Some people who know me know that I like to shoot pool. 8-ball, that is. I like to shoot enough that I’m on a team in the Quincy Lite League. I’m not great – I’d like to be better – but I’m not too shabby either.
Anyway, we have a handicap system in Quincy Lite. Everyone carries a handicap number from 2 to 7. In really basic terms, whoever wins their handicap in games first wins the match. If I’m a 5 and I play a 3, I have to win 5 games before they win 3, and vice versa. The system is by no means perfect, but the general idea is to make things a little more fair, and I suppose it does do that.
Invariably in a handicap system someone feels that it’s skewed against them. Amazingly, they only feel this way when they lose. 
For instance, I AM a 5 handicap right now, and tonight I got beaten by a 3. They guy pretty much just walked right over me, something you don’t expect from a 3 in normal circumstances. In a lot of cases, there would be grumbling from the losing team because “that guy is way better than a 3, he should be at least a 4 or 5.” Maybe. Or maybe he just had a good night. I’ve had them.
When it comes right down to it, in pool league there are 3 groups of people. There are those who are consistently bad, never win, and never hope to win. There are those who are consistently good, always win, and are shocked if they don’t. Then there are those in the middle who vary up and down, which is why they are in the middle. I’m in the middle, but someday maybe will be consistent enough to be in the top group.
[...] like to win but I don’t obsess about it, because the whole point of the handicap system, like Jason says, is to even the playing field as much as possible. Ideally, everyone has an even chance of winning [...]