It's World Cup pool time (Jack Bog's Blog)

The start of the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament is less than a month away, and it's time to start studying up on the field in preparation for watching the action live from South Africa. Back in '06, we ran a prediction pool, which TRP won, entitling him to free drinks at our expense. We're going to do it again, but this time, we're going to let the good folks at Yahoo do the work.

If you'd like to play, get yourself a Yahoo account, then send me an e-mail message indicating you'd like to join the group. Over the next day or two, I'll send you instructions on how to enter.

We'll chat about the standings on this blog, along with some play-by-play and cheerleading, but the guts of the tournament-keeping will be handled by the gods at Yahoo.

Speaking of which, the scoring will be as follows:

Fantasy Points by Stage	Correct Pick
Group Stage	2 points
Round of 16 (KO)	4 points
Quarterfinals (KO)	6 points
Semifinals (KO)	8 points
Finals (KO)	10 points
3rd Place Game (KO)	6 points

The Yahoo system also provides for possible "bonus points" for picking correct scores of games, but that feature will be turned off in our pool.

Apparently, this isn't exactly a "bracket," the way a lot of the college basketball pools are. As far as I can tell, players will get to pick the outcome of each game, right up until 5 minutes before the start of each game, throughout the tournament. In the "knockout" stage of the tournament, that means that one will get to pick the outcome of each game all the way to the championship, even if one's earlier picks were all wrong.

It's possible that we could end up in a tie, and the Yahoo system does not appear to provide a tiebreaker. We'll buy beverages for everyone at the top in the event of a tie, and maybe we'll come up with some sort of tiebreaker just for bragging rights.

Anyway, everybody's invited to play. It's free, and worth every penny.

Comments (4)

I've been thinking for four years about defending my title. I value the original title as it allowed me to meet the Bog for the first time in person. It also made me feel good about the people who ridiculed my picks without making any of their own.

Now it's time for some real-live research.

Posted by Paul Formerly Known As TeacherRefPoet | May 16, 2010 6:52 AM

My money's on North Korea.

Posted by Allan l. | May 16, 2010 8:13 AM

I read a really sad article about the stadium constructed for the event -- S. Africa appears to be following in the footsteps of so many other places, squandering billions on a palatial sports complex in close proximity to numerous other perfectly suitable venues that could have hosted the events -- meanwhile, millions of desperately poor South Africans will continue to struggle to afford such niceties as clean water and regular meals.

Posted by George Anonymuncule Seldes | May 16, 2010 12:59 PM

Best country by country synopsis is here:

http://nplusonemag.com/world-cup-preview

Posted by Shadrach | June 11, 2010 10:43 AM

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Sunday, May 16, 2010

It's World Cup pool time

Comments (4)

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