Well I guess this is another reason apa is frowned upon..even the l.o's don't always know the damn rules.
Why is the APA so frowned upon?
- Thread starter Magyar19
- Start date
Well I guess this is another reason apa is frowned upon..even the l.o's don't always know the damn rules.
Apa
I have never played in the APA and I never would, I just don't believe in it. I have seen a player who cant make two balls in a row beat a better player because the better player had to win so many more games. Anyone can get lucky and shit in a ball or two and win over the better player because the better player has to play lights out to win a 3 or 4 game to one handy cap. Then when the week player does win they walk around all night, they think they are the best player on the planet. LOL A player in the APA can make a shot say the 8 ball straight in the corner, The 8 ball can roll around the table three times hit every other ball on the table hit all the rails and go in and they call that a good shot, Bullshit that's not pool that's playing marbles...
It should be called the AMA American marbles
If I want to go to Vegas that bad I will just go on my own,
I have never played in the APA and I never would, I just don't believe in it. I have seen a player who cant make two balls in a row beat a better player because the better player had to win so many more games. Anyone can get lucky and shit in a ball or two and win over the better player because the better player has to play lights out to win a 3 or 4 game to one handy cap. Then when the week player does win they walk around all night, they think they are the best player on the planet. LOL A player in the APA can make a shot say the 8 ball straight in the corner, The 8 ball can roll around the table three times hit every other ball on the table hit all the rails and go in and they call that a good shot, Bullshit that's not pool that's playing marbles...
It should be called the AMA American marbles
If I want to go to Vegas that bad I will just go on my own,
I use to play APA however after getting the shaft at LTC's I gave it up. I agree that the APA is a slop league and any banger can win against a strong player because of the handicaps.
The biggest turn off(for me) is the coruption and B.S. petty fighting amongst the players. In my situation that I refered to earlier. We had a six on my team that beat a 5 from the other team by a couple of balls and was moved up during LTC's. When we confronted the league operator about we heard a range of crap from he was undefeated as six( he wasn't) he beat the best 5 in Lynchburg ( why is still a 5) and so forth and so on.
The APA is nothing more than a money rackett. Selling a false hope. If you the LO has no say in who he or she wants to go to Vegas and it is truly fair then they have sucessfully made you their fool....
The biggest turn off(for me) is the coruption and B.S. petty fighting amongst the players. In my situation that I refered to earlier. We had a six on my team that beat a 5 from the other team by a couple of balls and was moved up during LTC's. When we confronted the league operator about we heard a range of crap from he was undefeated as six( he wasn't) he beat the best 5 in Lynchburg ( why is still a 5) and so forth and so on.
The APA is nothing more than a money rackett. Selling a false hope. If you the LO has no say in who he or she wants to go to Vegas and it is truly fair then they have sucessfully made you their fool....
i called another captain who knows every rules apa ever made lol. our area is the same as dubs ....you need at least 4 original members. the apa does allow some leeway for lo's to incorporate bylaws so every area may not have the same rules.
just like bcapl does not have the same rules in every area so some people may frown on that also.:grin-square:
hey trob here is another one of those apa bashers whammo and i was refering to that hat the fact a lower level can beat a higher level.:grin:
that crap happens in all leagues.years ago the bcapl lo SOMEHOW did not have the money that was SUPPOSED to be set aside for the winning team to go to the nationals. consequently there is no ncapl in my area anymore.
just this year a lo was found to have substituted a player on his team for an ineligible one at the nationals. this was not like an apa captain that did the same thing last year ....this was a bcapl lo .
in summary... by your logic if everyone decided to not ever play in any league that had shit pulled by shady lo's there would not be any leagues. am i right ?
A couple of fallacies in your statement. Slop is nowhere near as prevalent as one would think (or more importantly, as many on this forum like to talk about). Also, you have to call the eight in 8-ball.
i want to comment on your last sentence a lil more .
in our last 9 ball cities which was my 1st btw our 2 lo's went above and beyond to show impartiality in my opinion.
we had 2 brackets playing on tables next to each other. the 2 lo's did all the racking using the majic rack.
lo a would rack for bracket a and lo b would rack for bracket b the 1st rack. then they would switch with lo a racking for bracket 2 and lo b racking for bracket a the 2nd rack.
they would switch back and forth every rack for the entire match between the 2 brackets. they would also switch between the 2 tables when they were called to observe shots. they both sat there intently watching the entire finals.
you cannot ask for any more impartiality than our lo's showed. it is sad to hear there are lo's in all leagues that are not as impartial as i think my lo's are.
although i am not exactly a rocket scientist i ain't nobodys fool.
Apa is a franchise and just like any franchise some operators are good some not so much. We have good operators. They're nice people who try to make it fair.
Here is a little situation we had this year that I've never seen in any other league. 16 week season and half way through they allowed 2 more teams to join the league. not only that but both teams were all 1s and 2s lol now they all weren't 9s or anything but when we played them they were putting tome nice 7 and 8 ball runs together without much of a problem. Needless to say if you play a 2 who can run 7 or 8 point runs there aint no way I'm going to get to 75 before they get to 18. I know it's a business and in the end it's all about making money but they're people who take going to vegas very seriously and screwed everyone's numbers for a couple of weeks before they finally raised them. Adding teams half way through a session is ridiculous.
Here is a little situation we had this year that I've never seen in any other league. 16 week season and half way through they allowed 2 more teams to join the league. not only that but both teams were all 1s and 2s lol now they all weren't 9s or anything but when we played them they were putting tome nice 7 and 8 ball runs together without much of a problem. Needless to say if you play a 2 who can run 7 or 8 point runs there aint no way I'm going to get to 75 before they get to 18. I know it's a business and in the end it's all about making money but they're people who take going to vegas very seriously and screwed everyone's numbers for a couple of weeks before they finally raised them. Adding teams half way through a session is ridiculous.
I had a similar situation happen in my league area several years ago. The LO let a team in halfway through the season...gave them a bunch of "free" team points...and let the women start as sl2's and the men start as sl3's. As in your case...some of them were underrated. At the end of the night after we played them...the team captain told me (our team captain) that the LO had made a deal with the sl's and the team points if they would put their team in the division at mid-season.
They do that because it puts more money into their own pockets (revenue)....without any other consequences (except some pissed-off team captains).
I just show up on league nights now...have a drink or two...play to the best of my ability...and go home at the end of the night. I refuse to let all the BS get to me anymore. I'm enjoying it more...and playing better too!!!
Maniac
i have only played league here in the town where i have currently lived for the last 20 years. i can only speak of my experience in this town concerning lo's. i have no reason to doubt anyone on here when they speak in a negative way about lo's they have encountered.
what i object to is painting an entire national league organization as corrupt because a few lo's here or there do not do their job properly.
my 1st league experience was 8 years ago in a bcapl league. he was one of those that it was all about the money.he ran poker at the pool hall along with the league. he was always recruiting people to do both.
we played round robin format. we had a shit load of guys playing both poker and pool at the same time. it was a fiasco and a pain in the ass when it was your turn to play a certain opponent and he was at the poker table. complaining to the lo did not do any good since he was running both.
i quit the league and went back to playing in bars . fast forward 5 years and a girl who is now my g/f wanted me to join her team. i said yea i will give it another try. i was surprised when i found out it was apa and was full of people i knew from my bcapl days.
i asked around about what happened to bcapl and no one had anything good to say and a few did not even want to talk about it. wound up finding out he did not have the money for the teams to go to nationals one year and the league folded after that. still no bcapl league here.
with that said in all my posts on here i have never bashed the bcapl organization for the action of a local lo like i have seen so many people on here bash the apa organization for the action of a local lo.
for some reason on here its very popular to bash the entire apa with 400 posts when something shady happens yet when something shady happens in bcapl like the lo substituting an ineligible player at the nationals everyone turns into crickets. i just do not understand why that is.
what i object to is painting an entire national league organization as corrupt because a few lo's here or there do not do their job properly.
my 1st league experience was 8 years ago in a bcapl league. he was one of those that it was all about the money.he ran poker at the pool hall along with the league. he was always recruiting people to do both.
we played round robin format. we had a shit load of guys playing both poker and pool at the same time. it was a fiasco and a pain in the ass when it was your turn to play a certain opponent and he was at the poker table. complaining to the lo did not do any good since he was running both.
i quit the league and went back to playing in bars . fast forward 5 years and a girl who is now my g/f wanted me to join her team. i said yea i will give it another try. i was surprised when i found out it was apa and was full of people i knew from my bcapl days.
i asked around about what happened to bcapl and no one had anything good to say and a few did not even want to talk about it. wound up finding out he did not have the money for the teams to go to nationals one year and the league folded after that. still no bcapl league here.
with that said in all my posts on here i have never bashed the bcapl organization for the action of a local lo like i have seen so many people on here bash the apa organization for the action of a local lo.
for some reason on here its very popular to bash the entire apa with 400 posts when something shady happens yet when something shady happens in bcapl like the lo substituting an ineligible player at the nationals everyone turns into crickets. i just do not understand why that is.
I'm afraid I'm in complete disagreement with you. I don't blame the LO's, at least not the ones who are doing their jobs. The inherit problem with the league is all based around one thing, the use of the "23 Rule" to create a pyramid scheme within the system! It's designed to force teams to break up and bring in novice players! As a business plan it sounds well and good! BUT because of this "23 Rule" ALL of the successful teams have manipulated their handicaps in a way to keep them as low as possible so their teams can stay together and compete. I don't like it but in so many people it's just "human nature" to try to use whatever methods available to get an advantage and others are forced to follow suit in order to survive and/or compete! This changes the whole experience from pool/billiards to a game of another sort I just don't care for! All this so a few can get RICH in St. Louis and never give anything back to the sport!
Sherm
Banks
Banned
People continue playing in the league despite the 23 rule and, at least in my area, the fact that there are multiple choices available for leagues. Our BCA regional limits teams based on the winners - they can't play with each other in the regional for up to two years, iirc. BCA also has A, Master and Grandmaster. People just like to put down the apa the most because the players are more recreational. I enjoy playing pool and will play almost anything. $7 or $14 is peanuts compared to many other hobbies, especially if you consider the open table time.
Once again, you tend to paint with a very broad brush.
Some people may very well cheat like you say. I will not deny that. However, I have not seen anything remotely close to what you describe, in my area.
Neither one of us can possibly make an accurate assessment on how things go everywhere regarding this issue.
We have teams that have to shuffle and change players, true. Sometimes that is due to improvement in skill level. Sometimes people stop playing for a number of other reasons, too. No one can possibly expect their team to stay together indefinitely...
I respect your experience and your perspective, but I have yet to understand your venom towards the APA. The league you describe is nothing like the one I play in, two nights a week, for the past 4 years.
The APA, nor other such leagues, are pyramid schemes. A pyramid scheme is by definition an unstable financial model due to the lack, or failing, of goods and services to be the principle revenue generators and instead relying on lower tiered members to be the principle funders. The term 'pyramid' comes from the binomial distribution model often used in such schemes, which generally looks like a pyramid in shape. This lack or failing of an exterior revenue model, combined with its distribution model, is what makes such schemes unstable. A pool league, like the APA, simply provides organizational services through its main office and franchisee systems to a customer base. This distribution system is not structured in a way contingent with such 'pyramid schemes' nor is any more reliant on new growth than any other franchisee based system. A good example of such a franchisee based system would be your average fast food restaurant chain.
The 23 rule does sometimes force teams to break up and it does sometimes lead to new members joining the league but it is also not a pyramid structure. Every player is on the same level of the structure (the customer level). The central fallacy to any argument that the 23 rule is a pyramid scheme is not by definition, however, but simply due to failed assumption that players will continue to improve, thus necessitating new teams formed by new players. (If only the secret to pool was playing one match a week!) In reality, the relative maximum skill level of a player is generally far less than the absolute maximum skill level of the system. Your average league player simply does not play enough, study enough, nor try hard enough to obtain such levels. Many players will not get beyond the low handicap levels because they never put in the time or energy to do so.
The reason the 23 rule can lead to new players joining is not by some attribute that only new players possess, but by the fact the participants are more inclined to actually go look for players. New players are often the most dangerous in such a structure because you don't know how good they are. Unless the entire league is above average, the lower level players will often not be new players at all, as new players enter the system with a higher than minimal handicap. Teams in search of specific handicaps would be far more successful finding others established in the system that have that particular handicap than attempt to find new players whom may or may not resemble that handicap for any significant length of time.
The 23 rule is an attempt to answer a question that challenges a lot of activities; how to merge participants of different abilities and time intervals. The video game industry often describes this as managing 'hardcore' and 'casual' players. How do you build systems that reward and maintain participation between groups of players with wildly divergent needs? Some players may play 16 hours per day, and others 16 hours per month. Other rec activities have similar problems. A basketball league may need to combine players with wildly divergent heights and experience levels. This is a big, big challenge and often the solution is not to merge them at all. Perhaps the basketball leagues may be separated by players who are 6 feet and over/under or those that played at a certain level. The video game company may need to make games only for players who only have time to play a game for a certain time, and be willing to discard segments of the player base that do not fit that particular design.
The question, then, is to examine if a particular structure, however flawed (and attempts such as the 23 rule certainly have their flaws), is right for the particular target base. Should we attempt to form homogenous groups, or attempt solutions that allow the group as a whole to compete together? Neither has universally desirable traits, and often results in the alienation of a specific segment of the player base. When available, the best overall strategy is to provide many different structures to the same group. From the viewpoint of a room owner, this would not therefore be a question of if you wanted one league vs another, but rather in hosting a variety of different leagues with different structures.
The 23 rule does sometimes force teams to break up and it does sometimes lead to new members joining the league but it is also not a pyramid structure. Every player is on the same level of the structure (the customer level). The central fallacy to any argument that the 23 rule is a pyramid scheme is not by definition, however, but simply due to failed assumption that players will continue to improve, thus necessitating new teams formed by new players. (If only the secret to pool was playing one match a week!) In reality, the relative maximum skill level of a player is generally far less than the absolute maximum skill level of the system. Your average league player simply does not play enough, study enough, nor try hard enough to obtain such levels. Many players will not get beyond the low handicap levels because they never put in the time or energy to do so.
The reason the 23 rule can lead to new players joining is not by some attribute that only new players possess, but by the fact the participants are more inclined to actually go look for players. New players are often the most dangerous in such a structure because you don't know how good they are. Unless the entire league is above average, the lower level players will often not be new players at all, as new players enter the system with a higher than minimal handicap. Teams in search of specific handicaps would be far more successful finding others established in the system that have that particular handicap than attempt to find new players whom may or may not resemble that handicap for any significant length of time.
The 23 rule is an attempt to answer a question that challenges a lot of activities; how to merge participants of different abilities and time intervals. The video game industry often describes this as managing 'hardcore' and 'casual' players. How do you build systems that reward and maintain participation between groups of players with wildly divergent needs? Some players may play 16 hours per day, and others 16 hours per month. Other rec activities have similar problems. A basketball league may need to combine players with wildly divergent heights and experience levels. This is a big, big challenge and often the solution is not to merge them at all. Perhaps the basketball leagues may be separated by players who are 6 feet and over/under or those that played at a certain level. The video game company may need to make games only for players who only have time to play a game for a certain time, and be willing to discard segments of the player base that do not fit that particular design.
The question, then, is to examine if a particular structure, however flawed (and attempts such as the 23 rule certainly have their flaws), is right for the particular target base. Should we attempt to form homogenous groups, or attempt solutions that allow the group as a whole to compete together? Neither has universally desirable traits, and often results in the alienation of a specific segment of the player base. When available, the best overall strategy is to provide many different structures to the same group. From the viewpoint of a room owner, this would not therefore be a question of if you wanted one league vs another, but rather in hosting a variety of different leagues with different structures.
yea ...what he said .......i think ??
You only have around 400 posts, and can't remember ever reading a prior post of yours... But I have to say, this may very well be the BEST explained definition (for the lack of a better term right now) of the pros and cons of APA. From my comprehension of your post, you have in my mind, managed to sum up both sides of the old 'APA argument'.. Very well done, and I could add anything to it, or agree more. ... :thumbup:
Rain-Man
jes tryin to inject a lil humor in a league bashin thread.
ain't often we get a well written post such as that one in one of these threads.
guess i ain't no better at bein a comedian than i am at bein a pool player.
