Pool

Since moving to Austin I have joined a pool league. When I was younger my friends and I used to spend our nights in one of their basements that had a pool table. Countless hours were spend smacking those balls around. It wasn’t until I joined the pool league that I understood just how little I knew of pool playing. The concept of playing defense showed me a whole new dimension of pool that I had never before considered. Pool suddenly turned into a form of chess versus the one dimensional offensive sprint it used to be.

Rules

8 Ball

Since I was young Bar Rules never made sense to me. There are so many times where it’s more of a punishment for you if your opponent scratches. I had looked up the 8 Ball rules once when I was younger and figured that those were the rules. Now I know that there are different rules for different leagues. I’ve only learned BCA and APA rules, both of which give you ball in hand (put cue ball anywhere on table) for scratches.

The gist of 8 ball is that you have to sink your balls either solids or stripes and then sink the 8 ball in a specific pocket of your choosing. Main differences between APA and BCA rules being:

9 Ball

9 Ball in APA is different than what you might have played. Every ball 1 through 8 is worth 1 point and the 9 ball is worth 2. Depending on your ranking (briefly described below) you have to score a certain number of points to win the game. The score you get at the end depends on how many points the losing player was able to get relative to their rank. In 9 ball you must hit the lowest number ball on the table first. That ball does not have to be sunk first just hit first. Hitting another ball first or scratching results in ball in hand.

APA

I’ve played in the APA (American Poolplayers Association) for about two plus years now. People tend to think that you need to be a pool shark in order to play in a pool league which is quite untrue. The APA employs a ranking system that ranks players depending on how good they are. The algorithm for that is a big secret but it calculates your rank based on how fast you finish games (innings) and your win percentage. Players are ranked from 2-7 for 8 Ball and 1-9 for 9 Ball. On any given night 5 out of the 8 players on your team will play but their total ranking can only add up to 23. That means a team can’t play all 7s and must play a mixture of skill levels. Teams are always looking for new and low ranked players.

APA makes use of a handicap system. If a rank 4 plays a rank 3 then the 4 has to win 3 games before the rank 3 wins 2. Depending on the number of wins and losses you get a certain number of points. The best you can do is get 3 points for a sweep or zero points if you got swept. If you get to the hill (one game shy of your goal) then you get one point. If you get to your goal with anything other than a sweep you get 2 points.

BCA

Billiards Congress of America or BCA for short is where the better players play. At least without hitting the professional ranks. I’ve just started playing BCA so my knowledge is still a bit iffy. Everyone has a moving average out of 50 that counts towards your team average. The average is calculated depending on how many balls you sink before the game is over. You play 5 matches per night, all against different players of the opposing team. Each ball you sink is worth one point while the 8 ball is worth three. If you each are down to the 8 ball and you sink it then you won 10-7.

Vegas

I currently play on teams in two APA leagues and one BCA league. The end goal of both leagues is to qualify for Vegas. Vegas is the equivalent to the national championship of the APA. In order to make it to Vegas you have make it through multiple stages. The first stage is to make it come out on top of your league night. There are playoffs at the end of a session (three sessions per year) and typically the top two out of a dozen plus teams for that night qualify for the Tri-Cup tournament. Out of the 40-50 teams in the Tri- Cup tournament a top few qualify for City-Cup (Cities) tournament, then finally the top few teams out of the twenty of so City-Cup teams qualify for Vegas.