The APA can kiss my.......

Gregg said:
Second, the league does not always have direct control of table conditions. They have people to answer to as well.
Click to expand...

In this case they did. They picked the company to supply the tables. They paid the company to supply the tables. They went the cheap route and got cheaply setup tables. If they went the proper route (ie. Diamond SmartTables directly from Diamond) they wouldn't have had to think twice about the tables not being in perfect condition. Mark Griffin would freak out if his people setup tables for any event (let alone a national event) in which the tables were not as perfect as possible.

Brian
 
The pictures do tell a sad story -- would an installer (clearly not a mechanic) who would do that take the time to stretch the cloth properly, align the rails correctly, and level the table? Probably not.

This seems like a bad thing from Valley's perspective. Somewhere around 10,000 or so people will probably leave the APA event with the message that Valley tables are a piece of crap. Valley probably wasn't the vendor, but it would be much better if the vendor was actually Valley or Diamond so that they had a direct financial interest in putting together tables that players like. For example, I suspect the Valley tables are in great shape for the VNEA national tournament.

And the tables were great back in the Diamonds with Simonis days. Anybody know the story of why that ended?

But to the point at hand, it was the same crappy table for both teams, and teams in traveling leagues routinely have to play on some pretty marginal tables, so it's not really an excuse for losing. Just a reason for disappointment in the event. (In fairness, the original poster didn't actually blame the tables for his team's loss.)

Cory
 
Cory in DC said:
And the tables were great back in the Diamonds with Simonis days. Anybody know the story of why that ended?
Click to expand...

I believe it was in either 2004 or 2005 APA signed a sponsorship deal with Valley and Valley started setting up the tables with their Valley Teflon Ultra Cloth for the APA National events. As Valley is no longer listed as a sponsor on this years National Team Event, I've come the the conclusion that the sponsorship is no longer in effect. Valley probably came up with a better offer than Diamond came up with (just guessing). As Valley is no longer the sponsor my bet is Valley attempted to run Diamond out by doing a deal that was not economically viable (hence the reason they are no longer doing the sponsorship). But that is just my guess. Further guessing is APA said "hey, people had Valleys the last few years and it was fine, lets just keep using them and not go back to Diamond because we can get them cheaper!".

My guess is that when Valley was actually doing the sponsoring they wouldn't have had tables that were covered like that on the floor...

Brian
 
Brian,
I think we need to cut the APA a little slack. I agree that a national event should strive for the best conditions, but consider the logistics for just a minute.
I'm sure they are on a very tight schedule to get in, get set up, and when it's over, get out. How many tables did they have? How many man hours did it take to get them loaded in and set up? Now, unless someone from the APA was overseeing the set-up, they may not have even been aware of a potential problem until the tables were already in place. How long would it have taken to call the installers, get them back in, and recover all those tables? Diid they even have that kind of time, or would that have caused delays that would have not allowed them to complete the event?

Granted, there was an issue, but as has been noted, this was the first time something like this happened.

IF the APA doesn't take steps to correct the problem for the next event, they would deserve some serious criticism. As for this one, I think there are probably a lot of things that nobody is taking into account as contributing factors.

We have all had things go very wrong and an inopportune time. If we learn from the experience and take corrective action, it's the best we can do. If we let it happen again, we deserve what we get. I think the important question is, "what will the APA do about it?". Let's give them a chance.

Steve
 
apa

Regardless of the table conditions, no matter where you go you hear the same thing about the apa. I just recently moved from a very large apa market to a very small apa market, where i lived before, a few of us did the math and found out how much the league and league operator and the apa itself were making in our county. The nimbers were insane, and the payouts and league support were very little. And te new area im in the situation is worse. If you win first place, you get zero money for your team, the handicap system is manipulated worse than ive seen before, the local apa rep adjust the schedule so he doesnt have to play at a location he doesnt like going to and can play at home more often, ive seen it first hand, and thats not fair to the players or host location. The funny thing is we started a new leage for the players by the players, came up with a format that everyone said they liked, signed up every location in the area that apa had except 1, where the local rep played, and a few more that the apa had made angry in the past. We had a general meeting adjusted some rules that seemed to satisfy everyone. and set a date in 3 weeks to start. what was funny for 3 hours everyone sat there and complained about the apa, then said lets do this on monday night instead of wednesday night when apa played, because there are some people that said they still wanted to play in the apa, even the biggest bashers were still going to donate their time and money into something they dislike. Only beacuse itsroutine and what they know. I feel the only way their will be any changes is if the players demand more from the apa and local leagues, and if they dont see results start showing them by not playing apa anymore. It happened where i lived before, the apa pissed alot of people off, and alot of teams dropped out and played in acs or bca. jsut my 2cents
 
pooltchr said:
We have all had things go very wrong and an inopportune time. If we learn from the experience and take corrective action, it's the best we can do. If we let it happen again, we deserve what we get. I think the important question is, "what will the APA do about it?". Let's give them a chance.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that I, or anyone else, should give up on the APA because of this. I enjoy the APA and will continue to enjoy playing in weekly leagues. Maybe it is a one off and it won't happen the next time. But, if no one says "hey, there was a problem" they won't think they need to fix anything. My point is that people shouldn't believe there wasn't a problem and pretend it didn't happen. If we the players are vocal about it maybe they will make sure it doesn't happen again. If we sit on our hands and say "oh well, you shouldn't expect good tables because it is the APA" we will never get good tables. I think we have the duty as APA players to say "hey, fix the problem or we will go elsewhere".

I'm just saying "hey, they did something that should not be accepted by the players" and should be taken as constructive criticism along with a little bit of "face palm!"... :)

Brian
 
btoneill said:
I agree that you should be able to compete no matter the table conditions because your competitor does as well. But, we're not talking about playing a weekly league match in a run down bar with a table that hasn't been recovered in 5 years... We're talking about the tables at APA's premier event. The quality of the tables in that sort of event should be higher than most of the participants are used to.

A quote from one of my friends who's ladies team was in Vegas on the tables:
"Not as good as the ones we play on @ cities"

I would expect that APA would have better tables at their premier event than the tables in a leagues city qualifier... APA used to use Diamonds, then they started a sponsorship with Valley, so made sense for them to have switched to Valleys. But from what I can tell that sponsorship is no longer there, so why not go back to Diamonds?

Brian
Click to expand...

Rep to you Brian and your reading comprehension....

People, at no point did the OP complain about their placing due to table conditions....on the contrary, they were happy with their finish......the OP's issues were:

Table conditions - balls rolling off, the rails, quality/consistency of cloth
Bumping - player lost twice out of three matches and went up in rank
Pay-out - obviously the pay-out structure was not explained fully

For most people to go to Vegas, they have to:

Take valuable time off work, vacation time, which is limited and important
Cost - it costs to travel and do all things needed to get there
Travel - deal with flights, hotels, and just travel crap in general
Kids/dogs - find sitters, people to watch your dogs, look over your place
And a hundred other things I can't think of right now....

If I travelled to Vegas, Cali, or even Galveston for ANY big pool event, I would expect to play on first rate equipment.....
 
pooltchr said:
Brian,
I think we need to cut the APA a little slack. I agree that a national event should strive for the best conditions, but consider the logistics for just a minute.
I'm sure they are on a very tight schedule to get in, get set up, and when it's over, get out. How many tables did they have? How many man hours did it take to get them loaded in and set up? Now, unless someone from the APA was overseeing the set-up, they may not have even been aware of a potential problem until the tables were already in place. How long would it have taken to call the installers, get them back in, and recover all those tables? Diid they even have that kind of time, or would that have caused delays that would have not allowed them to complete the event?

Granted, there was an issue, but as has been noted, this was the first time something like this happened.

IF the APA doesn't take steps to correct the problem for the next event, they would deserve some serious criticism. As for this one, I think there are probably a lot of things that nobody is taking into account as contributing factors.

We have all had things go very wrong and an inopportune time. If we learn from the experience and take corrective action, it's the best we can do. If we let it happen again, we deserve what we get. I think the important question is, "what will the APA do about it?". Let's give them a chance.

Steve
Click to expand...


You're joking of course, aren't you?
"Let's give them a chance"
Give them a chance to do what, get deeper into everyone's pocket, they've only been doing this for, what about thirty years now, one would think they would have all the kinks worked out by now and conduct this tournament with a little professionalism with properly set-up and maintained equipment.
I guess one can only hope things will change, but, I'm not one of them!
 
I'm not buying it!

The BCA National event doesn't seem to have this problem. When I started going Valley reigned supreme. Sure the pockets were a foot wide but the tables were still clean, level, and well maintained. To excuse the conditions by implying that they didn't have time to set them up properly is ridiculous. They probably made a CHOICE and hoped for the best. I agree with the poster that expected excellent conditions at their premier event.

Personally I think that the majority of the APA players are just used to the flavor of the kool-aid. It's amazing to watch all the proponents come out of the wood work defending the almighty APA every time someone has a less than complimentary opinion.

pooltchr said:
Brian,
I think we need to cut the APA a little slack. I agree that a national event should strive for the best conditions, but consider the logistics for just a minute.
I'm sure they are on a very tight schedule to get in, get set up, and when it's over, get out. How many tables did they have? How many man hours did it take to get them loaded in and set up? Now, unless someone from the APA was overseeing the set-up, they may not have even been aware of a potential problem until the tables were already in place. How long would it have taken to call the installers, get them back in, and recover all those tables? Diid they even have that kind of time, or would that have caused delays that would have not allowed them to complete the event?

Granted, there was an issue, but as has been noted, this was the first time something like this happened.

IF the APA doesn't take steps to correct the problem for the next event, they would deserve some serious criticism. As for this one, I think there are probably a lot of things that nobody is taking into account as contributing factors.

We have all had things go very wrong and an inopportune time. If we learn from the experience and take corrective action, it's the best we can do. If we let it happen again, we deserve what we get. I think the important question is, "what will the APA do about it?". Let's give them a chance.

Steve
Click to expand...
 
APA "blinders"?

APA Gene said:
I say BS. I have been here all week and the tables are fine. They are decent Valley Bar Boxes. Nothing more nothing less. To blame the equipment for your loss is just sour grapes. You will never get any better if every time you play on equipment that is less than perfect you can't play your best (and or win).

As far as the money. They didn't "take it back" as you say. They paid you $350 of your payout when you registered your team. The rest of your payout comes when you get knocked out. Everyone knows that.

This event is the best run amateur tournament in the world bar none.
Click to expand...

Gene:

Respectfully, in your zeal to defend the APA (your AZB moniker a drop-dead giveaway), I don't think you read through seahorse1877's post. He wasn't sporting sour grapes because he (or his team) "lost." In fact, quite the opposite -- I read some excitement that he and his team did well! Rather, he was passing along information about the deplorable table conditions at what's supposed to be APA's premier event. This is not playing a weekly match at some shady hole-in-the-wall bar with a table that probably hasn't been recovered in years; this is the Nationals! The photos that Brian ("btoneill") posted are a telling tale.

While it is true that some events happen that are simply beyond our control (kudos to "pooltchr" for taking the omniscient high-road, and passing along what could've happened behind the scenes), it seems that these threads about deplorable conditions at the Nationals are becoming more numerous. The APA apparently either isn't listening, or perhaps, the feedback posted here on AZBilliards is not making it to APA HQ (or perhaps everyone leaves Vegas without submitting some kind of feedback card -- probably thinks it's not worth it or don't have the time because they have to catch plane flights), yet when they get back home, the lambasting is posted here where apparently the APA HQ can't see it. At least that's pure conjecture on my part -- may not even be worth $0.02.

-Sean
 
Now here's quick story from last week leauge match in the APA for me , since we are talking about the table Conditions .

We had to play at a place where it's just a hole in the wall and I didn't expect much from the tables and well when I got there they where as I imagined , Horrible .

The table itself looked fine but the cloth looked like someone washed it over and over and it also rolled really bad you could shoot a ball stright and then when It would get close to the pocked it would roll about 3 inchs off , and when you tried to put draw on the ball you couldn't it would stay there as a stop shot .

So for me personaly I'm tired of playing on shitty tables other then the place we normaly shoot at , there we have awsome tables , they are valley but the place takes extra care with the finest cloth that is fast and true .

But I think that if the APA wants to have people happy please let us play on good equipement instead of crap .
 
sfleinen said:
-- I read some excitement that he and his team did well! Rather, he was passing along information about the deplorable table conditions at what's supposed to be APA's premier event.
-Sean
Click to expand...

That would certainly explain the title of the original thread post.

I read it as another post to start bashing the APA again.

Steve
 
Railbird said:
Give them a chance to do what, get deeper into everyone's pocket, !
Click to expand...

Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head to force them to play in the APA. People act like they are stealing from the players. Actually, they are selling a product, and everyone is free to decide for themselves if the product they are selling is worth the price.

The APA is what it is...a social pool league for amateurs to play with their friends on a weekly basis. They set the price, and the consumer has the ultimate control by deciding whether or not they want to pay that price.

It's a freaking pool league. Nothing more. They are exactly what they advertise themselves to be. If you buy a brand of a product at the store and find out you don't like it, don't buy it again. If you do like it, keep buying it.

Steve
 
Horrible

Who cares if we are playing on the same junk table...with hackwork written on it. Great we are both on the same playing feild. Thats not the piss off guys. The thing is they make hundreds of millions of dollars a year and it the premeir event and they got garbage equipment! Cut them slack I will not, and Logistics problems? Let me tell you with 400million in revenue...there should not be 1 not a dam one logistics problem.

When I think of the APA i cringe, its a great idea gone horribly wrong. It's a drag on this sport, especially when you see the populus getting robbed in broad daylight. They use people to fill their pockets with $$$ and couldn't care less about the future of the sport...if they did they would start throwing $$$ at the world championships, the US Open etc...even add money to the smaller tours on a regular basis. It's not like they cant afford it. Seriously they could take out 20 million and spread it around the whole pool world and you would see everything change...players would make a good living. Oh and they would still have 380+ million to buy their silver spoons with.

Its great to compete with players in a league...but I refuse to go through the B.S. the wacky rules and the plundering and pillaging of this great sport that the APA condones/is cause of.

Grey Ghost
 
They stopped using Diamond tables when Mark Griffen purchased the BCAPL.
The exact words from of the APA rep's mouth at the BCA trade show in Charlotte, NC were it was a conflect of interest to use Diamond tables because Mark Griffen and Diamond work together and the BCAPL is a direct compeditor of the APA.
I would think that a league system as big as tha APA would put their players first and offer the best equipment avalble for their National Event.
I think that if enough players complain to the APA national office about the table conditions that they will have to do something or start loosing players in large numbers.
When it starts to efect their bottom line and their pocket book they will be forced to take a look at the bigger picture.

btoneill said:
I believe it was in either 2004 or 2005 APA signed a sponsorship deal with Valley and Valley started setting up the tables with their Valley Teflon Ultra Cloth for the APA National events. As Valley is no longer listed as a sponsor on this years National Team Event, I've come the the conclusion that the sponsorship is no longer in effect. Valley probably came up with a better offer than Diamond came up with (just guessing). As Valley is no longer the sponsor my bet is Valley attempted to run Diamond out by doing a deal that was not economically viable (hence the reason they are no longer doing the sponsorship). But that is just my guess. Further guessing is APA said "hey, people had Valleys the last few years and it was fine, lets just keep using them and not go back to Diamond because we can get them cheaper!".

My guess is that when Valley was actually doing the sponsoring they wouldn't have had tables that were covered like that on the floor...

Brian
Click to expand...
 
Should I bring this topic up with Jeanette Lee who will be at Stix II tonight in Ankeny, IA to promote the APA??
 
sfleinen said:
I read some excitement that he and his team did well! Rather, he was passing along information about the deplorable table conditions at what's supposed to be APA's premier event.
Click to expand...

pooltchr said:
That would certainly explain the title of the original thread post.

I read it as another post to start bashing the APA again.
Click to expand...

I think you are both right. He appears to have been happy about how his team finished, but disheartened enough to be leaving APA league play because of the issues he encountered.

I will state that his issue with the prize money is spelled out clearly on page 5 of the event program (http://www.poolplayers.com/documents/Updated-NTCSouvenir_vs9FINAL.pdf). So that issue is honestly his team not having read everything.

Which item rubbed him the most I have no idea about, but IMHO neither item would cause me to stop playing in local league play, because I enjoy it and I have no expectation of making it to Vegas. If I do great! If not, oh well.

From the 2nd hand words of others along with the pictures APA posted on their website that clearly show issues on the table setup the only legit gripe the original poster has is the table conditions. That alone is not a reason to blast the entire league, just this specific event for that specific reason.

What I'd like to know from the OP is, apart from the table conditions, did you and your team have fun in Vegas? Did your team have fun in all the sessions you played before getting to Vegas? That should be the factor in if you decide to keep playing. I probably should have asked that question sooner in the thread.

Brian
 
pooltchr said:
Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head to force them to play in the APA. People act like they are stealing from the players. Actually, they are selling a product, and everyone is free to decide for themselves if the product they are selling is worth the price.

The APA is what it is...a social pool league for amateurs to play with their friends on a weekly basis. They set the price, and the consumer has the ultimate control by deciding whether or not they want to pay that price.

It's a freaking pool league. Nothing more. They are exactly what they advertise themselves to be. If you buy a brand of a product at the store and find out you don't like it, don't buy it again. If you do like it, keep buying it.

Steve
Click to expand...


You are completely right Steve, but do not forget that what is best for the game is best for the people, not the other way around. If they used their wealth of money billiards could certainly become what it once was. Afterschool programs, exhibitions, tons of more money in world class and other events...they take from the hand that feeds them and give almost nothing back to the game that supports them. At least D-Low Brown gives out Turkeys for Thanksgiving...and he was a drug dealer lol.

G.G.
 
ddcuerepair said:
The exact words from of the APA rep's mouth at the BCA trade show in Charlotte, NC were it was a conflect of interest to use Diamond tables because Mark Griffen and Diamond work together and the BCAPL is a direct compeditor of the APA.
Click to expand...

If that was the case they wouldn't be using Valley tables either, since VNEA has a HUGE association with Valley... And last I checked VNEA is a competitor to APA and IMHO more of a direct competitor to APA than the BCAPL is because BCAPL isn't handicapped.

It may be what the public line for the switch was, but I'm sure it had a lot more to do with than JUST being a direct competitor.

Also of note, APA was one of the groups that pushed BCA to sell off the BCAPL because they didn't want (and justifiably so) the trade organization they paid dues to, to be supporting a competitor to them.

I'm not blasting the APA for their decisions, as they are a for profit company, just don't agree with the statement that was told for the reason for the switch.

Every business needs to make decisions that are the best for their long term health, but every now and then they make ones that are actually bad for their long term health, which normally happens when ego's come into play. And we all know, there are NO ego's in the pool world :)


Brian
 
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