What is league night for you?

[RFranklin]

Apa

Patches! Actually, for me it is just cheap entertainment and every once in a while you get to match up with someone that shoots pretty well after league is done. I also like to stick around and help the lower ranked players improve. We play 8/9 double Jeopardy at $7 per match and now that I have played a while I rarely get charged table time at most of the venues here in Austin.

 

[hang-the-9]

Are there tournaments around you can play in? Although that may end up hitting up to your work schedule since some can run late. Good competition and should not be as much bullshit about sandbaggers and players trying to slice up every technicality in the rules to win.

 

[Johnsms3]

So I use to play APA for about 15 years. I played both 8-Ball and 9-Ball. I enjoyed it a lot when I was a SL3 and even SL4. Won a couple league MVP's as an SL5.

I was having fun and enjoying myself. It's when I got to SL6 (8-Ball) and then SL8 (9-Ball) things got frustrating.

As a lower handicap you get to play a wide range of different people every league night. When you get to these higher handicaps for some reason there is this unwritten rule that you have to play the other teams high handicap, which is usually only 1 person because of the way the APA uses that 23 rule. So for a 14 week or 16 weeks schedule, I knew who I would be playing before I even got to the bar.

I started becoming a burden on my team, because my winning % percentage become horrible with no change in my handicap. We all knew what the problem was, and that was my lack of playing.

Here I was playing only 2 nights a week 1 night was 8-Ball and another was 9-Ball. I was playing people who where playing 4-5 nights a week and then always on the weekends.

I just didn't have the time available like they did to dedicate to my game. So after 1 night of getting beat 19-1 in 9-Ball.

I went up to the bar and was sitting there. He came up and sat next as he knew I was pretty frustrated, so he bought beer and wanted to ask me a question.

He asked me: "So how often do you practice?"

My reply: "I don't, I don't have the time available to commit to it. I show up on Monday/Wednesday night and put my cue together and play all you top tier players". "This is just a night out for me".

So that's a long story for league night was just a night out for me, because my handicap didn't moved for 4 years. I would show up and have a couple drinks with the guys, tell some jokes, and watch the football games during the fall session.

Do miss the APA tournaments at the end of the year. I'll get back into in the future, but it will be difficult as people expect high handicaps to win.

 

[TheBook]

So I use to play APA for about 15 years. I played both 8-Ball and 9-Ball. I enjoyed it a lot when I was a SL3 and even SL4. Won a couple league MVP's as an SL5.

I was having fun and enjoying myself. It's when I got to SL6 (8-Ball) and then SL8 (9-Ball) things got frustrating.

As a lower handicap you get to play a wide range of different people every league night. When you get to these higher handicaps for some reason there is this unwritten rule that you have to play the other teams high handicap, which is usually only 1 person because of the way the APA uses that 23 rule. So for a 14 week or 16 weeks schedule, I knew who I would be playing before I even got to the bar.

.

As a higher level player I never liked playing against the 2, or 3 and sometimes a low end 4 as it was very frustrating and slow unless I was able to run the rack and end the game quickly. The worst was to fail a runout and only have a ball or two left because they would come to the table and study the whole layout as if the were going to run the rack. Most times they would miss on their first shot, rearrange every ball on the table and in the process leave you without a clear shot. If they ended up with BIH they would study the table trying to figure out where to place the CB for the first shot. After a few minutes they would call a TO for advice. Finally decide where to place the CB and maybe make one ball and then miss and most times again not leaving a clear shot because of all their balls still on the table.

Playing the higher level players was more enjoyable as you normally got a good competitive game.