3/28/24 NAPA: Due to popular demand, NAPA 9-ball Pro now has the option to rack the 9-ball on the spot.
1/25/24 NAPA: Effective today, Rule 1.3 in 9-ball (Standard) is getting an update.
The object balls (1-ball through 9-ball) are to be racked as tightly as possible in a diamond shape, with the 1-ball at the apex of the diamond and on the foot spot, the 9-ball in the center of the diamond and the 2-ball at the rear point of the rack. All other balls must be placed in the diamond in random order without purposeful or intentional pattern.
1/9/24: It is now possible to do table assignments.
12/28/23 NAPA: Beginning today, adjusting the cue ball with the ferrule of your cue stick is no longer a foul.
11/25/23 NAPA: This morning we have added to all of your League Standings Pages a new link, when clicked, will send your players directly to the scoring app with their Division ID pre-populated into the login scoring box!
11/5/23 NAPA: NAPA League Operators are now allowed to run side pots for their leagues in addition to their regular prize funds. It essentially creates a second prize fund for your players for the session. NAPA HQ takes no fees from your side pot. As the league operator you are also not allowed to take out any fees from the side pot. It’s for the players. 100% of all side pot fees must go back to your players at the end of your session. Of course this is nothing new for NAPA of Central Missouri. We have been doing it for 10 years. Top Shark Tournament!
10/5/23 NAPA: The following rule has been added to our legal shot rules in each game format. You cannot scoop the cueball when shooting.
RULE 1.9 IN 8-BALL RULE 4.17 IN 9-BALL RULE 4.16 IN 10-BALL RULE 4.16 IN 7-BALL
9/25/23 NAPA: The print version of all NAPA rules is back online. You will find a link to each print version in the usual rules underneath the corresponding header.
At the top of each print version you will see a version number. Any time any rules are edited, added or changed, this version number will change.
The current version of all rules is v13.9. You can access it on the official rules page.
9/18/23 NAPA: Beginning today, you can now run leagues using ANY combination of games in Lagger’s Choice. You can pick any two, any three, any four, any five, or ALL six NAPA game formats! 8-ball, 7-ball, 9-ball, 10-ball, Fast-8, or 9-ball Pro! - Pick any random combination! THERE’S MORE! In Lagger’s Choice, you can now set team skill level limits and the scoring app will display the team skill calculator for you for each team.
8/25/23 NAPA: Please note, we have made a change to Rule 5.5 in the NAPA Official Rules, located on the main NAPA website. This new rule goes into effect, today.
The rule title has been changed from “Laser Sights” to “Training Aids”.
The verbiage if the rule now includes “deliberate marking” and reads as follows:
Deliberate markings or disfigurements of the playing shaft or ferrule or the use of a laser site is considered a training aid and is not allowed.
If a player is found to be in violation of this rule the following penalty applies:
In a local league match, ball in hand foul.
In a NAPA tournament, tour stop, international or national event; it is a forfeit of match.
7/25/23 NAPA: If you have to sub a player in Scotch Doubles, you no longer have to contact HQ to to put the original player back onto the team.
The original player will now, always be at the top of your pull down list. Simply select the ORIGINAL player and click submit. You’ll be good to go! Scotch Triples will be next.
7/25/23 Received from NAPA today. NAPA Nationals venue has changed.
This past weekend, in Louisville, Kentucky, a player attended our NAPA Kentucky State 8-ball Championships with evil intentions. This player did not come to play pool. This player came to take money from others with a CueSpeed Rating 43 points lower then he should have been. This was intentional on the player’s part.
When it became clear to us that this player was playing at the wrong Speed we quickly began to investigate. By the time the NAPA HQ team was able to come upon a proper conclusion, quite honestly, it was too late. The damage had already been quite severe. In our investigation we found that this player’s CueSpeed Rating had been grossly neglected and assessed by his own league operator who was fully trained on how to properly assess a player’s ability. The player took advantage of this and dumped matches to “appear” as a weak player. Obvious sandbagging. This player was doing this on the LO’s team this entire time over the course of months. The LO watched this happen all that time and did NOTHING about it. Never said anything to HQ when the LO should have immediately contacted us.
Needless to say. The player goes to Louisville and causes mass destruction. And then on top of all of that, this player openly admitted to his match “dumping”. This should NEVER happen. The difference is so extreme that I can honestly say it is the worst case of neglect in our entire company history.
We have a ZERO tolerance policy for this type of behavior and we have acted swiftly.
We have immediately banned the player for life.
We have immediately put the league operator on probation and suspended his ability to play in NAPA for 1-year.
We have fined this league operator $2,050 for violating their licensing agreement.
We have immediately pulled this year’s NAPA International Championships from the venue that this league operator manages.
We are immediately giving prize money and a refund of entry fee to the 7-players who were affected by this gross abuse.
We are immediately implementing new auditing protocols within our organization to battle cheaters like this one with tighter assessment requirements on our league operators.
Moving forward all league operators who have a player registered for a tour stop will be required to attend a CueSpeed Team Video Conference in which ALL of their players will be assessed not only by them but the HQ staff as well.
We are repaying the players for this negligence right now. The response back has been VERY positive. They are thankful and telling us that NO OTHER league would do this.
Our job is to protect our players and THAT starts at the LO. If our LO’s are being neglectful on players CueSpeed Ratings they are putting the entire system in jeopardy. We have many LO’s who do a GREAT job of contacting us before an invent and informing us of any concerns. Yet, we have many that don’t do it at all.
We are going to change the protocol so that EVERYONE is now going to be hands on.
Today, now that this terrible incident is over I have decided to add a new column to all of your CueSpeed Charts. I am adding labels to the levels. The new chart is below:
Notice on the left we now have labels. If a player is a “6 Ball Range”…they should NEVER be sent to a tour stop as a “2 Ball Range”. It’s too extreme. In my opinion, having created this system, I personally feel that no one should be out of range from their true skill level even ONE category. However, wemustremember that there has to be a slight buffer because ALL players play differently in tournaments than they do in league. At league often times the pressure isNOTas intense, players are more relaxed, and they are in their comfortable environment. Their happy place so to speak. When it comes tournament time they put the “eagle eye” on. I certainly do this as well.
Beginning today, the new protocol for our regular pre-tour stop audit is as follows:
If you have a player or multiple players registered in a tour stop…
The Wednesday before any tour stop NAPA HQ will schedule a meeting with the LO.
NAPA HQ will go through this new CSR Chart with you for ALL of your participants.
For each participant NAPA HQ is going to ask you “What ball range do you feel this player in”?
If a player is out of range based on the chart we are going to move them to the proper “ball range”.
If you don’t know because your operation contains thousands of players then we will be resourceful and find out either by Deep NAPA Analystics or picking up the phone and making calls to trusted NAPA reps.
Now, I want to make it very clear. This is not going to be an interrogation. We simply need to know your honest opinion. This past weekend happened due to negligence that could have been prevented and therefore the LO has bee fined.
You are NOT going to be fined unless you are dishonest with us or neglectful. Therefore, the last bullet point for the new protocol is this.
If you doNOTshow up for your CueSpeed Rating Conference and you have players headed to the tour stop, theyWILL NOTbe playing in it. All players must be audit by you with us
To be helpful with you on this, and save you some time, we have put a “new” player audit sheet into your LOCO System. It looks like this.
The green arrow is pointing to our game formats. 9BP stands for 9-ball Pro. Remember, all players have a different CueSpeed Rating for each game format, so underneath the “Ball Range” are boxes for each format that you can circle. These will help you do your audit before our meeting or you can even send them in for us to review before our meeting.
The audit sheet is located in your LOCO System under Player Manager.
Last, due to the fact that the offender and their league operator work and play for Iron City Billiards where we were SUPPOSED to have your Internationals this year, they MUST be moved. Players will NOT come due to this past weekend’s nightmare. This would have a devastating impact on us.
We have moved it to the Railyard in Louisville, Kentucky. Juniors ARE ALLOWED to attend. EVERYTHING ELSE IS THE SAME. SAME SCHEDULE, SAME TIME SLOTS. It’s a beautiful venue. They just had a junior nationals there, they have pro events all of the time, and the Diamond Factory is right across the river which can pump in more tables in a moment’s notice if we need them.
The website has been updated with the new Internationals information. Signups will be online soon.
7/21/23
Today, we are delighted to announce the release of the long awaited NAPA 9-ball Pro! You can play this new format in either Singes, Teams, Scotch Doubles, or Scotch Triples. You can play this new format in either Standard Team SL Cap, Modified Team SL Cap, or No-Limit Team SL Cap
We think your players are going to LOVE this format. This new format takes some good skill and strategy to play. It will put your players to the test.
**It’s regular NAPA 9-ball rules with the following exceptions:**
9-ball on break does not count as a win - 9-ball spotsimmediately- breaker keeps shooting.
Alternating breaks. No Rackless Match Bonus Point.
2-ball must always be at the bottom back point in the rack.
You can’t cheese the 9-ball for the win. It must be the last ball to drop in order to win.
You can, however, purposely pocket the 9-ball and keep shooting as long as you shoot the lowest numbered ball on the table first. After performing this shot, 9-ball spots immediately, and shooter keeps shooting.
Rack your own.
Players will have a completely separate CueSpeed 9-Ball Pro Rating for this format.
9-BALL OPTION
If, while shooting at the 9-ball, the 9-ball falls into any pocketOTHERthan the called pocket, the opponent has the option to play the 9-ball or hand the shot back to the original shooter.
7/15/23
If you have to sub a player in Scotch Doubles, you no longer have to contact HQ to to put the original player back onto the team.
The original player will now, always be at the top of your pull down list. Simply select the ORIGINAL player and click submit. You’ll be good to go!
7/15/23
Schedule v2.0 now displays any makeup matches your teams might have from previous weeks and how many. This is displayed in red. The “played” verbiage on your schedule also now is clickable and goes right to that week’s digital score cards so that you can quickly reference the matches played or not played that week.
7/12/23
Effective immediately, Rule 7.5- NUMBER OF MATCHES & FORFEIT SAVIORS is receiving two changes. #1. We are now giving the league operators the option to "limit" how often the FFS can be used on league night. Here is the exact verbiage in the rule:
Your local league operator has the option of limiting how many times teams can use the Forfeit Savior on league day/night. If no limit is set by your local league operator then the default is unlimited.
#2. Bullet #2 in the rule is changing from "can not" to "can". Here is the exact verbiage in the rule: FORFEIT SAVIOR can be purposely used to prevent a team from going over the Maximum Team Skill Level Limit. While these changes go into effect immediately, you doNOThave to implement them into your local leagues if you are mid-session. Please wait until the start of your next sessionORseek a unanimous vote from all team captains in your leagues if you prefer to implement it now.
7/11/23
Pool Duel now offers "race to handicap" tournaments. This allows you to set handicaps for players and their race is equal to their handicap. For example: If Player A is a handicap “3” and Player B is a handicap “6”, then the race for their match is a 3-6 race. Also - Player Match Records in the player view on their phones.
7/8/23
Thank you to EVERYONE who has signed up to run tournaments on Pool Duel over the last 24 hours. We are just delighted to see the response to this really cool app and the use that it is getting. If you haven't signed up yet and you run tournaments, please do sign up! Pool Duel is a game changer. It will change HOW you run your tournaments. It's impressive!
