Captain’s Log, October 25th, 2015

We qualified twenty one 8 Ball teams and twenty one 9 Ball teams at the Locker Room on the weekend of October 10-11. It was our first event at this location and as luck would have it, it was one of the hottest weekends of the year. The tables played great, the food was great, there was plenty of parking, but it was extremely hot throughout the building. It’s been a very difficult start for the Locker Room with permits holding up the process of remodeling the space and then there were hang-ups with the liquor license that kept them from being able to serve beer and other alcoholic beverages until just a few weeks before our Blast tournament. Yes, air conditioning was probably more important than beer or parking or good table conditions, and it was very unlucky that it was one of the hottest weekends of the year. The SDAPA league office sincerely apologizes to all of our league members that had to withstand the heat at our tournament, and we thank all of you for being so understanding during our event. We purposely held the event as far into the Fall Session as we could to try to get cooler temps, and the previous week was fantastic, but you can’t order weather. Tracy has already taken steps to improve playing conditions for the next event. It takes a bit of trial and error to find out what works for the location and for our teams, and the Locker Room is dedicated to making sure their needs, our needs and your needs are met. A location with enough tables and space to conduct our big tournaments is very important to us, and we hope that those of you that experienced uncomfortable surroundings at our tournament accept our apology and be comforted by the fact that improvements are being made.

The APA 9 Ball Southwest Challenge was this past weekend. San Diego, as defending champions attempted to repeat as champions, but Bakersfield APA beat San Diego APA team Chris Clamp, Mike Wray and Kenneth Simpson in the finals to claim victory and bragging rights for the next year. It was our first event at the Westgate, and we were very pleased with the location, the staff, the venue for our tournament and the turnout for the event. It was the second largest turnout for the 9 Ball SWC. We are working on making improvements to both the 8 Ball and 9 Ball events to make them even more fun than they already are, so watch for announcements for the next event in March. Congrats to Chris, Mike and Kenneth on their 2^nd place finish. They won $1500.00. The total payout was more than $17,000.00 with 124 teams competing. We thank everyone that participated and hope to see you in March.