How the BCA of Delaware League works…

The BCA of Delaware (BCADE) is a league of pool teams playing weekly matches for recreation, fellowship, and advancement of personal skills ‘on the table.’ Each team plays once per week; the match may be at ‘home’ (the establishment which sponsors the team) or ‘away’ (at another team’s home establishment). Sponsoring sites may be social clubs (such as a VFW or American Legion), bars, restaurants, or pool halls – each establishment must have at least one pool table available for the team on whichever night of the week the team’s matches are to be played. Each division team plays a home or away match against a same-division opponent on that night. BCADE divisions (from six to twelve teams per division) are currently playing on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights within the Delaware and Northeastern Maryland area; all matches for a given division will be played on the same weeknight.

A match consists of twenty-five 8-ball games divided among five players from each team; each shooter plays one game against each of the opposing team’s five shooters. There are six match points to be won during the evening’s competition. Matches are divided into five rounds; winning a round gains one match point for the team, and an additional match point is awarded to the team with the highest total score for the five rounds. Match points are added from week to week to determine a team’s standing within the division; at the end of a playing session (approximately fifteen weeks) the teams with highest standings are invited to compete in a tournament with other division leaders – for cash and trophy prizes. There are three sessions (each with its own mini-tournament) per calendar year, plus an annual “State Tournament” in January and/or February (this year, 2006, will have no annual tournament, since the league has just started and will have to build up its prize fund before holding a “State Tournament”). Teams may also play in the BCA National Tournament held in Las Vegas, NV, each year in May.

Not all pool players have equal skills. To level the competition, BCADE players are rated by their performance during match games – a player with many wins will be rated higher than a player with few games won. Skill ratings vary from 3 (beginner) to 10 (master). Incoming players are initially rated as ‘7’ until enough games have been played to determine a rating from competition results. Adding the rating levels of the five players during a team’s match, and comparing that total against the sum of ratings for the opposing team, will provide a ‘handicap’ value to be added to the weaker team’s end-of-round score. Each game won counts ten points toward the end-of-round total, and each ball pocketed during a loss counts as one point toward the total. The five game results and the handicap (if any) determine a final round score.

Teams consist of five to ten players, with one player designated as team captain. The captain chooses which players to compete during a match, keeps score on an official BCADE scoring sheet, acts as coach during play (or designates another player as coach), interprets rules from the BCA handbook, collects a nightly fee from each player ($5 for the five games, or $1 for each game if a substitution is made partway through a match), and (the home team captain) is responsible for mailing score sheets and nightly fees to the league office.

Each BCADE player must join the BCA national organization, and is eligible to compete in BCA-sanctioned tournaments worldwide. The Billiard Congress of America is one of the largest and most widespread pool organizations in the world, with chapters in the USA, Canada, Mexico, and Europe.

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