Welcome to the Euro 2008 Challenge

Hello all. (Admit it, you missed the Poolmaster…)

The Euro 2008 soccer tournament starts next Saturday, which means it is our responsibility as North Americans to honor these 16 European countries by plunking down 5 bucks on a pool.

Welcome to the Euro 2008 Soccer Challenge!

The rules of this challenge are slightly less complicated than average for Poolmaster pools – you’re welcome:

The tournament: In Euro 2008, 16 countries are split in groups of 4 and play each other once each. The best 2 countries from each group form a round 2 of 8 countries playing a standard single elimination tournament to get to a winner.

The challenge: You will have 100 “chips” to place on the 16 countries in any fashion that you wish: (all on 1, a little bit everywhere, 60 here 30 there and 5 on a couple others, whatever).

The Scoring: If a country makes it to round 2, they are worth 100 points. The country that wins the tournament is worth a total of 500 points. The points a country earns will be split among the players who put chips on that country (on a prorata % basis). Highest total points wins. As usual, I will submit my picks to someone else in an email before receiving any other picks to keep my squeaky clean image intact.

The Example: You place 20 chips on France and 80 on other assorted countries. France ends up winning the tournament and your other countries all fail to make the second round. Suppose across all the players in the challenge, 115 chips were placed on France. Your final point count would be 87 points. That’s because you have 20/115 = 17.4% of all the France chips and thus you get 17.4% of the France point total of 500.

The Tiebreaker: Total # of goals scored in the tournament (there are 31 matches).

The Money stuff: $5 entry (US or CAN) winner takes all, except last place gets their money back. Please pay your local Poolmaster representative.

The Deadline: Noon EDT on Saturday June 7.

The blog: www.poolmasterblog.blogspot.com I will be using this blog for this challenge where I will post a witty and awesome preview of the 16 countries as well as the ongoing snappy analysis you come to expect in Poolmaster pools. Who knows, maybe there will be a section for your genius comments too… Check the site early and often!

As usual, please pass along this challenge to anyone else with interest. (and even those without interest!)

Resources:

Euro2008 Official Site

ESPN Coverage

Wikipedia

Good Luck!

Poolmaster