Hi Scott!
No problem on the link -- like danquixote succinctly stated, it *should* be required viewing for everyone that plays in, operates/administers, or owns an APA league (or franchise, in the case of owners/LOs). It is well done.
As for your correction, however, I think you excerpted the wrong quote from my original post, because the one you bolded/highlighted:
"The APA boosters will say the reason for the rule's existence is to intentionally break-up teams that have highly-skilled players, to prevent such teams from commandeering all the money payouts."
...and your subsequent "counter" rebuttal:
"The point of the 23 rule is to prevent the best players in any given town from stacking a team, to run over everyone else..."
...actually say the same thing, no? I just use the phrase "commandeering the money payouts" to
actually mean preventing stacking a team to run over all the others -- i.e. build a "dream team that's guaranteed to cash in Vegas." That is, unless, I'm missing something?
As for this "dream team" fear, my answer to that lie in the subsequent sentences to the very post you replied to. I think this fear of "team stacking" is misguided and unwarranted, IMHO. If the handicapping system worked correctly, it shouldn't matter what your handicap or skill level is -- with a properly working handicapping system, it's a wash. A lower skill-level player should have just as much chance at winning as the high skill-level player. But this is where "The Equalizer" system fails for a couple of reasons:
1. It's vulnerable to human nature.
(But then again, *every* handicapping system is; it's the nature of the beast afterall. That really was the closing, and main, point of my post -- if one can't stand sandbagging, don't play in a handicapped league. Play in a scratch league.)
2. The Equalizer system only takes into consideration the length of race for each player. I.e. if a "7" plays a "4" it's a straight 6 - 3 race, or something like that. There's no ball spot. The "7" is going to have the edge in running a lot of balls and accumulating racks, while the "3" struggles along trying to make 3 balls in a row. Put a ball spot in that situation (e.g. "if the difference between the skill levels of the two players is two or greater, the lower skill level player gets a one-ball spot from the higher skill level player").
Watch what happens then! The "3" will learn to make sure that at least one of his/her opponent's balls is tied-up with one of her own, which changes the runout strategy for the higher skill level player. Now, the higher skill level player has to include a breakout strategy for his/her own tied-up ball, since he/she knows his/her opponent is going to leave that ball on the table as his/her spotted ball. That ball spot significantly levels the playing field.
Let me share with you the fact that you are not alone when it comes to having experience running a league. I myself, with a partner, ran the Boston Billiards 8-ball league (for the now-closed Danbury, CT location) on two separate nights of the week, for several years. (The Danbury location was humongous by pool hall standards in the Northeast -- 34 tables with lots of space between each table, bar, eating area, flat screens all over the place, arcade area, VIP rooms, stage for bands that played there on certain college nights, etc.) This league had over 100 players
each league night -- certainly nothing to sneeze at, and definitely gave me a taste for the wide variety in people's opinions about what a league should do for them. Boston Billiards had end-of-season inter-branch tournaments between all the branches, and it was a LOT of fun -- very competitive, payed extremely well, and not only did each player get an individual trophy to take home, but the winning team got a beautiful goblet-style trophy with all the players names, with the year, engraved right on the trophy. The trophy was to be displayed in that team's branch location, right at the front desk, as a symbol of pride. Much like the America's Cup (for sailing), or closer to home, the Mosconi Cup. For two years running, the Danbury branch were the defending inter-branch champions, right up until Boston Billiards' corporate had to close that location. I came into that league and ran it like a machine.
Sometime back here on these boards, I wrote up how the Boston Billiards league did their handicapping system (which included ball spots, btw), and put into place measures to discourage sandbagging. (I might dig the link up, if folks are interested.) This included splitting the prize fund up such that the bigger share of the prize fund went into season/session performance, rather than playoff performance. This behooved players to play their best during the season, because that's where the money is. Sandbagging during the normal season only hurt that team's chances at the bigger money. The end-of-session tournament was only for trophy/bragging rights reasons with a smaller chunk of the prize fund allocated there. There were many other "motivators" for performing well, such as the "Top Gun" prize (money and trophy) for the best winning average, most improved player award, etc.
The interesting thing is, during the 3+ years that I ran the Boston Billiards league, the ONLY problems came from ex-APA players that tried to exploit the system, but found they couldn't, thus started whining/complaining about how things were "not fair" when they had to spot a player a ball, and how they got beat because "the ball spot killed me." They stuck out like sore thumbs. The seasoned high skill level players that played for the B.B. leagues for a while knew that when they were spotting a player a ball, they had to alter their playing strategy accordingly. It was a source of pride for these players when they came up to me and submitted their score sheets, and passed along comments like, "Sean, tonight I had to play so-and-so who's a '3', and I had to spot two balls. But I outran the spot, and won the match! Whew, that was one of the most difficult matches I've had in a long time!" You can see the pride in his/her eyes. I had to be unbiased, of course, because that opposing team had to submit their score sheets to me as well, but I high-fived everyone who won their match and had an interesting story to tell of how they overcame adversity.
One thing I can tell you from this experience, many teams SALIVATED when their opposing team puts up a high skill-level player. They, in turn, would put up a low skill-level player, because they knew the handicap system was going to even things out, and make it very difficult for that high skill level player to win. We at Boston Billiards called this tactic "cutting the 7 off at the knees." Personally, whenever I saw a "4" being put up against a "7" or "8" (the latter being the highest skill-level at Boston Billiards), I'd put my money on the "4" winning the match most of the time. A two-ball (or three-ball[!] in some cases) spot is just too tough to fade. You either ran out when you were at the table, or suffered the consequences of "one ball hell" when that "3" or "4" had one of your balls tied up and safed you continuously.
So when I hear comments about how the "23" rule was put into effect to prevent the stacking of teams that "win everything" or win continuously, I just shake my head at how utterly EVASIVE this comment is. Having run businesses myself, as well as having worked for some big-name employers in my time, I know Trojan Horse reasoning when I see it. APA "says" the reason for the 23 rule is to prevent team stacking, but it's a business growth tactic -- make it so that teams can't stay/grow together, but rather are forced to fragment and start new teams, thus growing the revenue stream.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not faulting the APA for finding an interesting way of exploiting the handicap system to grow the business. It's actually quite smart when you think about it. The new beginning players are certainly the lifeblood of our sport, and we need something -- anything -- to continually attract new players into our sport, to inject new life on a daily basis. For that, the APA is indeed keeping our sport exposed to the public. And like their way of doing it or not, at least the APA is giving back to the sport as well, with their endorsements and sponsorships (although I have a feeling that latter comment might spark a bit of controversy with APA's misguided adversity with Mark Griffin).
Anyway, that's my experience on this topic. Again, Scott, I know you were probably an award-winning LO when you were doing it, had a lot of pride doing it for the sport you love, and have some staunch feelings about how/why the APA does things. But I can tell you, from a different league system altogether, how another venue minimized the sandbagging issue (and "minimize" is the key word -- you can't outright "solve" the sandbagging problem unless you get rid of the handicap system altogether).
-Sean
is a given. Only the most glaring rating errors will be addressed. Sooo-play better/become really lucky/or go home. If it's eating you up. Don't play.
