Official Rules of the 2011 Summer Movie Pool

04/03/11

The temperature's getting warmer... and while for some that means it's baseball season, for us it's time for the 14th Annual Summer Movie Pool !!!

In 2009 we dropped all the way down to 30 players... but last year we bounced back a bit with 38. And in one of the most ridiculous summers ever (28 people got 6 or fewer picks correct), it was Kurt who somehow was the only person to get 8 picks right. And that was with Get Him To the Greek. (I saw it recently and it actually was better than I expected.) So with his first-ever victory, Kurt took home $290. 2nd Place was a tie between Curt and Ed with 7 correct picks (thanks to a tied tiebreaker among 8 players), and they split the $70 prize. Once again, there was no 3rd Place prize, but as always we had the $10 Bonehead Award, which went to Nick for Survival of the Dead.

Last year was definitely an odd year. The top 5 movies were no-brainers... but then came the madness! Only 12 people took Despicable Me ($236m). Only 2 took The Karate Kid ($174m). Only 6 took Grown Ups ($159m). Only 9 took The Last Airbender ($130m). Only 11 took Salt ($113m). And you know why Kurt won? Because he selected 3 of those movies! Ok, 2 others did the same... but they were foolish enough to NOT pick one of the top 5 gimmes.

Here are our previous winners:

2010 - Kurt Weierstall
2009 - Steve Berg
2008 - Justin Klein
2007 - Tim Driscoll
2006 - Steve Berg
2005 - Larry Pennington
2004 - Chic Meyers
2003 - Todd Fiore / Dave Logan / Jaime McGauley (tie)
2002 - Steve Berg
2001 - Steve Berg
2000 - Mike Chapman
1999 - Steve Berg
1998 - Steve Berg

Once again, our rules haven't changed. Simply pick a Top Ten list of summer movies, and rank them in the order that you believe they will finish. The pool runs from May 1st to Aug 31st; therefore, send in your picks and money by May 1st. The final numbers will be tallied on Sept 1st, which is when a winner will be determined. Be sure to pick movies whose release dates fall between May 1st and August 31st. It isn't our fault if release dates change, so do your homework. Because the start of the Pool is May 1st, any movie that comes out in April will not be allowed as a valid choice. Yes, that means Fast Five (opening 4/29) will NOT be eligible. I've already heard some gripes about excluding this film, as it is expected make some serious cash... but we've gone through this once before (XXX: State of the Union on 4/29/05). We made a point of disallowing that movie back then... and we're doing the same this year. Move on.

The scores will be calculated this way: Whoever has the highest number of picks in the Top Ten at the end of the summer wins outright. Pretty simple. However, if there is a tie in the number of correct picks, the scoring will be done in the following manner: Deviation Score. The Deviation Score is a tally of the differences between the predicted rank and the actual rank of all ten of your movies. A perfect score would be zero. The better the prediction, the lower the score. For example, if last year if you picked Toy Story 3 to be #3, and it actually finished #1, you would have a deviation score of 2 for that movie. Good job. But if you picked Sex and the City 2 to be #6, and it actually finished #13, that's a score of 7. That's not good. If you are involved in the tiebreaker, I'll add up the scores of all ten of your movies, and whoever has to lowest score wins.

And just like the last couple years, we will also award the Bonehead Pick. Whoever picks the WORST (least successful) movie gets leftover money from the pool (usually $10). The criteria for the Bonehead Pick is that it must be released this summer AND it must make at least $1. A movie that is expected to come out in June, but is pushed back to October (or even worse.. goes straight to video) doesn't count. So if you take a risk in your picks and fail miserably, you might still pick up the Bonehead Award... which in its own way is an accomplishment. If there is a tie for this award, it will be split.

We will also be using our very popular website for all updates and weekly rankings. Go to www.summermoviepool.com to enjoy all of our hard work. It will be updated soon to reflect last year's results. There is also a message board for your enjoyment (as long as we are still able to block out the spammers).

So that's it. If you want to know what movies are being released this summer, type "summer movies" into a search engine. It should give you plenty of listings. Our website has some useful links as well. Many magazines also provide summer movie info.

All of the money ($10.00 per entry) will be collected by myself, and is due no later than May 1, 2011. If I don't have your payment in time, you won't be playing. $10.00 of the pot will go toward the maintenance of the website. There will always be a 1st and 2nd Place prize, but a 3rd Place prize will depend on the # of entries.


The recommended way to pay is through PayPal. Here are the instructions to transfer cash in PayPal without a service fee:

1. Send the payment to sberg23@yahoo.com.

2. So that no fees are paid by either you or me, select a type of ‘Personal’ (instead of the default Purchase) and then select ‘Other’.

3. On the second page, make sure that the payment method is either a bank account or any existing Paypal balance. These types of transactions do not incur any transaction fees.

- However, if you do not have a bank account and must draw funds from a credit or debit card, YOU are responsible for the transaction fee (2.9% + $0.30/txn). Make sure you select that the sender will pay the fees. I must receive the full $10.00.


If mailing, send it to:

Stephen Berg
6699 Chester Park Circle
Jacksonville, FL 32222

Make sure to get me your payment ON TIME.

Feel free to invite whomever you like... as long as they also pay on time. Just have them e-mail their picks to me. Any questions? E-mail me at sberg23@yahoo.com. Thanks, and good luck!