Official Rules of the 2012 Summer Movie Pool

04/03/12

The rules are rather basic. Simply pick a Top Ten list of summer movies, and then rank them in the order that you believe they will finish. The pool runs from May 1st to Aug 31st; therefore, send in your picks and money by May 1st. The final numbers will be tallied on Sept 1st, which is when a winner will be determined. Be sure to pick movies whose release dates fall between May 1st and August 31st. It isn't our fault if release dates change, so do your homework. Because the start of the Pool is May 1st, any movie that comes out in April will not be allowed as a valid choice. Occasionally, decent movies get released the last week of April. But they are released in April for a reason... THEY ARE NOT SUMMER MOVIES. Thus, they are NOT eligible to qualify.

The scores will be calculated this way: Whoever has the highest number of picks in the Top Ten at the end of the summer wins outright. Pretty simple. However, if there is a tie in the number of correct picks, the scoring will be done in the following manner: Deviation Score. The Deviation Score is a tally of the differences between the predicted rank and the actual rank of all ten of your movies. A perfect score would be zero. The better the prediction, the lower the score. For example, if you picked Movie A to be #2, and it actually finished #1, you would have a Deviation Score of 1 for that movie. Good job. But if you picked Movie B to be #6, and it actually finished #13, that's a score of 7. That's not good. So if you are involved in a tiebreaker, I'll add up the scores of all ten of your movies, and whoever has to lowest score wins.

And as always, we will also award a prize for the Bonehead Award. Whoever picks the WORST (least successful) movie gets a designated prize from the pool (usually $10). The criteria for the Bonehead Award is that it must be released this summer AND it must make at least $1. A movie that is expected to come out in June but is pushed back to October (or even worse... goes straight to video) doesn't count. So if you take a risk in your picks and fail miserably, you might still pick up the Bonehead Award... which in its own way is an accomplishment (and you will be forever immortalized in the Hall of Boneheads). If there is a tie for this award, it will be split (a tie is not likely, however, as I will track the box office gross to the penny).

The website has been fully updated to reflect last year's results. There is also a message board for your enjoyment (as long as we are still able to block out the spammers). Just be mindful of the other particpants when making your posts.

So that's it. If you want to know what movies are being released this summer, type "summer movies" into a search engine. It should give you plenty of listings. Our website has some useful links as well. Many magazines also provide summer movie info.

All of the money ($10.00 per entry) will be collected by myself, and is due no later than May 1, 2012. If I don't have your payment in time, you won't be playing. $10.00 of the pot will go toward the maintenance of the website. There will always be a 1st and 2nd Place prize, but a 3rd Place prize will depend on the # of entries. The payouts will be revealed once the pool is locked.

If needed, email me directly for payment instructions (they'll be the same mentioned in your email invite). The recommended way to pay is through PayPal (it's way too easy). Make sure to get me your payment ON TIME.

Feel free to invite whomever you like... as long as they also pay on time. Just have them e-mail their picks to me and they'll be added once I receive payment. Any questions? E-mail me at sberg23@yahoo.com.

Thanks and good luck!

Steve