The inevitable result of "excessive skill" in a handicapped league

[JolietJames]

Most of my pool friends were made at the pool hall. I only know three people under sl6 in the league, besides the "friends of friends" who cripple our 9ball team. The core of our 9ball team made it to Vegas in '09 but haven't made it to higher level play since. I'm not expecting to go to Vegas every year but I'd like to get back to citywide. I'm also not mad about being raised to an 8. I probably should be an 8. It did suck seeing my sl as a 7 all week prior to playoffs and even still today on their site but being an 8 on the sheet. What hurt us was all the other raises that happened to players who were just barely over 50%. I agree about the LO. After being told our 5 was one loss away from going down, he finally won one lol. He then lost his last three. How many times can a guy lose 18-2 or worse without getting lowered? The last loss was like 19-1 and in the playoffs so you know we weren't bagging him for that "special occasion". The guy has been totally masacred for two sessions straight and is still a 5. What makes a LO think this guy will still want to play? If I won 10% of the time, I'd find something else to do.

 

[Roadking]

True but it is our league operator's mission to raise everyone high enough that they can no longer play on teams with their friends. This is done in hopes that those players will now get more people involved in pool and create their own teams thus generating more income for the LOs. The people who go through player's handicaps like a review board are all terrible players who think everyone who has ever beaten them should be a 7. If we still had a BCA league in town I would not go anywhere near the APA.

You hit it rite on the head. But in my APA division it's getting hard to find new players that want to join. And also when a teams been together for any length of time & has fun shooting together,who the hell wants to split up. One more thing their is such a big gap between being a bad 6 or a good 6 or any handicap #. It just seems it's so easy to go up but harder than hell to go back down.

 

[JolietJames]

Not just differences in handicaps. It all comes from the LO making unbalanced divisions. I have always been a strong 6 in the divisions I have played in the past. As a favor, I jumped on a non-pool playing firend's drinking team because he had some people quit and was going to have to forfeit. I was a god among men in that division. Noone had a chance against me there. On the other side of town there is a guy or two on every team who plays my speed or better. I would have been a 7 years ago if I was stuck in weak divisions like that. Take their 6s and move them over to the strong side and you've got a 6 who can't win and won't be lowered for years.