Join One of Ezzie's NFL Pools

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Long-time readers of this blog may recall that every year, I run an NFL football pool among my friends and some of their friends. This year, I'm opening both the normal pool and the new "survivor" (or "suicide") pool to the blogging public. To join, e-mail me at serandez at gmail.com, with the words NFL POOL in the subject, and I will send you an invite as quickly as possible. The season begins Thursday evening, so try and not wait until the last second. Payment instructions will be sent via e-mail as well.

A quick explanation of the two pools...

Survivor:

• How it works: Each week, you must pick one NFL team to win their game. If you are correct, you stay alive; if you are wrong once, you are out of the pool. To make it trickier, you can never pick the same team twice. That means that if you use the Colts in (say) Week 2 against Houston, when Week 5 comes and they're hosting Tennessee, you can't pick them.
• How to win: Be the last one standing. If more than one person are the last in the pool and get knocked out the same week, they will split the winnings.
  
• Cost: $50/entry. $250/6 entries. No more than 6 entries per person.
  
• Prize: Almost everything that's in the pool, which depends on how many people join. There may be a small amount set aside for 2nd place or even 3rd place - this will be determined in the near future.
  

NFL Pool:

• How it works: Each week, you pick the winners of each NFL game for that week. You then have to place different weights by each game, numbered from 1 to 16 (or 14), based on how many games there are that week. The objective is to get as many points as possible. You want to place your highest numbers by the games you are most confident about, and your lowest numbers by the games you are least confident about. If the team you picked wins the game, you receive the number of points you placed by that game; if they lose, you get 0.
• I have a few examples in the sidebar under Sports, such as this one.
  
• How to win: Each week, there is a first, second, and possibly third place winner. At the end of the season, a pre-determined number of people [last year it was five of 25] will win based on their total points over the course of the season.
• Cost: $10/week, $100 for the season. [It is much simpler when people are in the pool for the entire season.]
• Prizes: All prizes depend on the number of people who eventually join. Generally, a weekly first place winner will at the least be making his money back from the season plus a bit; an overall winner will be winning a few times his original cost.

What I get out of this: I don't make any profit from the pools. However, I do not pay for my own (single) entry. For the survivor pool, a friend who will be helping me run it (and whose idea it was) will also not be paying.

To join for free: You can earn a free entry or half-off an entry by recruiting others into the pools. If you can get 6 others to join one pool that I otherwise would not have been able to get, you get 50% off; if you can get 10 others, you receive a free entry. (This can be your original entry or a second set.)

Payment: The last couple of years, I'd have taken a loss if not for the fact that I won a few times, because I had to pay out the money even though a few people never paid me. Because of that, all money this year must be sent out by Sunday, September 10th. If you join, you will receive payment instructions via e-mail.

I think that's all the important info. If you're interested, we'd love for you to join. Again - e-mail me at serandez at gmail.com with NFL POOL in the message subject.