THE CURLING POOLS MASTER RULES DOC
RULES! INSTRUCTIONS! INFORMATION!
For all round-robin style curling pools.
Here it is, the MASTER pool rules document. It covers all the curling pools that are based on selected round robin games plus the playoffs! Keeping in mind the little differences between different competitions. So check it out!
ENTRY FORMS: Well, the entry form is basically the same for each pool. They all use the new format of Pool forms. The entry sheet is a fancy new Excel form which is way easier to fill out on computer. It has drop-down everything except where you put your name and contact info! But you can still print it off and fill it out by hand if that’s the way you like to do it. Credit for the original entry form goes to a guy at MTS.
NAME AND CONTACT INFO: Put your name as you would like to see it in the pool. You can use your actual name, or an alias. But I must know who people are, and if you win under an alias I will give away your real name. You may also put your phone number on here, in case I need to contact you. As well you may put your email address, for the same reason. If you do put your email address, I will assume you want emailed updates. If you don’t, just put a note saying “no emailed updates”. Or just leave the email box empty and I won’t email you in that case.
POOL NAME AND DATES: Each pool specifies what curling event it is for (ie. 2010 Brier, 2009 Olympic Trials, etc.). Then it has the dates that the event, and likewise the pool, runs.
ENTRY FEE: The pool entry fee is also noted on the Entry Form. It’s usually $2.00. It is appreciated that you pay your entry fee at the time you enter the pool, or as soon as you see me after sending in an entry, or even before. All entries should be paid before the start of the pool, unless you have an arrangement with me. If it appears to me that a person doesn’t seem to care whether they pay for their entry in a pool, then I think it’s fair that such a person’s entry can be removed from the pool, and the person can be barred from future pools. If you can make the effort to enter, you should likewise make the effort to pay. It’s only fair, I think!
SUBMITTING YOUR ENTRY: Once you have filled out your form, find whatever way you can to get me your picks. If you fill out the entry form online, you MUST save it on your computer, and then email it to me as an attachment. If you’ve printed off the form and filled it out by hand, you must hand it in or mail it to me; or, you can fill it out or just type your picks into and email, and send them to glenmoor@shaw.ca. Any way you can get your entry or entries in is fine. You may even phone in your picks, if I’m home (582-3028).
NUMBER OF ENTRIES: You may submit as many entries as you like. As long as you pay for them! This has always been allowed in all the pools, I just never really came right out and said it.
PREPAYMENT OF ENTRY FEES: If you’re a person who’s probably going to be going in every pool in a pool season, please consider paying for all the pools at once. A normal curling pool season has 4 pools: The Tournament of Hearts, the Brier, and the Men’s and Women’s World Championships. That’s $8.00 for 4 pools. (Though the 2010 pool season had SEVEN pools, and started in November of 2009! All those OLYMPIC pools.) Just pay all at once, and then if you win, you can collect any time, or hang in there til the last pool of the season, and collect all your winnings at once! Or leave enough “ON TAB” for the following season. Or the CFL pool season. Lots of people do that. I keep track of all money on a balance sheet, I won’t forget. And if you change your mind and want to drop out of the pools, that’s fine, I’ll pay out your balance. It’s your money, after all!
LONG DISTANCE ENTRIES: Many people in the pools are from outside Winnipeg, some of them I’ve never met! But they are able to play because they send in their entry fees by mail, or through a person that I may be in contact with. In this case, it’s especially good to pay all at once, at the start of the pool season, by mail. And that’s what these people do. Sure, a stamp is 57 cents (or so). But hey look at all the fun you get! And if you are an out-of-towner and you win, if you want, at the end of the season I will mail you a cheque for your winnings. I don’t mind paying for a stamp. Oh by the way it’s best NOT to send cash in the mail, as they say. A cheque is best!
ENTRY DEADLINE: This will be the exact time of day that the pool starts. Usually it’s the time of the first draw, but sometimes it’s different. Each entry form will say. The deadline is the time you must get your entry and your payment in by. If emailing, your entry must be in my inbox by the deadline.
LATE ENTRIES: You can miss the deadline, but not by much, in order to enter without any penalty! As long as the first draw in the event or on the pool has not completed, or is still very early on and the outcome does not appear to be clear. It will be up to my discretion whether a late entry will be accepted, based on the above criteria. So if you happen to be late, give it a try and I’ll have a look to see how things are progressing in the actual event.
LATE ENTRY PENALTIES: If you enter after games are completed, or an outcome is clear, penalties can be applied, again at my discretion. Entries accepted after this time will be charged penalties as follows: For each game that is completed, well underway, or the outcome is obvious (as judged by me), these will become your top, then 2nd highest point games, etc., and you lose those points. If yours happens to be a late entry, what happens is I will take the first game, switch the points you have on it with whatever your top point game is, and then this first game does not count. This will also be done for the second game and your second-highest point game, and then this second game does not count. And so on. I think this is fair to everyone else, and hopefully won’t apply to anybody anyway! But if you’re going to be penalized, you may as well make the completed games your top point games, so you don’t get stuck with high points on some crappy matchup!
FILLING OUT THE ENTRY FORM IN DETAIL: Okay here we go! The actual filling out of the form!
It’s your choice if you want to use the online Excel entry form, where you just click to select all the teams, winners, and points, OR if you want to print it out and do it with pen or pencil. If you do use paper entries, make sure your picks are legible, if you could, that makes things easier all round.
ROUND ROBIN GAMES: Select the winner for each selected round robin game on the form. There’s usually about 15 to 25 round robin games on a pool. These are not all the games in the tournament; rather, these are hopefully the more challenging ones to predict. And I usually try to include every participating team at least once or twice.
PLAYOFF GAMES: Select teams you think will play in each playoff game, AND the winners of these games. There’s usually 5 playoff games: 2 Page Playoff games, a semi-final, and a Bronze and Gold medal match. (Bronze is new to the Hearts and Brier as of 2011. The world competitions always had a Bronze match.)
NEW! YOUR PLAYOFF TEAMS ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE. This was introduced with the 2011 pools! So you now must place teams, winners and losers, in the EXACT Page Playoff games to get full points. Likewise in the Bronze and Gold (Final) matches. But, you still get ¼ points for placing a team in the wrong Playoff or Medal match. Also, you can have totally different teams in the playoff, semi-final, bronze and gold matches, it doesn’t matter if these games don’t relate in any way. This would be like covering all bases, if you aren’t totally sure who will be in the playoff action. Totally up to you! (NOTE: World Cup Soccer pools still have interchangeable playoff games! See that pool’s entry form for full details.)
ASSIGN RANK POINTS: Assign ranking points to each game on the pool. The ranking points are listed down the RIGHT side of the form. Use each number only once. Use the HIGHEST points for the games you are MOST sure of; and use the LOWEST points for the games you are LEAST sure of. Until all games have a ranking.
FILLING OUT THE ENTRY FORM CORRECTLY: You are responsible for filling out the sheet correctly. If errors are not noticed until it is too late, appropriate action must be taken that is fair to other entrants, which means you may lose points. However I will try to contact people if corrections are required!
TEAM INFORMATION: For each pool, there is always information on the participating teams. In the Tournament of Hearts and the Brier, this information is on page 2 of the Pool Entry Form. For the World Curling Pools, the info is on separate TEAMS documents. Either way, it’s information on how the teams are doing this season, and/or how they’ve done before. Hopefully information that will help you make your picks!
THE PAGE PLAYOFF SYSTEM IN CURLING COMPETITIONS: This is the format most Curling competitions use. In this system, the 1st place team meets the 2nd place team, and the 3rd place team meets the 4th place team. The winner of 1 vs 2 goes directly to the final, or Gold match; the loser gets a second chance against the winner of the 3 vs 4 game in the Semi-Final. The winner of the Semi-Final game goes to the Gold Medal game. And the losers of the Semi and the 3 vs 4 playoff game get to fight it out in the Bronze Medal game. (The Bronze game is now part of the Tournament of Hearts and the Brier!) For a visual representation of this playoff system, please see document Pics/PagePlayoffGuideFeb2015.jpg, designed by one of our regular pool players!
ABBREVIATED PLAYOFF FORMATS: Some competitions, like the Olympic Trials, do not use the 1v2 3v4 playoffs. Instead, the top 3 round robin teams advance to the playoffs: the 1st place team goes straight to the final, and meets the winner of the semi-final game between the 2nd and 3rd place teams! That’s it. So no playoff ¼ point bonuses in these pools, just ½ points.
WINNING THE POOL: The person with the most points at the end of the pool is the winner! And those that are 2nd and 3rd usually also win prizes, depending on the number of entries in the pool. For details see the “PRIZE DISTRIBUTION” section!
PRIZE DISTRIBUTION: Here’s the details of pool prize distribution. ALL entry money collected is paid out in prizes. In the event of ties, money is distributed evenly between the tied people. And the number of winners will always match the number of top prizes, unless someone is tied for the lowest top prize, in which case there will be more winners. Some examples of ties: Say two people are tied for first. In this case the top two people split the 1st and 2nd place prizes equally. So if there are only 3 prizes as in the table below, these people each get 40% of the prize pool – 50% plus 30%, divided by two. Then the person with the next highest points to them takes the 3rd place prize. And if there’s, say, 4 prizes, only 4 people will win prize money, unless anyone else is tied for 4th, in which case extra people will win money! I.E. if there’s a 3-way tie for 4th, then they split the 4th place prize evenly. Not much eh! But you still get the prestige of being a winner! And all others will be in awe of you. Notice the new scheme, for 57 or more entries there will be SIX prizes now. Share the wealth, I say! Here’s the table of prizes then!
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Number of Entries: |
Prizes: |
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1 – 3 |
1st = 100% (Absolutely Amazing!) |
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4 – 9 |
1st = 60%, 2nd = 40% |
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10 – 19 |
1st = 50%, 2nd = 30%, 3rd = 20% |
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20 – 39 |
1st = 50%, 2nd = 25%, 3rd = 15%, 4th = 10% |
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21 or more |
All pools with 21 entries or more will have a last place prize of $2.00! Which is taken from the full prize pool BEFORE the percentages are applied. |
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40 – 56 |
1st = 45%, 2nd = 25%, 3rd = 15%, 4th = 10%, 5th = 5% |
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57 or more |
1st = 40%, 2nd = 22.5%, 3rd = 15%, 4th = 10%, 5th = 7.5%, 6th = 5% |
ACCOUNTABILITY: Once all the entries are in and the pools are underway, everyone’s picks are available in the master spreadsheet, for everyone to see. You can see yours and if you notice an entry error please do not hesitate to let me know! But also, anyone could conceivably act as watchdog, and ensure that all the picks published at the start of the pool are unchanged by the end of the pool. So you can verify that your own picks have been entered correctly, but also you can be confident there are no shenanigans going on in the pools! Having said that, sometimes I do have to get clarification from people if some of their picks are not clear, and I may have to correct them from time to time. But only if there is no unfair advantage in doing the correction. And never past say, Tuesday or Wednesday of the round robin part of the pool! By that time their picks would have to remain as entered. And my picks never change! Hope this dispels any doubts some suspicious people may have had. My belief is, you couldn’t run a crooked pool for long, somebody would always find out and then no one would enter ever again. And good thing too!
PLAYOFF BONUS POINTS: Okay so, as I said before, even if you don’t pick the correct winners in the playoff, semi-final, bronze and final games, you still get bonus points for picking the right teams to play and win and/or lose these games. So we have two playoff games which have 4 different teams participating in them; a semi-final with two teams, and the bronze and final with 4 different teams. So what we do is pick all the different teams for each of these groups:
1. PLAYOFF GAMES: The first place team plays the 2nd place team, and the 3rd place team plays the 4th place team. So we need 4 different teams here. NEW as of 2011: You must select the winner of the EXACT playoff game to get full points. Then, for each team you put in the EXACT playoff match, but didn’t win, you get ½ your points. And finally, for each team you place in the playoffs, in the wrong playoff game, you still get ¼ of your points for putting them in the playoffs. Note though you can only score once for each team!
2. SEMI-FINAL GAME: If you correctly pick the winner here, of course you get your full points. Then, for each team you put in the Semi-final that actually plays in it, you get ½ of your points for each team. Of course you can only score once for each team.
3. THE BRONZE AND FINAL GAMES: Same as the playoffs, full points for picking winners of the exact game; ½ points for each team that you place in the exact game; and finally ¼ points for placing a team in the wrong medal match.
Use these example hypothetical results for the following examples:
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1 VS 2 PLAYOFF: TEAM CANADA BEATS B.C. 3 VS 4 PLAYOFF: ONTARIO BEATS ALBERTA |
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SEMI-FINAL: ONTARIO BEATS B.C. |
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BRONZE: ALBERTA BEATS B.C. |
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FINAL: TEAM CANADA BEATS ONTARIO |
Example 1: You picked Team Canada to beat Newfoundland in the 1 vs 2 playoff for 15 points. Obviously you get 15 points for Canada, but none for Newfoundland coz they weren’t in the playoffs at all.
Example 2: You picked Team Canada to beat B.C. in the 3 vs 4 playoff for 12 points. Since the playoffs are no longer interchangeable, you only get ¼ points for Team Canada, and ¼ points for B.C., So you get 3 for Team Canada and 3 for B.C., so that’s 3 + 3 = 6 points.
Example 3: You picked Team Canada to beat B.C. in the Semifinal for 17 points. Since Canada wasn’t in the semifinal, you get nothing for that, but, you do get ½ of your 17 points for correctly placing B.C. in the semifinal; so, you get ½ of 17 points which is 8 and ½ points, or 8.5 points (no rounding). Note that it doesn’t matter Team Canada was in the 1 vs 2 playoff and in the final; since they weren’t in the semifinal, you get nothing for Team Canada here.
Example 4: All correct: You picked Alberta over B.C. in the Bronze for 16 points, and Team Canada over B.C. in the Final for 7 points. SO you receive your full 16 points for Alberta since they won the Bronze, ½ of 16 points for placing B.C. in the Bronze, your full 7 points for Team Canada, since they won the Bronze, and ½ of 7 points for placing Ontario in the final. So altogether that’s 16 + 8 + 7 + 3.5 = 34.5 points! For putting just 23 points on the 2 games. THAT’S how the playoff bonus points pay off!
ENOUGH ALREADY, GO GET THE ENTRY FORM, AND GOOD LUCK NOW! Thanks for playing! Hey if you have any questions please contact me somehow! My contact info is above.
This form, and any other Glen pool documents, can be found at: http://members.shaw.ca/glenmoor/Pools/GlenPools.html
