good captain, and he must do what's best for the team at all times sometimes that means letting players go.

I'd be happy to discuss this.

Black Cat :cool:
 
juanbond said:
Anyhow, I also play BCA and enjoy that far more than the APA. I deserted the APA after one session, although I would consider joining another team if I liked the captain's and teammates' attitudes regarding this subject.

Is anyone with me? Is sandbagging common in your local APA leagues? How do you feel about it? What can the APA do to remedy this?

[/rant]
Click to expand...


I agree 100%. I too enjoy BCA more then APA for those same reasons and more.
-You are not guaranteed to play each week in APA which bothers me to no end. I came to play, joined to play, oh, cant use me this week cause it will screw up the handicap..gee good to know!
-BCA's ranking system is far superior IMO.
-Sandbagging teams, seems there are way to many out there.
-A lot of Ahole team captains. I know this isn't APA's fault, but I have never seen people act this way during my BCA and VNEA leagues. Example.

State was last weekend. The team we was playings "Captain" would stop his teammates each shot, pull them aside and tell them what they was doing wrong. The other guys where just as strong of a shooter as he, one even better I thought. Though he wasn't just "coaching" he was belittling these guys, to the point were I almost said something to the guy to make him shut up.

At one point, one of his team members came up to me and said he has done that all season and he was fed up with it. Would wait till he was down over a ball, mid stroke and come over and pull him to the side to "talk"! Man, talk about killing someones stroke!
The guy said he was done with APA, that this was the second time he had a Captain like this.

Sadly, this isn't the first time I have seen this type of behaviour in the APA either, what makes these guys like this I wonder?
 
Black Cat 5791 said:
I wrote this a few months ago:

I was hesitant to reply then I said what the heck. I've played in the APA for 5 years, and I can say that I've had my share of frustrations as well. But, here's some advice that I can share.

1. Captains - put together a team of like minded people, if you want to just have fun fine, if you want to be serious fine, but be of the same mind set with the same goals.

2. Put together a team with a core of 5 people in some cases 4, this group is the team that will alway's make up your squad session to session, the other 3 or 4 people have to come in with the understanding that they will only be kept on the team as long as handicaps allow, they are your role players. Now that doesn't mean that they don't play to win they do and should but, it's up to you the CAPTAIN TO CORRECTLY THROW YOUR PLAYERS based on when you need a win or not, if they win great if they loose it's okay because if they weren't supposed to win the match based on the match up who knew. This is how you help to control your handicaps. If you have a 2 that's been winning to much, throw them in a few matches that you technically know they shouldn't win, they don't have to know that their lambs being sent to slaughter, their going to go out and do their best as they should.

3. The skill levels are directly linked too:

a) Who you beat, handicap level
b) Winning percentage
c) Average number of innings per game

4. Alway's, Alway's, Alway's did I say that enough, MARK ALL SAFTEIES if it wasn't a shot attempt, it was a defense period your opinion is the only one that matters, they don't have to equal the other teams number. Nor do inning counts have to match they should be relatively close off by 1 or 2 but, if you honestly feel that your count is right don't change a thing. This is one of the biggest way's that people get away with sandbagging you have the ability to stop it.

Hope this help's, Black Cat

To be successful a team needs a good captain, and he must do what's best for the team at all times sometimes that means letting players go.

I'd be happy to discuss this.

Black Cat :cool:
Click to expand...

Wow, thanks for the excellent response... I was expecting to get a few "if you don't like it then don't play APA"-type responses off the bat... Great insights here, man. You've given me a few ideas, and a bit of renewed interest in getting an APA team back together. A million thanks!
 
To elaborate a little more on my sole APA experience...

The captain of my team was very friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. From a technical perspective, he was a good coach, by all means. But, in keeping with the APA status quo, one of the first things he imparted to me was that I would be sandbagging in most matches to try and remain a four (I play somewhere around a six). He had a very laid back attitude towards league play, and was generally there to have fun playing pool. I had no problem with this attitude, as I think pool should be a fun thing. Some choose to get more serious about winning, and some choose to keep it as fun as possible. To a degree, I think you can have both. After all, what's more fun that winning as an individual, and winning as a team (knowing that you didn't sandbag)? But when "getting serious about winning" is paramount, it seems to tend towards sandbagging in the APA (at least, in my view of things). So, after several weeks, I got this sense of a captain that was very much about hanging out at the league match, having fun, drinking a few beers...all the while using clever match-making and sandbagging his middle-skilled players to accomplish his competitive endeavors in the league. This just seemed to be a waste of both time and effort to me.

So yeah...I can't wait for fall BCA!!! On our BCA 8-ball team, we're all such great friends, around roughly the same ages (18-30), and play together outside of league for countless hours. Our captain owns the bar in which we play our home matches... All of this makes for quite an enjoyable competitive environment. When our coach feels the need to call a timeout for a player, there's no ego-clashes, no feeling of "I'm right, he's wrong". After all, our captain took 3rd in the 2005 APA Singles Nationals (6s & 7s) in Vegas, as a six! Needless to say, he was a seven after a few rounds out there... We pretty much give balls away to every other team, but always seem to do very well. It's always a challenge to give away 17 balls every round and still win! Fun, fun times!!!
 
Sandbagging is why I will never play in the APA and I will never suggest that anyone play in a sandbag league. I don't get any improvement if I lay down a game, so why would I pay good money to lay down? BCA leagues around her are much better. If you don't perform well, you lose. Period. That's the way it should be.
 
apa

sandbagging occurs in every APA league. It usually is not monitered at all. The bCA is much better but you run into similiar problems. A team made up of pool hustlers and people that play pro tournaments but dont have UPA rankings can happen. David Alcaide from Spain was ranked by the WPA and played professionally in Europe won a title. Darren Appleton won a title this year. He plays professionally in Europe also. If you go to his web site it says he is a professional pool player. Jesse Bowman is also an amatuer. He travels the country hustling and plays in pro events but he does not have a pro ranking if thouigh he shoots as good as many pros. The sport will always have this problem.
 
Please refer to my above post. Everybody alway's complains about the sandbagging but won't do whats nessesary to combat it.

There are tools in place that work you just have to utilize them, and the job starts with the captain period.

No one seems to say anything untill you get a winning team, then people start to complain.

If you get into this for fun, then have fun whatever happens happens. If you want to have a competetive team it takes work, from the entire team even the 2's & 3's.

Most importantly everybody should play to win at all times. It's up to the captain to determine when a win is needed, and who has the best probability of pulling it out on any given match up.

If the captains worried about a 4 or 5 or whatever handicap going up then he or she for that matter simply needs to put them in matches where it's not likely that they will win, only on their best of best days. The players responsibility is to simply play their absolute best and try to win as they should.

Score keepers mark all safties, they don't have to match between the score sheets. I you feel a shooter is dogging it, running up the innings mark a defense. Every defense negates an inning. So if their running up innings it won't matter. Therefore it removes the benefit of trying to pad the innings to begin with.

Black Cat :cool:
 
juanbond said:
This is the one thing I really dislike about the APA, at least the leagues in my neck of the woods. I joined my first team last fall, and quickly learned that to be a good "team" player, I should strive to keep my skill rating as low as possible, so as to have better chances to win matches when they really count (deciding matches, city tourney, etc). So naturally, this meant keeping my innings high, and losing to better players.

I found this atmosphere to be terribly frustrating and against the spirit of competition. I play league to compete. I pride myself on being a terrific team player in any sort of environment, but if it means artificially keeping my APA skill rating low, count me out. I understand that this helps the team possibly get to Vegas or whatever...but I really don't care about that if it means I have to sacrifice my integrity and honesty.

An elder woman friend of mine who also shoots in this league, while having a similar conversation, told me "there's two types of players in the APA; team players, and ego players. You either keep your skill rating low and help your team, or you get it as high as you can and stroke your ego." Personally, my ego has very little to do with my interest in league play. I'm not trying to impress myself or anyone else. I just love this game of pocket billiards, and I love to compete. I could care less if I am a five or six or seven. I just want to be rated what I should be. I want to play my best in every match.

Anyhow, I also play BCA and enjoy that far more than the APA. I deserted the APA after one session, although I would consider joining another team if I liked the captain's and teammates' attitudes regarding this subject.

Is anyone with me? Is sandbagging common in your local APA leagues? How do you feel about it? What can the APA do to remedy this?

[/rant]
Click to expand...

Lets see, they advertise over 1,000,000 members at $ 20.00 just to sign up for the year= $ 20,000,000 + 1,000,000 x $ 6.00 per week x about 45 weeks = $ 270,000,000 and they pay the first place team in the nationals $ 25,000.... nice... i wonder where the money is going...hmm
 
your numbers are WAY off

thebighurt said:
Lets see, they advertise over 1,000,000 members at $ 20.00 just to sign up for the year= $ 20,000,000 + 1,000,000 x $ 6.00 per week x about 45 weeks = $ 270,000,000 and they pay the first place team in the nationals $ 25,000.... nice... i wonder where the money is going...hmm
Click to expand...

In the first place, APA does not "advertise" a million members. Their entire league numbers, in the U.S & Canada, top out at 1/4 million...significantly less than your report. The average weekly fee is $5, not $6 per player. The three sessions top out at 42 weeks, not 45. I'm not saying the APA doesn't make money...they do...but they are a franchise, and entitled to profit. Any serious APA league operator will discuss how the money is allocated. The average L.O. pockets a dollar or two, each week, for every player (who actually plays)...not out of line, if they are doing their job, creating a fair, fun place for people to play pool on a weekly basis, and with a fair chance at a shot to go to Vegas (paid for). The APA is the only league where EVERY player that goes to nationals makes SOME money...in other words, they pay last place prize money. BCA, VNEA, and TAP are nowhere close to that. They pay top 25% (which is standard for most tournament play), at best.

Secondly, sandbagging does NOT occur in all APA play. As Black Cat mentioned, there are ways to combat it, if you actually DO them. For sandbagging to succeed, BOTH teams must let it go on. That's why each team gets a scoresheet, and should be filling them out independently, not together ("Say, what'd you get for innings on that last game?" LOL). When I was an APA L.O. there was ZERO sandbagging in my league. That's right, NONE! If you were suspected of sandbagging, I wanted to know about it. If you were caught, you were permanently raised to the highest skill level. Don't like that? Quit...we don't want you. Although it is true that there are crooked league operators in APA, there are also crooks in other leagues...a crook is a crook.

I don't believe in "handicap management", or whatever you choose to call it...for ANY reason. Just because you don't want to try and "cheat the system" doesn't mean you're not a team player...as Black Cat pointed out.
Anyone who has concerns regarding APA sandbagging (or any league, for that matter), should discuss it with their league operator. If they don't get any resolution, then they should go to the national organization. But have your ducks in a row first. Document players and matches. There are safeguards (and penalties), if they are used properly.

I get tired of people badmouthing APA. It is four times larger than any other league for a reason. It is not created for expert players, and they DON'T want them. It is not created as a payback league, so it's not about making money either (although league operators are free to create payback leagues, and/or tournaments, if they desire). Some smart L.O.'s have created Super Divisions, where the good players can be on the same teams and compete...but you can't use those teams at nationals. There are singles competitions for that. Playing league pool...any league pool...should be about playing your best game ALWAYS, and having fun doing it. I realize that there are a-hole team members, captains, etc. out there...but they are not the majority of the players.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
 
thebighurt said:
Lets see, they advertise over 1,000,000 members at $ 20.00 just to sign up for the year= $ 20,000,000 + 1,000,000 x $ 6.00 per week x about 45 weeks = $ 270,000,000 and they pay the first place team in the nationals $ 25,000.... nice... i wonder where the money is going...hmm
Click to expand...

Well first off, the normal weekly fee is $5 - anything more is (as far as I can tell) added by the local league operators for various reasons (usually, to go to the bar you're playing at that week).

For example, in our league, in the main location, we pay $5/player into the packet, but each team coughs up $5 to the bar (they open up the bar tables for us).

Some of that cash goes to the league operator (many, like mine, make a living doing this). And some of that cash that the LO keeps goes into a fund for end-of-session payouts, post-session-tournament payouts, covering some expenses of sending teams to Vegas, etc.

And they may list over 1mil players, but 1mil players don't play every week. 5 matches per week, but teams can have up to eight players on the roster. And then there's the multitude of people in the APA system who aren't actively playing on a team.

Plus you think running the events in Vegas don't cost them a good chunk of cash?
 
thebighurt said:
Lets see, they advertise over 1,000,000 members at $ 20.00 just to sign up for the year= $ 20,000,000 + 1,000,000 x $ 6.00 per week x about 45 weeks = $ 270,000,000 and they pay the first place team in the nationals $ 25,000.... nice... i wonder where the money is going...hmm
Click to expand...

This thread was about players sandbagging in the APA, not about where all the dues money goes...but since you knocked... I would imagine that the money goes towards payroll, league operation, advertising, tournaments, prizes, etc...
 
Scott Lee said:
I get tired of people badmouthing APA. It is four times larger than any other league for a reason.
Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Click to expand...



Yea you can jsut slap a ball and still win.............BCA much better IMMVHO.

Im a purist at heart......call your damn pocket!!!!!



Also.......I dont lose for anyone.
We have quite a few teams in my local league who are all local house pros and big time gamblers.........and hold the rank of 4 and below.......



I dropped from APA 3 sessions ago.......BCA is no longer available in my area and I dont feel like drivin 2 hours jsut to play a couple of matches and thas even if I get to play at that...................Leagues are Poo in my opinion but BCA and other may have there perks unlike APA that lets them all get away with murder.....




Jamie
 
When I was coordinating with my friend for a season we had some new players come in from an APA league. We were very good at handicapping people so most people liked us except for these new jackasses who wanted to be underrated. My initial instinct was to cram my pen into his temple but instead chose to let my more level headed friend take care of him. Thankfully that team quit after a few weeks. I'm in no way making a blanket statement about APA players but that was my experience with some of them. I personally prefer the mentality of play the best you can and deal with whatever handicap that you EARN and hopefully most coordinators can recognize when people are having a good week or bad and can recognize sandbagging.
Paul
 
Sandbagging, it happens all the time, or does it? I've mentioned this before, that most players have jobs and families and pool is just a hobby for most of them. Given the aforementioned, most players are not consistent in their play.

How many of us have can remember a time when we were playing lights out only to discover it was a fleeting moment and didn't happen again the next time we played? Certainly someone who is rated an APA 5 has had one of those moments and I'm sure that everyone watching was shaking their heads thinking the same thing, "What a @@@@ing sandbagger!!"

All you can do is play your game and not worry about anyone else. My suggestion to you is to tell your team that you will be playing the best you can at all times and if they don't like that, get someone else.
 
cajunbarboxplyr said:
Yea you can jsut slap a ball and still win.............BCA much better IMMVHO.

Im a purist at heart......call your damn pocket!!!!!

We have quite a few teams in my local league who are all local house pros and big time gamblers.........and hold the rank of 4 and below.......

Leagues are Poo in my opinion but BCA and other may have there perks unlike APA that lets them all get away with murder.....

Jamie
Click to expand...

Jamie...I agree with you, and always play call ball and pocket personally.
However, we are PLAYERS, and APA is not about PLAYERS. It's about social and recreational poolplayers, not serious ones. That's a BS statement you made about local "pros" holding an SL of 4 or less. All new male players, even experts, start in APA as a 3 or 4. You have to play most of a session (10 weeks) before the handicap system will kick out a reasonably reflective handicap number. Those people you mention cannot stay at 4 or less, if they play all the time. The local L.O. can override the system, and allocate skill levels, if they choose to. I did it several times in my own league, including for myself. If you can prove that these guys you're talking about have played more than one session, and stayed a 4, then you have something to complain about.

Scott Lee
 
I have been shootin this game for goin on 3 years......no not long at all.

Ive started with league............


The same "local Pro folk" thas been playin before me and still after still hold the low rank........

Now not all the local hotshots are doing this.....we actually have a 9 in our league........But there are a certain 7-8 of them that should be 7's......that are 3's-4's.........How they beat the system I have no clue.....



As much as I hate APA I play only cause my best friends have a team and needed a extra player so I joined for there company.

Call me a hypocryte lol
 
Our dues have been raised to $7/week. Since I joined 5 or 6 sessions ago it has always been $6/week. Never $5. Another reason I am through with APA after this session.

We have a bye in the first round of Regionals next weekend and then if we win our first two matches we are in Nationals again. It would be cool to go down again if that happens. But I have far more fun playing BCA with the other strong local players on my team instead of shaking my head at 2's 3's banging balls around.

As far as the sandbanging goes. Get on a different team where you can be the 6 instead of the sandbagging 4. In the long run you will be found out at Nationals and your ranking will be moved up during the tourney if you all of a sudden shoot lights out as a 4. Then it will hurt the team not help it. I hate those type of Captains.
 
Scott Lee said:
However, we are PLAYERS, and APA is not about PLAYERS. It's about social and recreational poolplayers, not serious ones. That's a BS statement you made about local "pros" holding an SL of 4 or less. All new male players, even experts, start in APA as a 3 or 4. You have to play most of a session (10 weeks) before the handicap system will kick out a reasonably reflective handicap number. Those people you mention cannot stay at 4 or less, if they play all the time. The local L.O. can override the system, and allocate skill levels, if they choose to. I did it several times in my own league, including for myself. If you can prove that these guys you're talking about have played more than one session, and stayed a 4, then you have something to complain about.

Scott Lee
Click to expand...

Scott, I don't know much about the APA or it's workings for figuring out how to rank a participant. All I know is that when I briefly played in it many years ago, I started at the beginning level. By the time the season or session (whatever the terminology is) was about three-quarters complete, I couldn't go any higher. It went from numbers two to seven with seven being the highest rank when I participated, though I don't know if that's still the case now.

I got involved with it because I had some friends who thought it would be a good experience for me. Ultimately, it became very stupid & very annoying to me having to play lop-sided races giving up as many as four games going to six or seven (whatever the race was to). I came to the opinion that if a player played at their true speed & won a high portion of matches, they were penalized harshly for it with having to give up potentially enormous spots as they advanced in rank.

Whenever I see it going on now when I'm practicing somewhere, I feel that amateur league pool (APA, BCA, etc.) should be treated as a fun light-hearted social situation. I feel it's best for those who just want to get together with friends, knock a few balls around & generally just enjoy the game & perhaps want to learn some of its nuances. In other words, I think that it's best for pool hobbyists & its good for forming new friendships.

On the other hand, there are many folks who treat league pool as some sort of test of manhood or ego. They go absolutely ape if they win as if they had won the lottery, & if they lose they act like complete asses as if someone pissed in their breakfast cereal. Those are the folks who I feel ruin what could be an otherwise good experience for those who are in it for fun & to hopefully learn something.

I have no doubt that sandbagging or other forms of cheating occur in league pool. I don't think it's fair & it shouldn't be tolerated at all. I would think that there has to be some way for whoever's in charge of the various local leagues to keep it in check as much as is humanly possible.

Don't think that I'm looking down on the league players because I'm not. Some of the participants do play fairly decently. I just hope they're not being as harshly penalized for success as when I played in it.
 
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