OFFICIAL RULES FOR 2012
How the
Game is Played
The pool of contest players is divided into conferences, with the number of conferences and the number of players per conference to be determined by the number of players. A weekly schedule is created, pitting every player against a different player each week. Players pick the winners (NOTE: ALL MANO PICKS ARE AGAINST THE SPREAD) for ten Division I-A college football games which have been selected for each week. Players then assign confidence points to each of their ten picks, with 10 points assigned to the pick with the highest confidence level, down to1 point for the least confident pick. Players’ scores are then determined by adding up the points for all games that were picked correctly. (Minimum score = 0, Maximum score = 10 + 9 + 8 + ... + 2 + 1 = 55.) Between the two opponents in each week’s Mano a Mano matchup, a Win is declared if one player scores more points than the other, with a Loss being declared for the loser. Win/Loss records are thus accumulated throughout the season. At the regular season’s end, the conference champions, determined by conference records, receive automatic berths in the playoffs for a shot at the Mano a Mano Championship.
How to Sign Up
Send an e-mail to
mano-a-mano@dpdsdogs.com. Include the
player’s name you want to use for the contest, your e-mail address, your
favorite college football team, and any Mano
conference preference. Please also
indicate if you are a returning Mano player, or if
you will be participating this year as a Mano Rookie.
The deadline to sign-up is
Thursday, September 6, 2012.
Conference Set-up
All contest participants have the
option of either selecting the conference in which they wish to participate or
having contest administrators randomly place them into a conference. The number of conferences depends on the
total number of players who sign up, with roughly ten players in each
conference. Contest administrators
reserve the right to alter league and conference set-ups as needed to ensure
all the conferences contain a nearly equal number of players.
Right now (August 5) we have six
conferences: Alvarez (Big Ten fans), Bowden (ACC fans), Chryst
(
Weekly Schedules
Once conference assignments have
been made, the Mano a Mano
conference schedule will be finalized for the extent of the contest season and
posted at the official Mano site. This schedule will match contest participants
against each other from week to week.
Each player will have the opportunity to compete against all the other
players within their conference. Each
player will also be matched up against players from other conferences, with OOC
(out-of-conference) match-ups being randomly determined during the process of
creating the schedule. During the first two weeks of the season,
individual match-ups may be altered in case of no-shows, i.e. people who sign
up but have no intention of actually playing the entire season. Once conference play begins, the final
schedule will be set and no-shows will be replaced by consensus picks (see
below).
The first week of competition for Mano
a Mano 2012 will involve games played on Saturday,
September 8.
Mano Week # 12 (Thanksgiving week) may include some
of the games played on Friday, November 23.
Weekly Games
Each week the contest begins by
The games will be listed as follows: Favored Team Point
Spread Underdog
Here is an example:
Game 1 Florida 1 1/2
Game 2 Utah 1 1/2 BYU
Game 3 Pitt 2 1/2
Game 4 Florida St.
3 1/2 Miami-Fla.
Game 5
Game 6
Game 7
Game 8
Game
Game 10 USC
8 1/2 UCLA
All games will be listed with
half-point spreads (e.g. 3 1/2 rather than 3 or 4) to eliminate pushes (i.e.
games that are tied ATS). We will try to
ensure that contest point spreads mirror the published “Latest Lines” for all
games used. However, the point spreads
published on Tuesday are final regardless of whether they coincide with the
Vegas odds. We will try to select the 10
most intriguing match-ups from week to week and will try to get a variety of
teams throughout the season. If you have
any suggestions for games to use for any week, e-mail us your suggestions and
we will try to accommodate as many requests as possible.
Weekly Picks
Once the games and point spreads
are announced, players may begin submitting their picks for that week. Picks should be submitted beginning noon on
Tuesday until midnight on Thursday.
Picks are submitted using the "Submit Picks" link located on
the Mano a Mano home
page. You may also submit picks (within
the required time frame) by posting them directly on the Mano
Board, or by sending them to the official contest
e-mail address, mano-a-mano@dpdsdogs.com.
Please be sure to specify all pertinent information including your contest
name, your picks for the winners (against the spread) for all 10 games, and the
confidence points for all 10 games. When
assigning confidence points, assign 10 to the game pick that you feel the most
confident about, then assign 9 points to your next most confident pick, and so
on down to assigning 1 point to your least confident pick. Do not assign
the same confidence points to more than one game in a given week. (As a numerical check, the total sum of all
your confidence points should be equal to 55.)
We ask that you submit picks on time so that we can post all players picks on
the website by
Anyone failing to submit picks for a given week within the required deadline
will automatically receive a Loss for that week of the competition. It is the responsibility of all players to
review their picks once they have been posted on the website on Friday to
ensure that their picks were received and posted accurately. Picks posted are final unless modified on the
message board prior to noon Saturday. If
you notice that your picks have not been received or have not been posted
accurately, simply post your picks on the message board prior to 10 a.m.
Saturday.
ABSOLUTELY NO PICKS WILL BE
ACCEPTED IF SUBMITTED AFTER SATURDAY KICKOFF.
(Again note this deadline will be the Friday kickoff in Mano
Week 12.)
Weekly Results
For each game a player picks
correctly, the confidence points assigned to that game are added to that
player’s weekly score (points are not deducted for incorrectly picked games,
which score zero points). In each Mano a Mano match-up, the player
who scores the most points will get credited with a Win for that week, while
the player with the least points will be credited with a Loss. Yes, it is very possible for such a match-up
to end in a tie, and tie-breakers for weekly match-ups, based on assigned
confidence levels, are explained below.
Weekly results will be posted to each player’s seasonal standings and
will accumulate throughout each week of the contest. The outcomes of the weekly match-ups will be
officially posted on the website by noon on Monday.
What happens if my Mano opponent
fails to submit picks?
As stated above, any player who
fails to submit picks will automatically receive a Loss for that given
week. If a player is matched against an
opponent who fails to submit picks, that player will then compete against the
Conference Consensus for that week. If the
player has better luck making picks than the other players in the conference,
then that player receives a Win for that week, otherwise a Loss (with usual
tie-breakers in case of a tie). In 2006
(the first time consensus replacements were used) there were 24 games against
the Mano Consensus, which had a season record of
12-12. In 2011 there were 13 games
against consensus, with the consensus winning 8-5.
Consensus picks are decided as
follows. First, count the number of
players picking the Favorite and the number of players picking the Dog. If these numbers are different, then the pick
for this game will be FAV or DOG, whichever is picked most often. If these votes are evenly split, then the
total number of points the players have assigned to
the FAV and to the DOG are calculated.
Then the pick will be FAV or DOG, whichever has the higher point
total. If the points are also evenly
split, then the pick will be whichever gets 10 points assigned to it most
often, then 9 points, and so on.
The Contest Administrator reserves the right to choose the next tie-breaker if
the above procedure does not produce a pick.
Finally, after all the picks have been made, 10 points are assigned to the pick
with the highest number of points as calculated above, then 9 and 8 and so
on. Again, the Contest Administrator has
the right to decide on tie-breakers for assigning confidence levels to the
consensus picks.
Player Standings
Players conference standing, including W/L record, total points
scored, and ATS accuracy, accumulate throughout the contest season based upon
all weekly results. This information
will determine which players qualify for the Mano a Mano playoffs at the end of the Mano
a Mano regular season. Weekly player standings will be officially
posted on the website by noon on Monday.
Tie-breaker(s) for Weekly Results
If opponents earn the same
points for their picks, here are the tie-breakers:
1. Most games picked correctly.
2. Whoever correctly picked their
10 point game.
3. Whoever correctly picked their
9 point game.
and so on.
So if both players earn 20 points
for their picks, then the first tie-breaker is who picked the most games
correctly. If both picked 6 of 10
correctly, then the next tie-breaker is who picked their 10 point game
correctly, if both or neither picked the 10 point game correctly then the next
tie-breaker is who picked the 9 point game correctly and so on all the way down
until the tie is broken. If by some
chance the tie is still not broken after all of these tie-breakers, both
players will earn a tie for that weekly competition. The exception to players earning a tie would
be during a playoff match-up. In that
situation, if a tie is not broken by all of the tie breaker methods listed
above, then the final tie-breaker would be whichever player had the better
accuracy % rate on their picks throughout the entire contest season.
Playoff Details
At the conclusion of the Mano a Mano regular season, 16
players will earn a spot in the Mano a Mano playoffs. The
16 participants will consist of conference winners and wildcard winners. The conference winners will be the player in
each conference with the best conference record during the regular season. (For tie-breakers, see below.) The number of wildcard slots is then 16
minus the number of conferences. In 2011
we had six conference champions, and the next six wildcard slots were awarded
to the players with the next six highest overall win/loss records. The final four slots were filled by the next
two players with the highest point totals, followed by the two players
remaining with the highest season picking accuracy. This same procedure will be followed in 2012,
provided we have the same number of conferences.
Playoff seedings
will work as follows. The conference
champions will be receive the top seeds, ranked # 1, # 2, …, based upon W/L
records, then by total points, then by picking accuracy. The wildcards winners will be then be seeded
in the order described in the preceding paragraph. The Mano a Mano Championship Playoff then functions as a normal
tournament (#1 vs #16, #8 vs
#9, etc). Players will NOT be re-seeded
after each round. Winners from round #1
will advance to the quarterfinals, and then possibly on to the semifinals and
then possibly to the Mano a Mano
championship game. One loss and you are
out. Playoff forecasts will be provided
during the second half of the contest regular season, and all playoff
qualifiers will be announced at the conclusion of the regular season.
Tie-breaker(s) for Conference Winners
If players in the same conference
have an identical Win/Loss conference record at the end of the regular season,
here are the tiebreakers to determine the conference winner:
1. Head-to-Head matchup.
2. Best overall W/L record.
3. Most total points earned
during the season.
4. Most points earned in week 13.
5. Most points earned in week 12.
and so on.
Tie-breaker(s) for Wildcard Winners
1. Head-to-Head matchup.
2. Best overall W/L record.
3. Most total points earned
during the season.
4. Best accuracy for the total
regular season.
5. Most points earned in week 13.
6. Best accuracy for week 13.
and so on.
Contest Administration
Contest administrators reserve
the right to make decisions relating to the contest at their discretion. Judgments rendered by contest administrators
are final.
Weekly Summary:
TUESDAY: Look for this week's games and point spreads to be posted
at the Mano a Mano website, sometime around noon.
WEDNESDAY: Finalize your picking strategy for this week.
THURSDAY: All picks should be submitted by midnight.
FRIDAY: Players' picks will be posted in the evening.
All players should double-check that their entries are correct.
SATURDAY: Any last-minute changes must be posted on the Mano Board
(or received via e-mail) by 10 a.m. (local time).
SUNDAY: Results from the previous day, plus updated conference standings,
will be posted at the Mano a Mano official website.
MONDAY: Rejoicing and Sobbing.
If you have any questions or
comments, feel free to contact us at any time by posting a message on the Mano Board,
or by sending e-mail to mano-a-mano@dpdsdogs.com.
We're looking forward to a great
season — Good luck to all!!!