:: Survivor Pools
The standard rules, the common variations, and the multitude of options you can configure.
The core rules of a survivor pool fit in one sentence: pick one team a week, never the same team twice, and the last entry standing wins. Everything else, and most of the arguments, lives in the edge cases. This page covers the standard rules first, then each common variation, so you can check what your pool's settings actually mean.
Wherever a rule below depends on the pool, it's a setting the commissioner chose, and your pool's How To Play page lists the ones that apply to it.
The standard rules
- Each week, every entry picks one team.
- If that team wins, the entry survives to the next week.
- If it loses, the entry loses a life. In a standard pool that's its only life, and the entry is eliminated.
- Each team can be picked once per season.
- A pick locks when its game starts, or at the pool's weekly deadline if that comes first.
- A missed pick counts the same as a losing one.
- The last entry left wins. If the last entries are all knocked out in the same week, they share the win.
Winners, losers and the spread
The standard pool picks winners. Two variations change what a correct pick is:
- Losers pools. Your team has to lose. A tie is still graded by the pool's tie rule as written, not flipped: if ties count as losses, a tie costs you a life in a losers pool too.
- Spread pools. Your team has to cover the point spread. A favorite must win by more than the spread; an underdog covers by losing by less than the spread, or by winning. A static spread is set once for the week. A live spread follows the betting market until you confirm your pick, and a confirmed pick can't be changed.
Losers and spread pools are available in NFL, college football and March Madness survivor.
Ties, pushes and hooks
Ties are rare in the NFL, which is exactly why they cause arguments when they happen. A pool where a tie or a push is possible has a Tie Rule that grades it one of two ways: as a loss, because you needed a win, or as a win, so you survive. In a spread pool the same rule grades a push, where the favorite wins by exactly the spread.
The simplest way to avoid pushes is Force Hooks, which moves any whole-number spread half a point up or down so every game has a winner against the spread. That half point is called the hook.
Soccer has its own rule. In World Cup survivor, a draw in the Group Stage advances you, and in the Knockout Stage your team has to win.
Weekly-schedule survivor: MLB, NBA and NHL
Baseball, basketball and hockey teams play several times a week, so in those pools a pick covers a team's whole weekly period. You survive if the team finishes the week at .500 or better: 4–3 survives, 3–3 survives, and 3–4 costs a life.
That changes the strategy. The number of games matters as much as the opponent: a two-game NBA week, where a 1–1 split survives, can be safer than a four-game week against weaker teams. MLB pools can add Shoot the Moon, which flips the rule for one outcome: an entry whose team loses every game it plays that week (0–6 or worse) gains a life instead of losing one.
College basketball survivor lets the commissioner choose between One Game per Week, where your team has to win one specific game, and Weekly Schedules, which uses the .500 rule.
Lives, extra lives and rebuys
A standard survivor pool gives each entry one life. Many pools give more, in one of two ways:
- Free extra lives. An entry with lives left stays in automatically after a loss.
- Paid rebuys. After a loss, the entrant has until the rebuy deadline to buy back in, or turns on auto-rebuys in advance. In some pools the commissioner processes rebuys instead of the entrant.
Many pools end the rebuy period partway through the season. When it ends, every remaining entry drops to one life, and its next loss eliminates it.
Using a team more than once
The once-per-season rule is what makes survivor a season-long game: the best team on this week's board may be the one you need later. Pools can relax it, allowing each team to be used two or more times, or without limit. Some pools also cap how many times you can pick against the same opponent.
In World Cup survivor, team usage resets between the Group Stage and the Knockout Stage.
Multiple picks per week
If a pool requires two or more team picks in a week, all of them have to win for the entry to survive. One loss is enough to cost a life.
NFL TD Survivor works the other way round. You pick players, and in Classic mode you survive if any one of them scores a touchdown. In Attrition mode, each player who doesn't score costs you one pick for the rest of the season, so the number of players you pick each week can only shrink.
Missed picks and insurance
A missed pick counts as a loss unless the pool has insurance. With insurance, a forgotten pick is filled automatically, with the most popular pick in the pool that you still have available or a random eligible team, depending on the pool's policy. Insurance may be free for everyone or an optional paid extra, and a pool can limit how many times an entry uses it, or stop offering it after a set week.
When picks lock
You can change a pick until it locks. It locks when its own game starts, or at the pool's weekly deadline if that comes first, so a pick on a Thursday night game locks on Thursday night even in a pool with a Sunday deadline. In a live spread pool, a pick locks as soon as you confirm it.
TD Survivor pools with more than one pick a week can lock all of an entrant's picks at once, when the first of them kicks off. Otherwise an entrant whose early player had already scored could swap a later pick for a throwaway and save a better player for another week.
What if everyone loses in the same week?
It happens more often than you'd think, usually in an upset-heavy week late in the season with three or four entries left. The Total Wipeout rule decides it. Under the standard rule, Split Prizes, every entry knocked out that week is a co-champion. The alternative, Continue Play, revives all of them with one life and keeps the pool going.
Popular variations
- 20-period NFL survivor. Splits the Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks into two periods each, for 20 picks across the 18-week regular season.
- NFL survivor through the playoffs. Extends the pool past the regular season. Team usage can reset when the playoffs begin, with its own limit for the playoffs.
- Conference-only college football. Only one conference's teams are eligible, or only teams in the AP Top 25.
- Bonus Pool. An opt-in side pool in MLB and NBA survivor that awards prizes for statistical achievements by your weekly pick.
- Margin pools. Survivor's weekly pick with no eliminations: your team's margin of victory or defeat adds up over the season. See every pool format compared.
Keep reading
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.