NCAA Tourney Pool Rules
You must be 18 years or older, be a legal resident of the United States of America (or Switzerland) and have a valid driver's license. Persons with known heart defects or pregnant women are advised against participating in this type of activity for safety concerns associated with prolonged stressful behavior.
Send your $20 payment, drawn from a reputable bank to our accountant. For information on where to send payment go here:
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Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the action!
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Scoring
Points will be awarded each round for each correct prediction, or pick, made on a game by game basis. Points vary per round depending on the proximity of the contests to the actual crowning of the NCAA champion. Picks for each round are based on the teams you picked to win in the previous round (ie once you pick a team to lose you cannot pick them again in a later round, isn’t that right Foist)!
Points will also be awarded for correctly picking upsets during the tournament. The points awarded will be based on the difference between the seeded values of the two teams. For instance correctly predicting a #15 seed beating a #2 seed in the 1st round is worth 13 points in addition to the normal points awarded for that round (which in this case is 5 points, for a total of 18 points).
Pool Details
Scoring System, by Round
Main Pool Payouts
Winning (Duh!)
Points for each round will be accummulated and the winners will be paid according to the number of entrees in the pool. At this time, this number is not known, but in general, the top 10% of the entrants will win a cash prize.
See some rough breakdowns in the nifty table shown above!
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In addition, there's a small bit of winnings reserved for 69th place. Why 69th? Unclear, but somewhere along the way this became tradition ... so we kept it.
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QuickPiks
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Per usual ... we will be giving everyone 5 Quik Piks this year with your entry -- these are randomly generated picks that will be put into a separate pool with a separate stack of cash to be won. Good clean fun. We'll send you your picks shortly so you know who to root for. We'll pay out the Top 3 winners!
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Sweet 16 Pool
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By popular demand we've also included a Sweet 16 pool starting the 2nd week of the tourney. There will be a separate entry form, and you simply pick from the pool of teams who successfully made the Sweet 16. This is a winner takes all side pool, with a $10 entry fee! Extra goodness, extra fun!
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The Last Word...
It should be noted that in all the years this pool has been run, very seldom have the most knowledgable basketball fans walked away with the top prize money. I don't know why, perhaps it has to do with the propensity toward upsets in the tourney, but usually its a first time entrant who professes not to know anything about John Wooden, a Hoosier, or Phi-Slamma-Jamma, and just picks based on team color or the mascots name and just kills the so-called experts. Mark my word, it'll happen! So if you are worried that you don't belong, don't be, just play, I got $5 you'll probably beat me and I run this damn thing every year...
OK, Ready to make your picks? Lets go to the Form Submit Page!
