Questions about Confidence Pools

Q: I am not clear what the Weekly Picks Are Optional configuration setting is. If I configure it to be No, what happens to the teams who miss the deadline to get picks in?

Q: How do the default picks work?

Q: When do the Drop Weeks begin being removed from the Season Standings and what is the criteria for selecting a Drop Week?

Q: What happens if the NFL game ends in a Tie (with or without the Spread)?

Q: What is the proper way to set the rankings for my Confidence picks?

Q: My Confidence Pool is not using the Point Spread but it shows up on my picks. Why?

Q: My Confidence Pool charges $5 per week to participate, but picks are optional. Do you only update the amount owed for the weeks that they submit their picks?

Q: There are only 13 games in week 6. Will the rankings be 1-13 or 4-16?

Q: How does the ranking system work in the Confidence Pools?

Q: In our Confidence Pool standings, there is a Win/Loss column. What is that used for?

Q: My league settings are set to extend the Confidence Pool into the playoffs. Will the Confidence Pool go all the way up to and include the Super Bowl and how many points will each pick be worth?

Q: Our pick lock time is Sunday at 1pm EST. There is a Thursday night game this week. What happens if I forget to set my rankings prior to the start of the game?

 

Q: I am not clear what the Weekly Picks Are Optional configuration setting is. If I configure it to be No, what happens to the teams who miss the deadline to get picks in?
A: When Weekly Picks are mandatory, teams must get their picks submitted before the Lock Deadline or each game before starts or they will receive a loss. The exception to this is if your pool uses Autopicks. If so, any team that has not submitted their picks by the start of the first game of the week will receive picks based on their Default Picks option from their Team Details. MFS will always use the setting from the Team Details on the Team Home Page for Default Picks if your pool is configured to use Autopicks for teams not having a complete set of picks by the start of the first game or Lock Deadline (whichever comes first). MFS will make the picks for those teams at the deadline IF they have remaining Autopicks left. If No Defaults is selected or a team has zero Autopicks remaining, then that team receives zero points and all Losses for that week. If Weekly Picks Are Optional is set to Yes, then, in the situation where they are using No Defaults, the team will have no entries in the pool for the week.

Q: How do the default picks work?
A: Default picks are used when making weekly picks is mandatory or if a team has elected to use a Default pick option in a pool utilizing Autopicks with weekly picks being optional. If so, then the Default Picks option is triggered to make picks as instructed by the team's default option when the first game or the week begins or at the Lock Deadline, whichever occurs first. If the picks do not lock at the first game of the week, you can always make changes to games that have not started yet.

Q: When do the Drop Weeks begin being removed from the Season Standings and what is the criteria for selecting a Drop Week?
A: We like to get past the first few weeks of the season before removing teams' worst week(s) or the Season Standings would be empty. After the 5th week has been completed, your Season Standings will reflect the best records with the worst week(s) removed. Weeks are removed in a Confidence pool based on the lowest total for each team. Keep this in mind if running a season-long pool that extends into the playoffs and uses Drop Weeks. There is a configuration option that addresses this that will instruct us to only remove the worst weeks from the regular season.

Q: What happens if the NFL game ends in a Tie (with or without the Spread)?
A: The Commissioner determines how to handle Ties as part of the Pool configuration (found on the League Settings). The choices are to count the game as a Full Win, Half Win or a Loss. This setting works the same whether the pool uses the point spread or not.

Q: What is the proper way to set the rankings for my Confidence picks?
A: You always want to pick the team you believe will win. The numbers represent your confidence in that team winning. The larger the number, the more confidence you have in that team winning over the lower-ranked teams.

Q: My Confidence Pool is not using the Point Spread but it shows up on my picks. Why?
A: Point spreads are displayed even when your Pool does not use them as an aid to help you determine how to rank your picks. Also, it is used by our Autopicks process to determine how to pick teams for you if you forget and your pool uses Autopicks.

Q: My Confidence Pool charges $5 per week to participate, but picks are optional. Do you only update the amount owed for the weeks that they submit their picks?
A: The amount owed by a team is updated for any week(s) that they have saved picks for or that autopicks have made picks and saved them for the team. A team can choose to have autopicks submit picks for them even if picks are optional. This setting is on the Team Details link on the Team Home Page. The amount owed is updated as soon as any picks are saved. So, if a team submits picks 3 weeks in advance, the amount owed reflects a charge for that week immediately.

Q: There are only 13 games in week 6. Will the rankings be 1-13 or 4-16?
A: The rankings will be 1-13. The rankings will always start at 1 and end at the total number of games for the week.

Q: How does the ranking system work in the Confidence Pools?
A: You decide which teams you expect to win straight-up (the point-spread is just displayed as a guide) and rank them in order of how confident you are in the victor, with the highest number being your most confident victor. Last week, the Giants were favored to win by the most points, so the majority of participants ranked them with a 16. As long as they win the game, the score does not matter and you have made the correct choice. By the way, you are not penalized for wrong picks, but you only accumulate points on games where you pick the correct team to win.

Q: In our Confidence Pool standings, there is a Win/Loss column. What is that used for?
A: It is used as one of the tie-breakers in determining the final pool standings if there is a tie by league members for Total Points. Showing it in the standings allows you to gauge your position with the tie-breaker if you end up tied with another pool member(s). You can see your tie-breaker priority order on the League Settings link.

Q: My league settings are set to extend the Confidence Pool into the playoffs. Will the Confidence Pool go all the way up to and include the Super Bowl and how many points will each pick be worth?
A: Extending into the playoffs takes your pool all the way through the Super Bowl. The weekly point rankings default to start at 1 point and reach the maximum number of games for that week. So, if there are 4 games for the first round of the playoffs, the point rankings will be 1 thru 4. The Commissioner can use a weighting system for pools running during the playoffs to make those weeks worth more points. Check your League Settings to see if the playoff games are weighted more than 1. This number is a multiplier, so, if you see a 6 by the entry for the Championship games, then the two championship games are worth 6x the number you assign to the winning team.

Q: Our pick lock time is Sunday at 1pm EST. There is a Thursday night game this week. What happens if I forget to set my rankings prior to the start of the game?
A: The Autopick process will run when the first game of the week starts for those players who have Autopicks left and have not made their picks for the week. Once that game starts, the confidence value is locked in, but you can still change the value for the remaining unstarted games. If you do not have any autopicks left, then you will receive a zero for that game as a Loss.