Rack 'Em Up!
I have played pool in the American Poolplayers Association (APA) league for 5 years now. I started playing casually at the local bowling alley when I was 12 years old. Wherever life and the Navy took my family, it seemed like there was always a nearby recreational center or bowling alley with a pool table. I have always enjoyed playing and eventually invested in my own pool cue. While working at Comcast, I trained a new tech who was the captain of his local pool team. They needed an extra player, so I was invited to join. Since then I have played on and off throughout the years, joining one other pool team before landing on my current team. Currently, we are leading our division, so hopefully we do well enough to make it to Las Vegas this year. My current team plays only nine-ball, but my previous teams played double jeopardy, which is eight-ball and nine-ball. Double jeopardy takes longer because each week we have 5 matches of nine-ball and 5 matches of eight-ball, as opposed to the 5 matches a week my team plays now. The APA assigns every player a skill level based on their ability and those skill levels are used to apply handicaps in each match. Below is a table showing the amount of balls a player of a particular skill level must make to win their match for the evening. For example, a level 2 player needs to make only 19 balls to win their match opposed to a level 8 who needs to make 65 balls!
| Player Skill Level | Points (Balls) Needed to Win |
| 1 | 14 |
| 2 | 19 |
| 3 | 25 |
| 4 | 31 |
| 5 | 38 |
| 6 | 46 |
| 7 | 55 |
| 8 | 65 |
| 9 | 75 |