It’s that time of year once again. It is time to start back up with our Masters Division. Our Masters Division only plays one session per year, and this is that session. Masters teams are 3-5 person teams competing in an 8 Ball and 9 Ball format with no handicaps. Each individual match will consist of up to 5 games of 8 Ball and 8 games of 9 Ball in a race to 7 games. Each game is worth a point for the team and 3 players from each team play in each match. The schedule is approximately twice a month and league play is scheduled on Saturdays at 5pm. Team fees are $30 per team for each match and prize money is awarded at the end of the session to all of the teams based on finish. We also award slots into the APA Masters Championships in Las Vegas for the top finishing teams. If you like head to head match ups and tough competition, this is the format for you. Teams can be based out of any location in San Diego County. The first week of the new Masters Division will be October 19th.
The rules for our Masters Division are a little different than regular league. We do not allow coaching in any Masters matches, and jump cues are allowed in both formats and 9 Ball is all about making the 9 Ball rather than the point system. Push outs are allowed after the break in 9 Ball. The winner of the lag gets the choice of game (8 Ball or 9 Ball) or the break. If the break is chosen, the other player gets to choose the game they start with. If 8 Ball is chosen, all 5 games are played out and then the players switch to 9 Ball where play continues until one player reaches 7 games. If 9 Ball is chosen first, there is the possibility that you don’t play 8 Ball at all if a player reaches 7 wins within those eight 9 Ball games. The teams flip to see who puts up first in the first match and they alternate each subsequent match. Every game that you win is a point for your team. There are 21 points available if you win all 3 matches. There are two goals in your match. Win as many points as possible and hold your opponent to as few points as possible. Basically every game is important. Masters is a way to compete against some of the top players in our league and throughout the county. It allows you to gauge whether your game is improving. Rosters can consist of 5, but only 4 can advance to the National Team Championships if your team earns that right. We sent 3 teams to Nationals this year and hope to send at least that many again next year.
The Blast is scheduled for October 12-13 at the Hungry Stick. Saturday is 8 Ball and Sunday is 9 Ball. 21 teams from each format will advance to the 2014 APA City Championships. End of Session prize money checks for division champions and playoff winners will be mailed out the week prior to the Blast, EXCEPT TEAMS THAT ADVANCE DIRECTLY TO CITY CHAMPIONSHIPS. See below. MVP trophies, patches and other awards will be available on the weekends of the Blast. If you had an MVP in a prior session that you would like to pick up, please do so at the Blast. We will return any unclaimed MVP trophies to the trophy company that are more than 2 previous sessions old. Anyone on your team can pick up your trophy or patches if you can’t be there yourself. We will be at the Hungry Stick from 9am to 10pm on Saturday the 12th, and from 9am to 5pm on Sunday the 13th. The best times to be there for MVP trophies and patches is at least an hour after our start up, in between official match start times by a half an hour or so, and an hour before we leave. The times we are starting rounds, and therefore not good times to pick up awards are 9am, 1pm and 5pm on Saturday, and 9am and 12:30pm on Sunday. Captains, please come and pick up your team’s awards. Any team that qualified for the Blast but got a bye straight into the City Championships without having to play will need to come to the Hungry Stick to pick up the prize money check and your trophies. We don’t mean to hold the prize money hostage, but the trophies almost always end up in our garage if we mail checks out, and we don’t have room to store trophies.
If you were a division champion (won the division standings and first place after ties were broken) or won the playoffs in divisions of 5 teams or less, you can request that we order a sponsor plaque for your bar. We only order them based on request. Please send in this request a week prior to the Blast if you want it at the Blast. If you want your prize money check made out to someone other than the team captain, the time to notify us about that is before October 2nd.
Make sure your score sheet is completely filled out before sealing it up and submitting back to the league office. Player names, membership numbers, total innings, games won for each player, points earned for their team for each player and total score of the match. We are finding a lot of errors in the total points in the new 8 Ball scoring system. You can create any kind of system you like that will help you more easily calculate the points for each team. At league last Wednesday, my team circled the total points earned box for each of our own players. That allowed us to add up the circled ones for the total points for our own team and then count the uncircled ones for the total points for the other team. Of course, as both captains were signing our sheets, my captain added up the opponents points wrong. So much for that….. Or maybe I should have explained a little more clearly to my captain what all of those fancy circles on the score sheet were. Maybe draw a grid on the sheet next to each team’s roster and write in the skill level of each player that played in each match and the points earned for each player, which then allows you to calculate the points as you go AND calculate the total handicap points so that you don’t break 23. Breaking 23 is never a good thing, and it happens to at least one team every session, mostly because they weren’t paying attention. It’s easy to forget all about that rule until it’s too late.
Have a great week and…..