Football Pool Frequently Asked Questions


For purposes of explanation, let's assume your pool name is "Joe's Pool", and your personal page name is http://www.castle64.com/joespool.htm
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How do I add players?

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How do I do a COLLEGE-ONLY pool?

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How do I do a "roll-your-own" pool?

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How do I change a players picks?

You can change a players picks by signing in as them and making the change. To find the players password, use the "update players" program on the game-runner menu (in "list" mode).

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When are point spreads updated?

Point spreads are updated as of Tuesday night at 9:00PM. If you have a personal page, you can update your own point spreads by using the "Update Scores/Spreads" option. You have this ability because with the personal page, your system is in it's own database, so changing your spreads doesn't affect anyone else. If you are in the "communal" system, you either have to live with the spreads as of Tuesday 6PM, or you can do a "roll-your-own" pool in which you put in your own games/spreads.

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How do I run an NFL SURVIVOR Pool?

A survivor pool is one in which people are ELIMINATED after missing, usually, just one pick. So a normal scenario would be something like this: everyone picks one team each week, but cannot re-use that team ever again. As soon as they miss one, they're out. The game goes on until there's just one person left. To set this up do the following:

Of course, some survivor pools vary: You might have to pick more than one team a week, and you might be eliminated after missing some other number of games

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I'm not good at computers. Can you tell me step-by-step how to set up a new pool?

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What does "n/a" and "c/s" mean?


"n/a" means "not available": the player didn't make his picks!
"c/s" means "can't show": the pool is still open so you can't see the other guy's picks! (note: you can allow people to see other players picks before the pool is closed using configuration options)

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How do I DELETE a player?


On your game runner menu, go to "Update Players". In that program, there is an option to delete the players. So, in our example pool, you would do this:

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I deleted a player by accident. How do I put him back in?


You add in a deleted player the same way new players are added: you go into "Make Picks" and sign in as him. Note: if you delete a player, his picks are NOT deleted! So by signing in as him, it will re-create his player entry, and his picks will magically re-appear...

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How do I put picks in for a player after the game has started or the pool is closed


You can put in picks for any player by going to "Make Picks" on your personal page, then use the GAME RUNNER password to go into make picks. Not the INITIAL password, but the GAME RUNNER password, the same one you use to update the stats. In this mode, you can "Make Picks" for the player in any week, even if the pool is closed or the game has already started. There will be a big warning on the screen saying you are overriding any closes!

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One of my players forgot his password. How do I find his password?


To find a player's password, go to the Game Runner menu, and run "Update Players". This program will show you all the player passwords. You can also CHANGE passwords in here if you need to!

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How do I update my overall stats?


To update your overall stats, use the "Calculate Winners" program on your game runner menu. There is a checkbox to update weekly stats or overall stats. Run this only ONCE per week for the overall stats. In case you accidently run it more than once in a week, you can use Reset Pool to reset the overall stats back to zero, then re-run "Calculate Winners" for each week. Note: Reset Pool only updates OVERALL STATS, it does NOT delete any player picks!

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I'm starting late: how do I put in the scores for the prior weeks?

There are 2 ways to put in your prior week scores: Future updates: There may be some improvements on this in the future. One would be to have an ADJUSTMENT function, so that you would ADJUST (not just SET) a player score. That adjustment would be saved in a table so that if you ever recalc, it would be brought back in automatically. The second would be to have an "import picks from spreadsheet" function to automatically bring in picks from some spreadsheet you have set up.

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My OVERALL WINNERS report looks wrong. How do I fix it?

Usually the overall winners report gets messed up if you run the "calculate winners" program twice by accident, thus doubling up one week in the overall stats.

There is an EASY way to fix this! Just use "Reset Pool" to reset your overall stats to zero. Then run "Calculate Winners" for each week. That will get everything back to normal.

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I think the game-runner is cheating. How can I make sure he's not?

Our online office pool has a big advantage over the normal office pool where you fill out your pick sheets and turn them in to the pool runner. In the normal paper-based office pool, you have to trust your game runner. You turn in your sheets to him. If he's playing, there's no way you can know whether he's changing his picks after the fact! The only way you could be sure would be to get a photo-copy of his pick sheet on Friday.

In our online pool, this is not a problem! How can you make sure NOONE is cheating? Simply do a "Show Picks" right after the cutoff deadline. Save that to your hard drive: (In internet explorer, do a File->Save As). You now have proof of everyone's picks: you can be sure no one has changed their picks after the games have started!

We also have yet another option: the "Dump Picks" program on the player menu. This will show you the Date/Time stamp of everyones picks for the week: when they were ADDED and when they were MODIFIED. In this program, however, you have to give the game-runner some leeway. For example, one of the players may have emailed his picks in, and the game-runner might not get them input into the system until later. However, the game-runner should have a good explanation of any pick changes or additions that go into the system after the deadline.

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Does the web site back up my pool?

The answer to this one is a big NO. The game-runner is repsonsible for backing up up the pool. There is a simple and easy way to back up your pool: Do a "Show Picks" right around the deadline, and save it to your hard drive (in Internet Explorer, go to File->Save As). We have a program that can restore your entire pool just from the "Show Picks" listings for each week. If you save your show picks each week, you can be sure the pool can be recovered in case the data gets corrupted or wiped out on the server.

We've had problems in the past where picks have been lost. For example, one time the server ran out of disk space. My web hosting account was supposed to have 250 meg of disk space but in reality it only had 150 meg (THEIR mistake!). When we hit the incorrect 150 meg limit, everyone's data was corrupted, some picks were lost, it was a big mess.

The solution is for each game runner to do a Show Picks each week and save it. I've written a program that can re-build your entire pool (players, picks, etc) just from the Show Picks report. You can also use this Show Picks backup if anyone is questioning whether someone had changed their picks after the deadline: the Show Picks has a date/time stamp, you can print it or email it to the person with the questions.

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My pool is picking every game & 3 best bets. How do I set up best bets?

Best bests is a "confidence pool". Go to "confidence pool" options in "modify football pool" and set it up as "confidence pool and ADD the confidence points". Then set it up as 1 - 3 (1 confidence point, can assign to 3 games).

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How do I set an option to have our pool close 1 hour before the start of the first game of the week?

Go to "Modify Football Pool", and go to "DeadLine Day", and put in SU, and "Deadline Time", put in 12PM. You don't need to worry about Thursday / Saturday games because they get automatically greyed-out once they start. If you DO want to block picks before the first game if there's a Thursday / Saturday game, you'll need to change your Deadline day and time.

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I can't make picks! My Pool is closed!!

Follow these steps.
NOTE: if you manually open or close the pool, that overrides your deadline! So you'll need to manually close it as well!

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We are running a confidence pool and players get a point for each correct pick as well as the confidence points. I want them to just get the confidence points.

Go to "modify football pool", then "Confidence Pool Options". Change it from "confidence pool and ADD the confidence points" to "confidence pool confidence points only".

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My Overall Winners report show's all zeros for my players. How come?

You probably just need to run the "Calculate Winners" program from your game runner menu!

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My Overall Winners report doesn't match what I think the total score should be. What should I do?

What you can do is what we call "reset and recalc". You run the RESET POOL program, to reset your overall stats to ZERO for all players. (Don't worry, the PICKS are still there. This just resets the OVERALL stats). Then we RECALCULATE each week using the CALCULATE WINNERS program. For example, lets say you think JOEDOG should have 55 points, but the system shows you 46 points. Open up 2 browsers. Put one browser in the "Calculate Winners" program on your game runner menu, and put one browser on the "Overall Winners" program. Now recalulate each week, and make sure each week the total comes to what you think it should be by looking at Overall Winners. For example:

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I want to FORCE a player to have a certain number of points in a certain week. How do I do it?

The way to do this is to use MAKE PICKS, and sign in using the GAME RUNNER password (not the player password). Using the Game Runner password does an override if the pool is closed or the games are already over. You can then pick the games you want for him. For example, suppose your player name is BROWN and it is Week 1 of NFL, and you want him to have 15 points, and your pool is joespool.htm. Here's what you do:

I do SHOW PICKS and print it, and it doesn't fit on my printer. What do I do?

The first thing is to set the fonts and stuff the way it tells you: If it still doesn't fit, here are some other things to try:

How can I copy the Show Picks report into Excel?

The best way to copy the Show Picks report into Excel is to use the Windows copy/paste functions. You may not like the formatting that Excel does automatically when you paste in a web page. If you want to get just the RAW DATA into Excel, so that you can do your own formatting, you can do it this way:

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What about Thursday and Saturday games and my deadline?

You do not need to worry about Thursday and Saturday games! The reason is that all games are automatically GREYED-OUT 5 minutes before game time. Therefore, if you have a Sunday noon deadline, you can just leave it alone. No one can pick the Thursday or Saturday games after they start, so you don't need to worry about those.

Also, SHOW PICKS will SHOW any games that have already started! So everyone can see what everyone else picked the minute the games start.

In fact, since games are automatically greyed-out once they start, you really don't even need a deadline. But most game runners still like to have a deadline, maybe because that's the way it's always been done...

Some pool runners prefer to TAKE OUT the Thursday games completely: because all their co-workers are too busy or whatever to get their picks in before Thursday. If you want to do that, it's easy: go to your Game Runner Menu and hit the "Override Point Spreads or Delete Certain Games" link. There, you can take OUT the Thursday (and/or Saturday) games. They won't show up on Show Picks or on Make Picks: it will be as if they never existed...

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I can't see other players picks. Why not?

Normally, the game runner will set up the pool so that you can not see other players picks until after the pool is closed.

This is an OPTION: in "Modify Football Pool", in "Basic Options", there is an option "When should players be allowed to show other players pics". On this radio button, you can choose "Any Time", or the default "Only when pool is closed". Usually game runners do NOT want anyone to see other peoples picks until AFTER the pool is closed. Personally, I think it's more fun to add a little strategy and let people look at other peoples picks and constantly change things back and forth up until game time! But that's not the norm...!

If you are the GAME RUNNER, if you want to see picks, but don't want to allow everyone to see picks any time, you can TEMPORARILY close the pool (use open/close pool on the game runner menu). Then you can see the picks. Then you can re-open the pool so that other players can make picks.

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My question is still not answered. What do I do now?


If you have read the faq carefully and still can't find the answer to your question, I will be happy to answer it by email.

Just email me at craigh01@gmail.com

Try to be as specific as possible. For example, sending me an email saying "One of my players claims he picked the Jets but the report shows him picking Cleveland". Telling me which player would be KEY here for me to answer the question.


How does the tie-breaker work? Closest, or closest without going over?

CLOSEST! So, if the score is 42, and Joe had 43, and Sally had 40, then Joe wins because he was only 1 point away. This COULD be changed as a custom programming request, but for now everyone seems to be able to live with this rule.

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