The American Poolplayers Association (APA) is a governing body for amateur pool (pocket billiards) competition in the United States. The APA conducts pool leagues and tournaments in the disciplines of eight-ball and nine-ball with a unified ruleset. The organization was founded in 1981 by professional pool players Terry Bell and Larry Hubbart, with roots dating back to the National Pool League (NPL), founded in 1979. The APA bills itself as the largest pool league in the world with a membership of nearly 250,000 players in the United States, Canada, Japan, and China. The organization franchises its local league operations worldwide; some of these league operators are former professional pool players, including Ewa Laurance and Jeanette Lee. The APA is headquartered in Lake St. Louis, Missouri. The APA employs a proprietary handicapping system called "The Equalizer" that allows players of all abilities to compete with one another on an equal basis. The normal APA team consist of five -format competitions (similar to matches in the USA Pool League, and very different from the format used by the BCA Pool League and VNEA). In addition to this team play, APA organizers at the local level often set up non-team tournaments, play, and other formats; the annual international championships feature both individual and team play. The APA hosts several major pool tournaments each year, two of them in Las Vegas: the APA Poolplayer Championships for individual players in late April/early May and the APA World Pool Championships for teams in August. The latter event was certified as "The World's Largest Pool Tournament" by Guinness World Records in 2010. In November, the APA conducts the U.S. Amateur Championship, representing the highest level of amateur play in the United States. Children and teenagers ages 7–18 may compete in the APA Junior Championships, held every July in St. Louis. Eight-ball In APA eight-ball, two players compete until one person wins the number of games determined by their respective skill level. The following table illustrates the number of games needed to be won by each skill level depending on the skill level of their opponent. Skill levels in eight-ball range from 2 to 7. In higher-level tournament play, male pool players must compete at a skill level of 3 or higher. As an example of how to read the table, if Player A is a skill level 2 and Player B is a 6, the scorer first