WELL Virtual Football Pool XVII

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The rules are simple:

Each player begins with a stake of 7500 virtual dollars. You get your stake when you post your first bet in the WELL Virtual Football Pool XVII topic (1406 in the Sports conference).

Every week when there are college or (non-exhibition) NFL games, I'll post the betting lines for those games the Tuesday before. Bet as much or as little as you want on as many games as you want. Bets must be in whole dollars.

To bet on a game, post in topic 1406. Bets should be the amount, followed by the team you are wagering to win against the spread. As an example, to bet 100 virtual dollars on the Seacaucus Spamhawks and 400 dollars on the Fighting Gynecologists of Johns Hopkins University, just post:

 100    Spamhawks
 400    Johns Hopkins

To avoid confusion between pro and college teams, use the name of the school for college games and the team nickname for pro games. Home teams are posted in ALL CAPS.

On occasion I will post over/under lines to wager against. These lines are based on the total points scored by the two teams combined; you wager whether that combined total will be over or under the line given (hence the name). Because the over/under lines all use abbreviations to save space, these lines will appear directly beneath the usual point spread lines for the same game to avoid confusion. An example from might illustrate:

TROY              11.5 mdl tennessee st  [4 pm]
TU+MTSU OVER      58.5 tu+mtsu under     [4 pm]

Troy (the home team) is favored by 11.5 points over visiting Middle Tennessee State. The over/under line is at 58.5. To win the over bet the two teams would have to score at least 59 points combined; to collect on the under they would have to score 58 points or fewer. The time in brackets is the deadline for placing wagers on the day of that game; all times are Pacific.

If the spread is an even point value and the teams tie against the spread, this is called a push. Your bet result will be recorded as a tie and the house cheerfully refunds your virtual dollars wagered on that particular line.

If you want to change or retract a bet, do not scribble your post, but instead make another post with your revised betting information.

Parlay bets --bets of the form "I'm betting my entire stake of 100 on the Spamhawks, and when they win let it all ride on Johns Hopkins"-- are accepted only if the bet is placed in the proper sequence of games. If Johns Hopkins plays before te Spamhawks, only the Spamhawks bet will count. If the games are being played at the same time, only the first bet listed will be counted (in this case the Spamhawks).

If the second game begins before the first one ends because the first one runs long (say, due to overtime), the house will allow the winnings from the first wager to be rolled over into the second wager. The house doesn't have the time to track start and end times that closely. A second game that is scheduled to start sooner than 3 hours after the first game will not be allowed in that parlay.

As always, your bets must be placed prior to the post time of the game as shown in the line posting. The post times will always be on the hour or half-hour. Games that are scheduled to start at 0-29 minutes past the hour will have a post time of the nearest previous hour; games scheduled to start between 30-59 minutes past the hour will have a post time of the nearest previous half-hour.

There are two special spreads to be aware of. If a line says "pick" it means that the point spread is zero and you win if your team wins outright. If the line says "NL" this means that No Line has been posted. While you can make wagers against NL games in anticipation of an eventual line, if none is posted in the topic any wagers made against that game will not be counted in the same manner as bets made after a deadline.

If you believe a line has been posted incorrectly, please ask me about it as early as possible. I'm human and make typos, too.

Decisions of Der Jungenpühlmeister when necessary will be made in accordance with the spirit and intent of the rules. I am open to reasoned arguments while reaching my decisions.

Finally, this is a contest of football analysis not an exercise in gamesmanship. Trying to maintain a lead by simply mirroring the betting of your trailing opponents will be considered poor sportsmanship and frowned upon by Der Jungenpühlmeister; if I find myself frowning enough I reserve the option of acting to restore the competitive balance of the pool as I see fit.

And that's all there is to it! Come on and join the fun!

RJ Johnson