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Torsten
USA
401 Posts |
 Posted - 01/16/2010 : 11:25:28 AM
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I'm curious, and maybe this has been explained to me before, but I don't recall. I think that no male 2s is a kind of a weird rule. If the equalizer handicapping system determines that a player is a two, why wouldn't they be allowed to play there regardless of gender.
Apart from the average man being taller than the average woman and therefore theoretically needing the bridge less often, I can't think of any advantage a male player would have over a female. It's not like football where a 300 lb man who runs a 4.5 second 40 yard dash has a physical advantage.
Just to play devils advocate, if female 7s can play in hlts as a 7, why can't male 2s play as a 2?
I think the worst time to have a heart attack would be during a game of charades... or during a game of fake heart attack. |
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Taz
USA
555 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2010 : 06:04:02 AM
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Torsten, you might be surprised to find that we also don't agree with disallowing male 2s in upper level play; however, it is not our decision. It is a National Rule. As with all of our players, we don't have to agree with all the rules; however, we do have to abide by them.
The League Operators are pretty evenly split on this one. It is a topic that comes up at almost every year's National League Operators Convention; however, until the overwhelming majority jumps on board, this rule will not be changed. It is what it is, so we accept it and move on.
On the local level, League Operators have the right to allow (or not) males to participate at a SL2. Many do not allow it as they want to run their league using as many of the National Rules as possible. We thought about it, but feel it would fall under "discrimination". As it is, I have a similar issue with starting skill levels. I do not, for the life of me, understand why males and females have to start at different skill levels. I don't agree with it. Never have and never will. I have been an advocate of that particular change for 10+ years, and while a sizable group of LOs agree, the majority do not, so again, we don't agree, but we abide by the rule.
If you want to know what the National Office bases their decision on, I would suggest you send them an email (poolplayers.com) and ask them. Perhaps you would be willing to share the answer you get with the rest of us. |
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Torsten
USA
401 Posts |
Posted - 01/18/2010 : 11:15:02 AM
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Taz, I am not surprised that you and Phil agree that it's a discriminatory rule. In fact, I think we've chatted about it in the past. If I had to guess, the National Office probably uses this rule as some kind of misguided anti-sandbagging measure, although if that's the case, it's misguided in my opinion.
The starting skill level thing bugs me a bit too. If I had to guess, they probably base it on the skill level the average male and average female even out as after their ten matches, but that's purely conjecture.
I don't know if I'll get on a soapbox and email the league office my opinion. I have a pretty good relationship with every LO I've met and I don't want to get the reputation of being someone who bitches and moans about a bunch of stuff. But I will say I've played on teams with women of every skill level 2-7 in 8 ball, and accross the board they are every bit the equal of the men they've played at those levels, in many cases better. So clearly the handicapping system is working, in that it's apparently blind to gender. That's the part of it that gets me. We have a good and fair system in place. The only flaw is that it has two seemingly arbitrary asterisks based on gender. If you and I started a company called Taz and Torsten's Pool Emporium, and the starting salaries we paid our employees were slanted based on gender, and we paid our male "interns" more than our female "interns" in our high level tournament retail store (best analogy i could come up with. sorry), we'd spend our entire lives in court, rather than spreading pool joy.
Anyhoo, happy MLK day. See you guys soon.
I think the worst time to have a heart attack would be during a game of charades... or during a game of fake heart attack. |
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skill level ?
