:: Bracket Pools

The standard rules

1. Before the pool locks, every entry fills out a bracket by picking the winner of each game or series.
2. Every correct pick scores the points the commissioner set for its round. Later rounds are typically worth more.
3. A pick only scores if your team actually wins that game. If you picked a team to win the title and it goes out in round one, its later picks are dead.
4. Nobody is eliminated. Every entry plays to the end, and the highest total wins.
5. Other entrants' brackets stay hidden until the lock passes.

What differs is the bracket itself. The two formats are described in turn below, then the sections that follow cover each rule for both.

MLB Playoff Brackets

Twelve teams, six from each league, and 11 series to pick: the best-of-3 Wild Card Series, the best-of-5 Division Series, then the best-of-7 League Championship Series and World Series. The top two seeds in each league have a bye past the Wild Card Series, so their Division Series is the first one they play.

World Cup Brackets

A World Cup pool has up to two parts, and the commissioner chooses which the pool uses. Group Stage Rankings asks you to put the four teams in each of the 12 groups in order, 1st to 4th. The Knockout Bracket is the 32-team bracket, from the Round of 32 through the Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Final, plus the 3rd Place game. The pool's Pool Format shows which parts are in: Knockout Stage only, or Group Stage Rankings + the Knockout Bracket.

When picks lock

Brackets lock once when the pool starts, and nothing needs to be flipped for it to happen. Until then you can change your picks as often as you like. After brackets lock, they are final, and every other entrant can see them.

MLB

The whole bracket locks at the first pitch of the pool's starting round. The system works that time out from the schedule; a commissioner does not need to enter it.

World Cup

The two parts have separate locks:

• Group Stage Lock Time. Group Stage Rankings lock at the start of the tournament, which is the first group-stage match.
• Knockout Bracket Lock. Knockout picks lock at the first game of the Round of 32 (First Game of Day 1 (R32), the default), or at the first game of the next day of the Round of 32 (First Game of Day 2 (R32)). The Knockoutround opens with a single game, so Day 2 gives entrants about an extra day, and the finished Day 1 game can still be picked. Under Day 2, nothing locks at Day 1's kickoff.

When a pool includes both parts, the knockout bracket cannot be filled out until the group stage has produced the Round of 32 matchups, so knockout picks are made after the group stage ends. A knockout-only pool, or one that starts in a later round, skips that wait. If the pool starts after the Round of 32, the lock is the first game of its starting round, and the Knockout Bracket Lock setting does not apply.

How points work

Every correct winner pick earns that round's value. The commissioner sets the values in Points Per Round Winner (MLB) or Points Per Round [Knockout Stage] (World Cup), and a pool's Max Score shows the most an entry could score. Where a setting has a default, it is quoted here.

MLB: Length of Series and upset bonuses

MLB pools have two optional layers on top of the round values, each with its own setting.

Selection Style decides whether you pick only winners or Winners + Length of Series (LoS), where you also say how many games each series lasts. The length points are set in the Length of Series (LoS) Points row, whose defaults are:

• Points per game: 1, counted against Points Based On Max Series Length. Actual Games is the alternative: the games the series really took.
• Miss penalty: −2 for each game your pick was off.
• Round multiplier: No. Choose Yes to multiply the result by that round's Points Per Round value.
• LoS Points if Wrong Winner: Scores 0. A length pick pays only when the winner is right. Scores anyway pays out the length even when you picked the wrong team.

Length points never go below zero, so a length pick can never cost you points, even before the round multiplier applies. At the defaults, a Division Series (best-of-5) length pick is worth 5 points when exact and 2 fewer for each game off, down to a floor of 0.

Upset Bonus rewards backing a lower seed. The seed delta is the winner's seed number minus the loser's, so a 6 seed over a 3 seed is a delta of 3. The bonus only exists when the delta is positive, and it only applies to a pick that is correct:

• No (the default). No bonus.
• Add Points by Seed Delta. The delta is added to the round's points (a 6 seed over a 3 seed = +3).
• Multiply Points by Seed Delta. The round's points are multiplied by the delta (× 3 in the same example).

Award Upset Bonus in Championship? decides whether the World Series counts. When it does, the two pennant winners compare their league seeds directly, so an NL 4 seed over an AL 1 seed is a gap of 3. When it does not, the World Series scores its normal points. An upset bonus never applies to a round before the pool's starting round.

World Cup: Group Stage points

Under Points Per Pick [Group Stage], each group is scored once all of its games are final, by comparing your 1st to 4th ranking with the group's final order. Four settings, with their defaults:

• Correct Position (each team): 1 point for every team you placed in exactly the right slot.
• Pick Group Winner: +5 for the right 1st place, on top of Correct Position.
• Pick Runner-Up: +3 for the right 2nd place, on top of Correct Position.
• Exact 1-4 Order Bonus: +3 when all four teams are in the right order.

The bonuses stack, so a perfect group is worth 4 points for position, plus 5, plus 3, plus 3: 15 points at the defaults, or 180 across all 12 groups. The knockout bracket at its default round values is worth up to 176.

The group's final order is by points (3 for a win, 1 for a draw), then goal difference, then goals scored. ALA applies those three tiebreakers to the group standings when it scores your picks.

The 3rd Place game

The World Cup knockout bracket includes the 3rd Place game between the two semifinal losers. It is scored as a Semifinal, at the Semifinal round's value.

A worked example

Take an MLB pool at the default round values, Winners + Length of Series with the defaults above, and the Upset Bonus set to Add Points by Seed Delta. In the Division Series, the 5 seed meets the 1 seed and wins in four games. That series is worth 8 points, a 5 over 1 is a seed delta of 4, and an exact length pick is worth 5 points (1 point times a best-of-5 maximum of 5 games).

Each game your length was off costs 2, so a pick of 5 seed in 2 is two games off (5 − 2 × 2 = 1). A wrong winner scores nothing, since the pool is on LoS Points if Wrong Winner: Scores 0. With Multiply Points by Seed Delta instead, the 5-seed pick's winner points become 8 × 4 = 32 and the exact pick totals 37.

A World Cup entry works the same way in two parts. At the defaults, calling a group as Spain, Japan, Morocco, Canada when it finishes Spain, Morocco, Japan, Canada gets 1 point for Spain, a 5-point group winner bonus and 1 point for Canada in 4th: 7 points. Japan and Morocco are swapped, so neither the runner-up bonus nor the exact-order bonus applies.

Starting a pool mid-tournament

A pool does not have to begin at the first round. The commissioner picks a Starting Period, and everything before it scores zero: Points Per Round for earlier rounds is set to 0, and the bonuses do not apply to them.

• MLB. Choose the Wild Card Round, the Divisional Round, League Championships or the World Series, as long as that round has not started. Earlier series are shown with their real results but score nothing. The Length of Series tiebreaker counts only the series from the starting round on, and the lock is the first pitch of the starting round.
• World Cup. Start at the Group Stage (the default while the tournament has not begun) or at the Round of 32, Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals or Final. Rounds before the starting round are not scored, and a pool that starts in the knockout rounds has no group-stage part.

Periods that have already begun are no longer offered, so a pool you set up late is a fair contest rather than a head start for anyone.

Standings and tiebreakers

The leaderboard ranks entries by total score, which in a World Cup pool is the Group Stage and knockout points added together. While the tournament is under way, entries tied on score are ordered by their best possible final score, the most they can still reach.

The pool's final standings are settled once the tournament ends. The commissioner can turn the tiebreaker on, and it only separates entries that finish with the same total:

• MLB (Tiebreaker). The total length of the playoffs in games, counted across every series from the starting round. Entrants predict that total, and the closest wins the tie. Under Winners + Length of Series, nothing is entered: the prediction is the sum of the entrant's series lengths. A new MLB pool has the tiebreaker on.
• World Cup (Championship Score Tiebreaker). Entrants predict the total goals scored in the Final. The goals counted are regulation and extra time; a penalty shootout does not count. The closest prediction wins the tie.

If the tiebreaker is off, or entries are still tied after it, they share the same final rank and split the prize money for the places they occupy evenly.

Prizes

Prize Distribution is either Winner Take All or Split Prize, which pays 1 to 10 places by percentage and defaults to 60/30/10. The percentages must total 100%, and the commissioner can change them any time before the pool concludes. The top entrant is the pool champion, which is a different thing from the team that wins the tournament. A place with no entrant to claim it pays nothing.

Play a bracket pool

ALA hosts MLB Playoff Brackets and World Cup Brackets. To set one up, see the settings in Pool Settings, or go straight to Create a Pool.

Keep reading

• ALA Pool Formats: ExplainedGuides to Survivor, Confidence, Pick'em, Credit, and other pool formats
• Sports Pool GlossaryPlain-English definitions for the terms you'll meet in survivor, pick'em, confidence and margin pools.
• :: Confidence PoolsYour conviction is your score.

Ready to set one up? Create a pool. Creating one is free, and the commissioner's pool fee is due 7 days after the pool starts.