I'm Telling You for the Last Time

Now that I have all the kinks ironed out of the scoring and mechanics of the '07 Death Pool. I felt that it would be prudent to list an update list of rules for how this thing is going to work. Personally, I think that nothing says the holidays like thinking about the pool picks for the following year.

Official Rules: By the power vested in me by the United States of America, I hereby declare these the Official rules of the 2007 Monday 5 P.M. Death Pool

1. The Death Pool (hereto referred to simply as "the Pool") attempts to predict which celebrities will pass away in the current year.

2. The only people eligible to be selected are Celebrities. While impossible to specifically declare what makes a celebrity, a good rule of thumb is that their obit would appear in national newspapers. Also, a person can not become a celebrity only because of their death. We'll refer to this as the Daniel Smith rule. The management retains the right to reject any person who doesn't fit the "celebrity" criteria.

3. The scoring works as such: This will mark the first year that we observe the "Sweet 16" scoring format. Do not be confused by the wording. Each person is allowed to select a total of 10 celebrities. You will rank your selections from 10 to 1. In this case #10 will be the person who you think is most likely to die in the upcoming year. If the person in that position does pass away, you then multiply the position number by the difference of 100 minus their age. So, as an example, if you had Steve Irwin at #7 this year that would have been worth 392 points. (7*(100-44)) . This format still rewards people who take chances on younger people instead of playing it safe with all elderly selections.

4. The person with the highest total number of points for the entire year wins. For the 2006 Pool, there have been exactly 0 points awarded. We suck at this.

5. There is no restriction on who you can select, relative to other's picks. In the 2006 Pool, there were no overlapping picks. This WILL NOT be true for 2007. You can select someone, regardless of whether or not someone else has them on their list.

6. People who are ineligible as selections: People on death row. Currently missing children. If I missed anyone else that is obvious, let me know. In other words, play like a normal person (or as normal as a person who participates in the Pool can be).

7. You are allowed to draft your people between December 1st and December 31st.

8. In order to keep things fair, all the selections need to be e-mailed to ourdeathpool@yahoo.com This way, we have a way for people to get their selections in, but I won't release the names until after January 1st. So, people who don't put any thought into this won't be able to pick and choose from other people's selections. Also, feel free to make up a creative team name and send it in with your selections.

9. This is for entertainment purposes only. The only prize is the pride and sense of accomplishment of winning.

10. Have fun.