Mike Furley
03-16-2011, 07:42 AM
Tired of entering a bracket pool each March only to realize that you're out of contention after the first round games complete? I've been doing bracket pools since I was in middle school and only once did I ever have a sheet that was relevant up to the final four.
I may have posted on this before in a previous year, I can't remember, but I wanted to share with the forum a pool my brother and friends have been doing for about the past ten years and it's a lot more fun than doing the brackets.
We call it the 8 Man pool. Here are the rules:
1.) Have eight people who want to participate.
2.) Each person pledge $80.
3.) Hold a "Snake" draft: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1...etc
4.) Each owner drafts eight teams from the field of 64.
5.) Each game that one of your eight teams wins will earn you $10 back from your pledge.
6.) At the end of the tourney, the owners who won less than 8 total games pays the difference to those owners who won more than 8 total games.
The fun aspect of this is that nobody is out of contention after the first round games because the top four people picking will have a 1 & 4 seed team and the bottom four people will have a 2 & 3 seed team so the odds are in your favor that at least one of those teams will survive the first weekend.
If you draft the winner of the NCAA, you have 6 wins in your pocket.
Most years there is a "big loser" who only wins 4 to 5 games and a "big winner" that wins 12 to 13 games. For the most part, people are usually between 6 and 10 wins - meaning that you either lose $20 or $10, break even, or finish up $10 or $20.
The thing is, getting to 8 wins is a lot more daunting once you have 4 wins, so there is a lot of drama.
If 7 others on the forum want to try it out, I'll hold a draft tonight at 10PM Eastern. No money will be at stake for this one, it will just be an educational/fun pool so you can see how it works.
My hope is that you'll see how much more fun this pool is relative to the normal bracket pools and you'll start one of these with your own buddies.
I may have posted on this before in a previous year, I can't remember, but I wanted to share with the forum a pool my brother and friends have been doing for about the past ten years and it's a lot more fun than doing the brackets.
We call it the 8 Man pool. Here are the rules:
1.) Have eight people who want to participate.
2.) Each person pledge $80.
3.) Hold a "Snake" draft: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1...etc
4.) Each owner drafts eight teams from the field of 64.
5.) Each game that one of your eight teams wins will earn you $10 back from your pledge.
6.) At the end of the tourney, the owners who won less than 8 total games pays the difference to those owners who won more than 8 total games.
The fun aspect of this is that nobody is out of contention after the first round games because the top four people picking will have a 1 & 4 seed team and the bottom four people will have a 2 & 3 seed team so the odds are in your favor that at least one of those teams will survive the first weekend.
If you draft the winner of the NCAA, you have 6 wins in your pocket.
Most years there is a "big loser" who only wins 4 to 5 games and a "big winner" that wins 12 to 13 games. For the most part, people are usually between 6 and 10 wins - meaning that you either lose $20 or $10, break even, or finish up $10 or $20.
The thing is, getting to 8 wins is a lot more daunting once you have 4 wins, so there is a lot of drama.
If 7 others on the forum want to try it out, I'll hold a draft tonight at 10PM Eastern. No money will be at stake for this one, it will just be an educational/fun pool so you can see how it works.
My hope is that you'll see how much more fun this pool is relative to the normal bracket pools and you'll start one of these with your own buddies.