Ezzie's NFL Pool, Year XII

Ever since I started high school, I've been running an annual football pool. [Shh, don't tell.] Back then, the pool was $1 (the first year) to $5 (the other years) per week, with a small discount if you were in for the whole season. Before the NFL was full of so much equality, I came up with a system that one year allowed me to win five of the last seven weeks and the overall total. Unfortunately, that doesn't work anymore - I finished 14th of 27 last year, the first time I was out of the top 10 that I can recall. Ah, nostalgia.

This year, I am running the pool for the 12th year. I'm conveniently ignoring that the pool was a failure for the two years I was in Israel; after all, the guys in WITS ran it without me those years anyway before re-joining mine. The pool is a weighted pool that awards each week and overall - if you know what that is, skip the next paragraph.

The pool has used the same rules for all the years: Each week, every person picks the winners of every game and assigns a weight between 1 and the total number of games to each winner, using each number once. They are then awarded points based on which games they got correct. People tend to put their highest numbers on the games they think are most likely to be correct (say, 16 on the Patriots hosting the Jets) and lower numbers on closer games (say, a 4 on the Browns hosting the Cowboys). Whoever got the most points in a given week would be the winner, and there would be overall winners at the end of the season based on cumulative totals.

So... here's the e-mail that was just sent out. Note that I keep nothing other than my winnings, but I do not pay an entry fee. Welcome to Ezzie's NFL Pool 2008! First order of thumb: The fee for the pool is $125. If I receive your money by September 3rd, 2008 (note: NOT if you send it - I must receive it), you get a $25 discount and must pay just $100. If you don't get your money in before September 10th, you must pay a $25 penalty, or $150. To join just for an individual week will be $10.

Winnings will only be determined after I've received everyone's money. As a gauge, 25 people paying on time would allow for $100/$10 to the weekly winners, $400/$150/$50/$30 to the overall; 30 would be 120/20 and 400/150/50/20; 35 would be 125/25/5 and 500/200/100/50/15; and 40 would be 125/40/10 and 600/250/100/50/25.

It's the standard rules from every year (weighted each week, 1 through however many games). Feel free to forward this to whomever you know; if you bring in 5 new people, you get 50% off, and if you bring in 10, you get a free entry. If anyone has questions as to the rules, feel free to email me.

I'd prefer if you send me money via Paypal if possible, but that has an additional $4 charge from Paypal if you are not a verified member, so add that if you are using it - serandez@gmail.com is my Paypal email. If you'd prefer to send a check, e-mail me for my address.

If you're interested in joining the pool, click the link below. You'll be asked to enter the pool's password before you can join. The pool password is included below.

http://ezzie.football.sportsline.com/e

Our Pool password is: Pay Up!

I'm also considering running a survivor pool once again, but I won't do so unless there's enough interest. E-mail me if you're interested.