What Is a Confidence Pool?

WHAT IS A CONFIDENCE POOL?

This is different from a confidence scheme, because a) I am not a Confidence (“Con”) Man, even though The Sting is one of my all-time favorite movies, and 2) all monies paid in will be paide out.

It’s called a "confidence pool" because you are betting not only on who you think will win the game, but also how confident you are in your selection.

Thus, it’s not just about picking the most games correctly, it’s about picking the right games correctly. Two people can both go 3-1 in a week; one can win the money, and the other has to eat beans all week.  

HIGH LEVEL OVERVIEW

(Click each line for more details, or read below)

Pick each week’s winners
Weight your picks
If you’re right, you get points
Having more points is better than not
Ties will be broken
There can be a Super Bowl Swing





Pick Each Week's Winners
Each week, you will make your picks for each playoff game, and you will also assign a “weight” to your pick. The higher the weight, the more confident you are. If you pick the game correctly, you receive the points that corresponds to the weight. During the first three rounds of the playoffs, if you pick incorrectly, you receive nothing.  

The potential values for each week's games are predetermined by the friendly officials at your crack League Office.

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Weight Your Picks
Each week, your crack League Office will email a picking slip.

Each week is weighted differently:
Wild Card Weekend is worth a maximum of 13 points;
Divisional Weekend is worth a maximum of 16 points;
Conference Championship Weekend is worth a maximum of 18 points

There are assigned weights for each week. Each weight must be used once (and only once):

Wild Card Weekend’s games can be worth 6, 4, 2, or 1 point;
Divisional Weekend’s games can be worth 7, 5, 3, or 1 point;
One Championship game will be worth 11 point, one 7 points.

Remember, you decide how many points to put on each game.

Example

So, let’s say this is the slate of games in the Wild Card Round:
Kansas City Chiefs at Houston Texans
Pittsburgh Steelers at Cincinnati Bengals
Seattle Seahawks at Minnesota Vikings
Green Bay Packers at New York Giants

Your betting slip might look like this:

Now comes time to weigh them. You see no way the Packers can be stopped, that is your rock-solid, lead-pipe lock of the week. So you would type "Packers" for "3a - The winner you are MOST CONFIDENT ABOUT."

The Seahawks are a bunch of latte-sipping singer-songwriters. You’re pretty confident Minnesota will win, but not as confident as you are in the Pack; you put the "Vikings" down for "3b". You have absolutely no faith in the your ability to pick the Houston - Kansas City game (aren't they the same team, really?), but you pick the Texans - and you put that one LAST, at "3d". That leaves the Bengals game at your "3c" (NEXT to LAST).

The scores that week were as follows:
Chiefs 17, Houston 16
Bengals 30, Pittsburgh 7
Packers 21, New York 16
Seahawks 41, Minnesota



So you’d receive NINE points for the week, based on your picks:
Chiefs won, you picked TEXANS– 0 (of 2) points
BENGALS won, although you were LEAST confident – 1 point
PACKERS won and you were MOST confident – 6 points
Seahawks won, you picked MINNESOTA – 0 (of 4) points

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Having More Points Is Better Than Not
Each week during the playoffs, whoever scored the most points that week wins the Weekly Prize. The Weekly Prize is one-sixth of the total pot.

Whoever has the most total points, from all four weeks, after the Super Bowl, wins the Grand Prize.

The Grand Prize is two-thirds of what’s left in the pot. If I did my math correctly, that should be two-sixths, or one-third, of the pot.


So what do you do with the rest of the money?
There are far too many accountants in this pool! OK, there’s still a sixth of the pot left – that will go to whoever has the second-highest total score.

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Ties Will Be Broken
In the event that two or more people have the same weighted score from picking all Playoff games in a weekend, there will be a tiebreaker identified on each week’s betting slip. Obviously, the tiebreaker only applies to those who have tied.

For instance, during Wild Card weekend, the tiebreaker will be “Most Points Scored in the Giants-Falcons Game”. Whoever comes closest to picking total points scored in that game wins the tie and wins the Weekly Prize.

During the Conference Championship and the Super Bowl, there may be additional tiebreakers identified. If, each week, all tiebreakers are exhausted and there’s still a tie, those that are tied split that week's pot.

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Great. But You Still Haven't Explained the Super Bowl Swing

Right. OK, here it goes.

For the Super Bowl, you can bet anywhere between 0 and 11 points. If you pick the Super Bowl winner correctly, you get those points added to your total. If you pick incorrectly, those points are deducted from your total.

Example:

Let’s say there’s three people in the pool:
Mr. Black has 35 points through the first three weeks
Mr. Brown has 38 points through the first three weeks
Mr. Pink has 40 points through the first three weeks

They place their bets as follows:



Further, let’s say – hypothetically, of course – the New York Football Giants beat the Patriots, 17-14.
Mr. Black receives 11 points, and wins the pool with a total of 46 points
Mr. Brown essentially didn’t bet, so he finishes at 38 points, and takes second prize
Mr. Pink LOSES 7 points, and finishes out of the money with only 33 points

If You're New to the KT Football Leagues 'Maximize Fantasy' is a Want, Not a Must

First thing to do is to log on to http://www.maximumfantasysports.com/

You should land on a page that looks like this:

Toward the top right corner, there’s a space to log in (if you’ve already registered), and a link titled “Not Registered?”


TFU: Is that an Open or a Closed Question?

If you haven’t registered, click the link. (If you have registered, go join one of the leagues. See the other posts!)

• Joining the Pick Em League 
• Joining the Survivor League

The following page loads:

There’s a lot of claptrap, but scroll down to register.

• “MFS Member ID”
  Create your nickname.
  Some people are boring and use things like initials (“RJB”), some like to highlight particular parts of their personality ("CookinWithShane", "ColinMurdochsBarber")
• Name, email address, password
  Hopefully self-explanatory.
  Use your KT email or your personal, it doesn’t matter.
• The “Address” is chiefly for folks in massive fantasy leagues.
  Put in whatever you want; it’s not important
• NOTE: If you don’t UNcheck the “I agree…” box, you will no doubt get lots of spam for other things from these clowns.

Click “Create New User”

You will see a page that reads, “Thank you for registering. An email has been sent to…”

Pause.

Check your email.

Remember – If you provided your personal email address, checking your KT email every seven seconds won’t get you any closer to playing.

You should see a message from info@maximumfantasysports.com titled “MFS Registration”.

Open the email.

Where it reads, “click here”, click there.

You’ll land on the member’s page – complete with “Breaking News” that includes such insights as a Cleveland player who's 'mindless and careless'... (As long as it's not NE QB Tom 'Brady' Bundchen, who's 'mindless and hairless'.... Oh, that sweet, beautiful hair...)

That’s it – you’re registered.

Joining the Pick 'Em Pool

Log on to your account at Maximum Fantasy Sports.


On the left side of your screen, under the website’s banner, you’ll see several options to "Create" or "Join" different leagues.

You'll want to "Join a Private Fantasy Football League/Pool". Clicking on that takes you to the Pool Selection screen.

To join the "Conscious Competent" Pick 'Em Pool enter the following information:

• Enter League ID: 787028416
• Enter Password: BixIsBig
• Click “Join League”

This will take you to the “Join League (Step Two)” page. Stay with it, here’s where it gets good.

There are two mandatory fields on this screen: “Team Name” (at the top) and “Division” (at the bottom).

• Your “Team Name” is whatever you want.
  YOU PICK YOUR OWN TEAM NAME. Again, initials are fine, but naming your team after your favorite kitten is appropriate. (I know, they’re all your favorites).
• The league is in four divisions: “Field”, “Princeton”, and "International", and "Contractor". Look out the window. Do you have a window? Do you see New Jersey? If “yes” to either question, you just might be in the “Princeton” division. Do you call this game "Gridiron" or "footie"? Welcome to the "International" division! Is the name of your company your name, followed by "and Associates", even though your "associates" are a mildewed throw pillow and a backlog of "The Drew Carey Show" on your DVR? Then you're a "contractor"!

You can also add:

• “Receive Set Pick Notifications”
  This is an automatic reminder that you need to set your pick. You can select how far before the first game of the week you’d like to get this, or if you don’t want to be notified at all.
• “Email picks after creating”
  Receive a confirmation email after you make your pick.
• “Default picks”
  The system will “suggest” picks for you. You can decide how it suggests here.

Click “Create Team”.

(Other than “Team Name”, you can change your settings at any time. Those that the system won’t allow you to change, the Commissioner can help.)

That’s it! You’re in.

So You've Done Your DA....How to Pick 'Em

Log on to your account at Maximum Fantasy Sports.

You should see the leagues for which you registered on the left side of your screen:

Click on the picture of Maxine.

That loads the League page for the “Think Clearly, It's a Complex World” Pick 'Em League.

At the top of the screen will be any special messages from the Commissioner. The good stuff is here in the blog.

Find your team in the standings and click on its name:

That loads the “Game Picks” screen:

All games are listed, in start time order. Games are pre-picked based on how you set it up in “Team Details”

Make your pick by selecting each game and clicking “Update Picks” in the upper right of your screen.

ALSO: Pick the score of the final game of the week. This is used for the weekly tiebreaker.

You can change a pick up until that game’s kickoff.

To return to the main page, click on “My Leagues” in the upper right corner.

Clicking on “Team Details” is where you can change all the settings you entered earlier.

There Are No 'Draws' in Football!

Here's how the tie breakers work for the WEEKLY "Conscious Competent" Pick 'Em:

Each week, everyone should pick the final score for the final (Monday Night) game of the week. Weekly ties - that is, ties of win-loss for the week - are broken in the following order:

1. Whoever comes closest to TOTAL points of the game, wins;
   If THAT'S a tie:
2. Whoever comes closest to points scored by HOME TEAM, wins;
   If THAT'S a tie:
3. Whoever comes closest to points scored by AWAY TEAM, wins;
   If THAT'S a tie:
4. Baldwin winsThe week ties, the payout splits evenly

"RationalForce PLUS" Survivor League Ties

1. If all the remaining teams get knocked out the same day, they all get "rebirthed" until there's a Last Man;
   (As an example, imagine that Newryan, Kossoff, and Geraghty are the only three left in Week Ten. And they all lose that same week. Then those three, and those three only, will get "rebirthed" and will continue playing the following week)
2. If we go through all 17 weeks and there's still a tie, the winner is determined by LOWEST aggregated point spread over all 17 weeks. So, for instance, if you picked 17 games correctly that had small spreads (or AGAINST the spread!), you'll do better than someone who picked lead pipe locks every week.

The spread is not used at any other time.

Joining the Survivor Pool

On the left side of your screen, under the website’s banner, you’ll see several options to "Create" or "Join" different leagues.

You'll want to "Join a Private Fantasy Football League/Pool". Clicking on that takes you to the Pool Selection screen:

• Enter League ID:    936528416
• Enter Password: fraction8
• Click “Join League”

This will take you to the “Join League (Step Two)” page. This is the second step of joining the league.

There are two mandatory fields on this screen: “Team Name” (at the top) and “Division” (at the bottom).

• Your “Team Name” is whatever you want.
  YOU PICK YOUR OWN TEAM NAME. Again, initials are fine, but so are weird interesting nicknames you can spend the rest of your career explaining (we're looking at you, "Soapy-Time Kangaroo Pants".

You can also add:

• “Receive Set Pick Notifications”
  This is an automatic reminder that you need to set your pick. You can select how far before the first game of the week you’d like to get this, or if you don’t want to be notified at all.
• “Email picks after creating”
  Receive a confirmation email after you make your pick.
• “Default picks”
  There are no default picks in this league. Each week, the system will highlight one game for you to consider, based on point spread. Here’s where you can tell it which one to highlight.

Click “Create Team”.

(Other than “Team Name”, you can change your settings at any time. Those that the system won’t allow you to change, the Commissioner can help.)

That’s it! You’re in.