Desperation Shot & Idiot Proof Pool Instructions

March Madness is finally here. Throughout the tournament I’ll try to post a joke or two. I’ve decided to call these “My Desperation Shots”. Below is my first heave. More importantly, below that are the Rules & Idiot Proof Instructions for joining my “sort of” free pool. Hope you are all in.

Desperation Shot: Asheville, Morehead and Belmont are the first three schools in the Tourney. Two are very fine institutions and one is the mantra of every married man.


POOL RULES

There's some BIG CHANGES from last year, so PLEASE READ through the below spew.

1.Send Money To Gary Manis at 20 Oak Street, Natick MA 01760 – I swore that this year was truly going to be the year that I came to my senses and ceased the immense hassle of running this pool. The person who convinced me to keep it going is Gary Manis. He did so by agreeing to take full responsibility for collecting all the money. Why on earth would he do so? Not sure. My guess is it has something to do with the stupor that a guy enters shortly before getting married. (His big day, to a woman wholly out of his league, is April 30th).

So, if you want to make the minimum $25 contribution/donation to this “charitable” pool, you need to make your checks out to Gary Manis and send your $ to him at 20 Oak Street, Natick MA 01760. In other words, you are not to send your dough to me. You are not to hand it to me, put it in my mailbox, or stuff it in my pants. (Though, depending on the circumstance, the later might be acceptable.)

2.No Paypal – You may recall that last year, I had a link to Paypal right above Gabe Kaplan as another means for which you could make your “charitable” contribution. You may also have noticed that is now gone. Why? Well, apparently some of you included a little note with your Paypal payment stating, “For illegal gambling” or for “Dave’s prostitution ring.” Unfortunately Paypal failed to see the obvious humor and banned me from using their services. So, once again, if you want to contribute to this “charitable” pool, you need to send your $ to Gary Manis at 20 Oak Street, Natick MA 01760.

3. Yahoo - As in the past, the pool will be run via Yahoo and in the classic "fill out the bracket" format with points doubling each round. (No points for the 4 preliminary round games.) The whole pool will be on one Yahoo site that can only hold 250 entries. You, therefore, might want to join soon to assure yourself a spot. Also IMPORTANT to note is that every year the Yahoo Tourney site temporarily crashes - usually the day after Selection Sunday and the hour before the first round starts on Thursday. Avoid this aggravation by joining soon.

I’ve thought about using other sites, but Yahoo is the only one with the Scenario Generator that allows you to enter different scenarios of teams winning upcoming games and it will generate a list of how our pool will shake out. Thus the name “Scenario Generator.” My wife thinks that I find even more enjoyment from messing around with that thing than watching the games.

4. $ prizes - 1st place: 60% of pot, 2nd place: 20% of pot, 3rd place 10% of pot, 4th place - 5% of pot, Jimmy V Foundation 5% of pot.

5. Cost - $25. Well, unless you don't care to receive any winnings. Huh? Allow me to explain.

The pot for the pool, like last year, will come from all of the contributions/donations for this site that Gary Manis receives. That's right, every penny I get I'm putting toward the pot. I'm not keeping a cent. You can also join the pool for free. (This is a nice option for those with kids who want to play, but also want to pick Asheville to win it all because they think it sounds like “Assville.”)

However, if you donate less than $25 and you finish in 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th place, your share of the winnings will be sent directly to the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. If you donate $25 or more and you finish in 1st, 2nd or 3rd or 4th place, your share of the winnings will be sent directly to you and you can make whatever charitable donation you see fit.

Bottom Line - if you want the winnings sent to you, donate at least $25.

6. Deadline to donate - You need to have your check in an envelope postmarked on or before March 17, 2011 if you want a shot at having a share of the winnings sent directly to you. Once again, your checks need to be made out to Gary Manis, (NOT ME) and sent to 20 Oak Street, Natick MA 01760. If you send a check with an envelope postmarked after March 17, 2011 it will go directly to the Jimmy V Foundation. Also, if you don't get an email from me thanking you for your donation, that means that Gary has not received your donation.

7.Enter With Your Actual Name - It's VERY IMPORTANT that when you create the name of your entry for our Yahoo site, you enter your actual name. Otherwise, Gary will delete you. That’s right, Gary is taking over the role of the heavy as well. It is a severe pain in the ass trying to keep track of who everyone is when people are not using their actual names. So, if your name is Keith Mangas, just create your entry name to be Keith Mangas. If you feel absolutely compelled to include some kind of nickname, as my father does, then put it in quotes between your first and last names. Got it Harold "Golden Balls" Barend? Also, if I do not know you, you must email me at dbarend@comcast.net prior to joining to let me know who you are. If there is an entry in our pool whose name I do not recognize, Gary will delete it.

8. NO Multiple Entries - 1 entry per person. BUT if you really want to submit multiple entries, then convince someone else you know to join and make the picks for that person. You might also want to try to convince that person to give you the $ if you win.

9.No Mercy For Mistakes – Last year we had 3 people who failed to pick a team to win the final game. I allowed them to stay in based on whom they claimed they meant to select. This year Gary has the dough and he will have no mercy. If for whatever reason your picks do not get entered as you hoped, you’re simply out of luck – much earlier than most. The best way to avoid this problem is to follow the below instructions and recheck your picks once you have finished.

10.Friends/Recruits - Feel free to get your friends, family members or whoever else you know to join the pool. But please make sure they realize that if they join they need to email me and let me know who they are or they will be deleted. Also, don't just forward other people the password and group id#. Make sure they get all of the rules.

12. How to Join our Yahoo group site - Though I have listed idiot proof steps to join the Yahoo site, many of you should be able to figure it out at http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/t1 Go to join group. The group id # is 24042. The password is moneytogary - (to remind you to send your money to Gary, not me.) Please remember that when you enter your "Bracket Name" to USE YOUR ACTUAL NAME. You also might want to remember to sign back in to the site after Sunday March 13 - so you can make your picks.

Idiot Proof instruction on joining the Yahoo Group

(1) Go to http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/t1. OR you can go to Yahoo, click on sport, click on fantasy, then click on Tourney Pick'em '11.

(2) Click on “Join a Group” (Not “create a group”)
(3) Click on “Join Group” (different screen from step 2)
(4) Enter your own personal Yahoo ID and Yahoo password on right side from your own personal Yahoo account. Note that these are NOT the same as the ones list below for entering our group. COMMON MISTAKE – is entering the info to join the site. Try not to make that mistake.
(5) If you do not have your own personal Yahoo account click on "Sign Up" under "Don't have a Yahoo! ID?" Otherwise, go to step (6).
(5b)Enter the requested personal info (name & your creation of an id and password, & code) on the page.
(5c) Write down your personal id and password then click on "agree" to the terms then click on “create my account”.
(5d) Click on “continue” to Yahoo Sports on right side of page.

(6) Enter our group id# 24042 and our password moneytogary . (DO Not enter your personal Yahoo id and password.) Click on “save and continue”.
(7) Enter your actual full name as your "bracket name". Please NO NICKNAMES!! Gary will delete entries that do not comply.
(8) Click on the box next to “Terms of Service”
(9) Determine whether you want to enter Yahoo's separate contest for $1mil - if so, enter the requested info and accept terms. If you don’t need the $1,000,000 then I’d say you probably could afford to donate $25 bucks to the pot.
(10) Hit submit (lower left corner) – You are now in our group.

Now you need to make your picks

(11) Click on your name in the standings. If you do not see your name, don't have a coronary. Click on "view complete standings". Ah - there it is. Now click on your name in the complete standings.
(12) You will now see an entire empty bracket - this is different and even easier to complete than last year. Just click on the team you want to win each game of each round in all 4 regions, the final four and the final game. You should make 63 total picks. (Since we don't use the score of the final game as a tie breaker, filling that in really doesn't matter.)
(13) Click on SAVE BRACKET - this may be the most important thing you do all week.
(14) Look at the left side of the screen. You should see a note near a green bar stating 63 of 63 picks made. If not, you missed some picks.
(15) Log back in sometime later to make sure you Saved your Picks – Every year someone fails to do so. Every year that person actually wanted me to allow them to enter their picks after the games had been played. So every year I'm reminded me of an episode of Cheers where Sam thought he was doing Woody a favor by not placing a ridiculous sports bet, but the long shot won. Sam then had the following conversation with Diane.

Diane: So, why don't you go to the...

Sam: Bookie.

Diane: ...bookie and tell him that you honestly intended to wager on the winning teams and see if he won't give you the money.

Sam: That's a good idea. While I'm at it why don't I just tell him that I meant to bet on all the winning teams since 1975?

If you just save your picks then we don’t have to have that same conversation.

Take it easy,
Dave