What sandbagging?

Banks

Banks

Banned
I've had enough of hearing about sandbagging. The last post I saw was by JB Cases regarding players he knows making money in competitions they should not be allowed into. Why doesn't anybody call these few people out if they're so disgusted by sandbagging?

To the rest, most of what you're saying is sandbagging is a bunch of hot air. Why not try sucking up a loss once in a while and taking it like a man/woman/adult? You know, try having some sportmanship once in a while and congratulating them on good play, instead of whining publicly/privately like a baby. I've lost some of the matches I've shot my best in, but it's about playing well enough, not about playing well.

While everybody else sits around making excuses for why they lost, I'll be one of the others working on what I could have done better.
 
Well, it's like this. Even if I were to go up to the tournament director with a list of players that I KNEW were better than APA5 all that would happen is to cause all sorts of controversy over whether the league operator was involved, my word against theirs, cause them to be monitored, etc.....

My OPINION is that the APA doesn't care about the mini-tournaments in Vegas as they are not really part of the "official" tournament. You don't have to win a spot to play in the minis - if you are a card carrying APA member with a rating then you can play.

The APA does however care about the TEAM handicaps and will monitor matches and raise people's handicaps and even go so far as to disqualify entire teams if they FEEL that a team is vastly under-rated.

I know this because my first wife was a monitor and intimately involved in the APA process and she explained it all to me in detail as to how it goes at Nationals.

And people do report players on the local level and then the league op will either go themselves or send someone out to monitor the player and make a determination.

Good players can tell when someone is sandbagging. You see certain shots that a person plays that tell you he or she knows more than their skill level. You can feel it.

But here is a BRUTAL story I heard from Vegas. A legitimate SL4 goes out there and gets lessons from Tom Rossman. Two days later he is playing and shoots a table length draw shot using what he learned from Tom and a monitor happened to be watching and recommended that he be raised to a 6 based on that shot. So they watched him play and bumped him to a six and that put his team over the 23 total and they then lost and were out when they had to forfeit one match.

For that reason I have always maintained that the APA should allow the handicaps to stand when teams go to Vegas BUT if a team is found to be under-rated AS A WHOLE then they are disqualified and the league owner is fined $5000 per team.

Then the LO would make SURE that the teams they send to Vegas would be properly rated.

I do agree with you that some losses are just losses with no sandbagging. But enough are a result of a sandbagging player getting too much weight that it's a legitimate gripe a lot of the time. It's just the nature of the beast in the APA system.
 
It's funny. I'm an SL3, one of two on our team. I'm a beginner, new to the whole process, only began playing regularly last year. I know I have a lot to learn, and I'm pleased with where I am compared to when I started. Still, I can "see" what I want to do and still not "do" what I want the shot to do, and I'm practicing very hard to improve.

My paranoia strikes me, when I actually get in a groove and start making several balls in a row, multiple times in a night. (A rare occurance, for sure.) I say to myself, "what happens if it all clicks when we're at the state tournament, or if we're fortunate enough to get to Vegas?" Not that I expect to start running racks, but I can see where if I get consistent, I could and should be raised in handicap. That example of the player getting a lesson, then shooting better IN Las Vegas and being penalized is a scary one. Our team has a delicate balance between top and bottom, and I wonder what would happen were any of us to drastically improve. I know I am still going to be working hard to get better, because I want to, period. And I do not see anyone on our team being the sort that would sandbag, as they all want to win pretty badly. Although I can see how the temptation happens.

Timing is everything, I suppose. Best to improve in the fall, huh? (KIDDING!!!!!)
 
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justadub said:
It's funny. I'm an SL3, one of two on our team. I'm a beginner, new to the whole process, only began playing regularly last year. I know I have a lot to learn, and I'm pleased with where I am compared to when I started. Still, I can "see" what I want to do and still not "do" what I want the shot to do, and I'm practicing very hard to improve.

My paranoia strikes me, when I actually get in a groove and start making several balls in a row, multiple times in a night. (A rare occurance, for sure.) I say to myself, "what happens if it all clicks when we're at the state tournament, or if we're fortunate enough to get to Vegas?" Not that I expect to start running racks, but I can see where if I get consistent, I could and should be raised in handicap. That example of the player getting a lesson, then shooting better IN Las Vegas and being penalized is a scary one. Our team has a delicate balance between top and bottom, and I wonder what would happen were any of us to drastically improve. I know I am still going to be working hard to get better, because I want to, period. And I do not see anyone on our team being the sort that would sandbag, as they all want to win pretty badly. Although I can see how the temptation happens.

Timing is everything, I suppose. Best to improve in the fall, huh? (KIDDING!!!!!)
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Don't worry about your handicap. Keep trying to do your best every outing. You're going to win games you're supposed to lose and lose some you're supposed to win. It'll shake itself out.
 
Banks said:
I've had enough of hearing about sandbagging. The last post I saw was by JB Cases regarding players he knows making money in competitions they should not be allowed into. Why doesn't anybody call these few people out if they're so disgusted by sandbagging?

To the rest, most of what you're saying is sandbagging is a bunch of hot air. Why not try sucking up a loss once in a while and taking it like a man/woman/adult? You know, try having some sportmanship once in a while and congratulating them on good play, instead of whining publicly/privately like a baby. I've lost some of the matches I've shot my best in, but it's about playing well enough, not about playing well.

While everybody else sits around making excuses for why they lost, I'll be one of the others working on what I could have done better.
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Banks, I played APA for years.....it's a social league....many players show up to have a beer and just want to compete in a fair environment....

Yes, some people just spout hot air about sandbagging when they lose......some people are sore losers and those folks will always exist....and usually it's the drunk SL4 on the other team, that plays the sober 4 on the other team that is on his game.....he beats him 4-0, but no break and runs, he just happens to find a way to make the last ball.....the drunk guy calls him a sandbagger, and usually, it's always the same drunk guy making accusations....anybody that beats him is a sandbagger, LOL....

That's not what the majority of people here complain about regarding sandbagging.....

In every APA league, there are sandbaggers, some more than others....there are more than a few SL4 or 5's that sandbag on purpose and build up their innings during the season, while they should be ranked a 7.....actually, there are more than a few on AZ that won't hesitate to brag of their APA sandbagging abilities, search some posts....in league, they might run 3 or 4 balls at a time.....gambling over the weekend, they are a threat to run out at any time.....to me personally, it just doesn't seem very sporting to "control" a handicapped league....essentially, when you play even against someone who is 3 balls below your speed, the odds are easily 90% in your favor....and the purpose of a handicapped system is to put people on a level playing field....ie, in my mind, it's cheating....
 
Sandbagging happens all the time, it's not just hot air. I know of league players that purposely lose games after their team has the evening's session locked up, just to see their handicap go down. They want the lowest rating possible going into the playoffs so they can win easier.

How can you say it's just an excuse???
 
cajun9092 said:
Don't worry about your handicap. Keep trying to do your best every outing. You're going to win games you're supposed to lose and lose some you're supposed to win. It'll shake itself out.
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Of course! I don't worry about it, really. It would be a good problem to have, my actually improving for real. That is the point of it all, and it is what I'm striving for.

Still, timing always seems to bite me in the tookus on eberything else in my life, why not this, too? :grin-square:
 
I have seen similar threads about sandbagging appear on a regular basis here. The best and most productive post was one made by a gentleman that suggested we may be our own worst enemys. He pointed out the necessity for all team members to watch each game and for the team captian to record safety plays as such. The sand bagging I have seen usually involves a player attempting to pass off a safety play as a legitimate attempt to pocket. To observent players that have attained skill level 5 or better, most of these bogus shots are obvious safetys....I mean, what are the odds of you missing and leaving me hooked 3 times in a game without calling a safety. If accurate records are kept by team captians/scorekeepers.....sandbagging would be harder to get away with.
I have seen too many matches where the score keeper was busy talking, drinking, or even having to ask their player what inning they were in. With this kind of apathy present in any league.....sandbagging will be the norm...Dan
 
Sandbagging is smart. Once you make it to Vegas, you almost feel silly when you realize your "fair" team is up against some sandbagging monsters from Trenton, NJ! Sorry but I've lost first hand to a team pretty late in the tournament and there was no doubt they were sandbagging.

You can play fair and lose or cheat and have a chance. It doesn't matter at the higher levels, it's the lower levels that make a team as good or bad as it is. Try having 3's that play like 5's and they get to always go to 2 for a win. You see how good your team is.
 
This is my take on sandbagging. Like Big Perm said at the end of his post, it is CHEATING. Just like Liu (or Dong or whatever the hell his name was) was cheating jlrowe out of his case by not sending it to him after receiving his money order. Cheating in ANY form or fashion is taking something away from somebody else and giving something to the cheater that he/she does not deserve. And don't think sandbagging is a figment of our imagination. I've heard MANY people openly talk about how they have done it. So I say, if you sandbag you have NO INTEGRITY. You are as low as the person that steals from somebody, IMO. I've got no use for you as a person I would want to make friends with. Find some pride in that tiny heart of yours and give me your best game, night-in and night-out is what I say to them. It doesn't say much about somebody anyway when they have to resort to this kind of crap to try to elevate their status in the pool "kingdom". And after all the balls have fallen, and the lights have gone out, all they are is a bunch of "B" or "C" players with WHAT to show for it???

Maniac
 
I agree with JB, there is a lot of sandbagging in the APA. I know for a fact in my local league a player confided in me, and told me that he was dropped from his team because he wasn't sandbagging enough. I have played skill level 4 who play like 6's when they have to, but most of the time just bang balls around to rack up the innings and just win if their team needs the win.

Some of these players play in my Valley league and their skill level's are 7 or 7.5, but in APA their a 4, really??? The Valley league's averages are much closer to a player real average. It very hard to sandbag in that league since the player has to play 3 matches with 3 different players, and they tally up the points at the end of each round and the team with the highest points wins the round. And the player's average is recalculated each week, not every 10 or 20 matches.

The gold at the end of the rainbow is winning your league's LTC and getting five thousand dollars for a trip Las Vegas to play in the Nationals. So it's all about winning and going to Vegas, so in their mind "The end justifies the means".
 
sbordona said:
I agree with JB, there is a lot of sandbagging in the APA. I know for a fact in my local league a player confided in me, and told me that he was dropped from his team because he wasn't sandbagging enough. I have played skill level 4 who play like 6's when they have to, but most of the time just bang balls around to rack up the innings and just win if their team needs the win.

Some of these players play in my Valley league and their skill level's are 7 or 7.5, but in APA their a 4, really??? The Valley league's averages are much closer to a player real average. It very hard to sandbag in that league since the player has to play 3 matches with 3 different players, and they tally up the points at the end of each round and the team with the highest points wins the round. And the player's average is recalculated each week, not every 10 or 20 matches.

The gold at the end of the rainbow is winning your league's LTC and getting five thousand dollars for a trip Las Vegas to play in the Nationals. So it's all about winning and going to Vegas, so in their mind "The end justifies the means".
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JB can't shoot a ball into a grocery bag and probably couldn't rate somebody's speed accurately to save his life.

You don't know how the APA handicap is calculated. It isn't "every 10 or 20 matches", it's the best 10 of the last 20, iirc. It gets recalculated after every match is entered. I've seen a 2 or a 3 run out a table. That may be just about the only time they did it, though.. ever. Does that mean they're suddenly a 7 because I saw it? Nope. No more than I'm a 3 because I dog a few shots in one rack. People just like to think they're a lot better than they are. It's much easier on the ego that way.
 
My 1/2 session of APA, years ago, my captain told me "I can't tell you to sandbag, but...."

I prefer BCA if I want to play pool.
 
JB Cases said:
Well, it's like this. Even if I were to go up to the tournament director with a list of players that I KNEW were better than APA5 all that would happen is to cause all sorts of controversy over whether the league operator was involved, my word against theirs, cause them to be monitored, etc.....

My OPINION is that the APA doesn't care about the mini-tournaments in Vegas as they are not really part of the "official" tournament. You don't have to win a spot to play in the minis - if you are a card carrying APA member with a rating then you can play.

The APA does however care about the TEAM handicaps and will monitor matches and raise people's handicaps and even go so far as to disqualify entire teams if they FEEL that a team is vastly under-rated.

I know this because my first wife was a monitor and intimately involved in the APA process and she explained it all to me in detail as to how it goes at Nationals.

And people do report players on the local level and then the league op will either go themselves or send someone out to monitor the player and make a determination.

Good players can tell when someone is sandbagging. You see certain shots that a person plays that tell you he or she knows more than their skill level. You can feel it.

But here is a BRUTAL story I heard from Vegas. A legitimate SL4 goes out there and gets lessons from Tom Rossman. Two days later he is playing and shoots a table length draw shot using what he learned from Tom and a monitor happened to be watching and recommended that he be raised to a 6 based on that shot. So they watched him play and bumped him to a six and that put his team over the 23 total and they then lost and were out when they had to forfeit one match.

For that reason I have always maintained that the APA should allow the handicaps to stand when teams go to Vegas BUT if a team is found to be under-rated AS A WHOLE then they are disqualified and the league owner is fined $5000 per team.

Then the LO would make SURE that the teams they send to Vegas would be properly rated.

I do agree with you that some losses are just losses with no sandbagging. But enough are a result of a sandbagging player getting too much weight that it's a legitimate gripe a lot of the time. It's just the nature of the beast in the APA system.
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Very difficult to do. There is a really broad range of skill and knowledge by players within all of the APA handicap rankings from every area. For instance, last summer as an S/L 6 in 9 ball I played an S/L 4 from Chicago. I'd say I'm an above average 6 in my area and I was playing well, but I got drilled by this guy. I didn't feel like I was being cheated or anything like that because historically, typically, the APA players from Chicago are just pretty strong players and in their area they are ranked correctly. In my area this guy would have easily been at least a 5 because his win percentage would have been higher. I suspect that in Chicago and similarly strong areas the really strong players all play each other and beat each other up and thus - their skill levels manage to stay reasonably lower because the win percentage is usually around 50 or 60%. While sandbagging, or intentionally playing below your true speed is a problem for some, I believe that is truly a minority situation and not nearly as prevalent as some would have you believe. Players get better with time and sometimes they catch up to players that used to beat them regularly. When that happens the player that used to win all the time will sometime have "acceptance issues" and suddenly the other player is a sandbagger. In reality the crying, whining player needs an excuse.
But getting back to my point, some areas are stronger, some are weaker but you will find ranking all along the spectrum in ever area.
 
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Celophanewrap said:
Very difficult to do. There is a really broad range of skill and knowledge by players within all of the APA handicap rankings from every area. For instance, last summer as an S/L 6 in 9 ball I played an S/L 4 from Chicago. I'd say I'm an above average 6 in my area and I was playing well, but I got drilled by this guy. I didn't feel like I was being cheated or anything like that because historically, typically, the APA players from Chicago are just pretty strong players and in their area they are ranked correctly. In my area this guy would have easily been at least a 5 because his win percentage would have been higher. I suspect that the really strong players all play each other and beat each other up and thus - their skill levels manage to stay reasonably lower because the win percentage is usually around 50 or 60%. While sandbagging, or intentionally playing below your true speed is a problem for some, I believe that is truly a minority situation and not nearly as prevalent as some would have you believe. Players get better with time and sometimes they catch up to players that used to beat them regularly. When that happens the player that used to win all the time will sometime have "acceptance issues" and suddenly the other player is a sandbagger. In reality the crying, whining player needs an excuse.
But getting back to my point, some areas are stronger, some are weaker but you will find ranking all along the spectrum in ever area.
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Sort of, but I don't really buy that as much as I had in the past. In the national singles, I faced some 7's that were having a bad day and also a few that got out from damn near everywhere. I also had my fair share of both of those. Overall, I was somewhere around the 7.3-7.4 area and the singles are seeded. I don't really recall anybody being significantly better than what I expected. I also only broke n ran like 3 racks in 6 or 7 matches, I think it was, so it wasn't like I was the sandbagger in the group. In the Masters event this year, the first match I had was against a guy from SoCal that was a 7/8, I think. He played probably the best on his team and only missed a couple of shots while beating me. Played a team from Lousiana, I think it was, that were mostly 5's and 6's and they got drilled. Our last match was against a decent team. I was probably the lowest on our team and I only missed a couple of shots the whole match, while the best player on my team couldn't seem to get anything going.

I've seen all kinds of odd things happen, but the areas don't vary all that much. You may usually end up watching a bunch of 5.1's play, but the time you see a 5.8 shooting well, you could easily mistake that for a sandbagging 7.

Another example.. a bartender that worked where I hang out got to playing me last Christmas Eve or so. He was absolutely on fire, running out from everywhere! He joined APA after that and hasn't broken past a 5. He also hasn't shot like that since. Another player stopped in - one that I hadn't played before - and did just about the same thing! Turned out he was a 6/7, I think.. also hasn't done that since and won't gamble against me.

Sometimes people just catch fire and nothing can be done to stop them. Shake their hand, bow in their pressence and, after that, let them never forget that you're out for blood. ;)
 
As I said in another thread.. If everyone would play there speed there would be no need to sandbag but it's like steroids was to baseball. Some people are doing it because they know others in there league our doing it so they feel if they don't also do it they won't be able to compete and to an extent there right. I recently joined tap 8 ball and I tried for a few weeks to do it. I can't lol I have worked far to hard to become a good local player to intentionally miss balls for some silly handy cap league. I'm a 7 and that's the way it is. I personally enjoy spotting people a lot of games and trying to climb out of that hole..and if your number is lower than it should be all the better the challenge is for me. There is no doubt sandbagging goes on as long as you have a handy cap league somebody will try to beat it.

I'll repeat this again also... The new thing is to call it strategy! lol Call it what you want but if you are in any way playing down to hide your speed your sand bagging and since tap and apa do what they can to stop it it's cheating. own up to it..lol
 
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