Survivor pool rules

Each week, every player picks one team to win its game. Any margin; point spreads do not exist here. Win and you are through to next week. Lose and you are out. Last player standing wins the pool.

The twist that makes it a game: you can pick each team only once a season. Spend the big favourite in week one and it is gone for the other seventeen weeks. The skill is not in picking winners. It is in deciding which winners to spend, and when.

Strikes. The classic rule is one loss and out. Many pools allow two strikes, which keeps more people alive into November and makes the pool last longer. Pick a number and say it.

Ties. NFL games can end level. Decide now whether a tie is a strike or a survival. Most pools call it a strike: you picked a team to win and it did not. Say which, because the first tie of the season will otherwise be the first argument.

A missed pick. A week with no pick is a strike, the same as a loss. Some pools auto-assign the biggest favourite not yet used; that is kinder but it means a player can go deep without ever opening the app. Strike is the cleaner rule.

Team reuse. Once a season is the standard. A few pools reset the used-team list after week nine or at the playoffs so the survivors are not forced into coin flips. If you reset, say when.

Bye weeks and short weeks. A team on a bye cannot be picked. Thursday games count as that week. Both are obvious until someone argues them.

Two common rules. Either every pick locks at the week’s first kickoff, usually Thursday night, or each pick locks when its own game starts. The first is simpler and stops anyone waiting on injury news. The second lets a player who forgot on Thursday still pick a Sunday team. Both work. Nothing reopens after the lock, for anyone.

One survivor. The pool is over and they win.

Everyone out in the same week. This happens more than you would expect, usually on a week of upsets. Decide now: the players eliminated that week share the win, or they all come back and play on, or the pool runs the week again with the used-team lists intact. Shared win is the usual answer.

More than one survivor at season’s end. Either they share, or the pool continues into the playoffs with teams reusable. Say which before week one; by week eighteen it is too late to be fair about it.

Whatever a survivor pool plays for is between the players. Agree it in the same message as the rules and keep it out of the standings; the standings only need to say who is still alive.