Tie Breaker rules
In the event of a tie in the pool....
In the history of the pool, we have never had a tie for first place, but we have several times had ties for other prizes. Even though ties are relatively rare, we have always had very close scores, with nearly every year ending with only a 1 point difference between 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. With the field of players increasing beyond 70 in recent years, and perhaps more participants in the future, the probability that we will have ties increases. In the past, we have split the prize when there was a tie, but we now use a tie breaker procedure. The tie breaker rules are as follows:
- First tie breaker: total correct picks - If there is a tie in total points, the player with the most number of overall correct picks will win
- Second Tie breaker: most best bets - If the number of correct picks is also equal, the player with the most correct best bets will win
- Still tied: split the prize - If the total points, number of correct picks and the number of best bets are all equal, then the prize will be split (mathematically, if all these three measures are equal, the number of perfect weeks must also be equal and it can not be used as a tiebreaker)
- More than 2 players tied: If more than two players are tied for any prize,
tie breakers will be applied in the same order. The player(s) who lose out because of the tiebreaker, will move down one slot
either into a lower prize, or out of the prize money entirely, depending what slot the tie was for. Then the next tie breaker
will be applied to the players who remain tied.
- Tie breakers for secondary pool also: The same tie breaker rules will be applied
to the secondary pool, which is given to the person with the highest score for the last 6 weeks of the NFL season
- Losers still qualify for secondary prize: If you are in a tie, but lose because
of tiebreakers and get no prize, you are still eligible for the secondary pool
- Winners ineligible for secondary prize: However, if you do get one of the
main pool prizes, even if it is reduced because of a tie and split prize, you are not eligible for the secondary pool
- How to split the prize: If a winner does not emerge from the tie breaker rules and players split a prize, the prize will be calculated by adding the total amount of the prizes that they are tied for and dividing by the number of players that are tied.
Some basic rules for submitting picks
- Duplicate Picks: You may not enter the same team twice in your set of picks
- Opposing teams: You may not pick teams that are playing against each other on a particular week
- Timely entry of picks: All picks must be entered before the deadline. Normally, this is 1pm ET but is subject to change from week to week when informed by the commissioner
- Picking early game: If you pick a game played before the 1PM ET Sunday games, they must be submitted before that game time. Other games may be changed later, but this pick must remain
- Repeat picks: You may submit more than one set of picks, the latest one in time will be the final set.
- Illegal Picks: If any of these rules are violated, the full set of picks will be rejected and you will gete a 0 for the week. All decisions will be made by the commissioner.