Monster Media 1994 #1/monster.zip/monster/PERSONAL/HOOPS.ZIP/POOLSET.HLP

Text File | 1994-02-07 | 24KB | 462 lines

        College Hoops Pick-Em Pool Extravaganza!
      (c) 1994 HomeGrown Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.



        SETTING UP A COLLEGE HOOPS PICK-EM POOL
        ---------------------------------------

Introduction
------------
The College Hoops Pick-Em Pool Extravaganza! is designed for one of
the most popular pool games played in offices and among friends
across the country during the annual college basketball tournament.
To play, everyone in the pool picks the outcome of ALL 63 tournament
games BEFORE the tournament begins. As the tournament progresses, pool
players get points for each game that they have correctly predicted.
Points for a correct pick may be the same for games in each round of
the tournament, or you can weight the various rounds differently. The
player with the highest score when the tournament ends is the winner.

Some pools skip initial rounds in the tournament, and begin their
pick-em pool at the start of a later round (for example, there are
pools just for the Final Four games).  If your pool does not begin in
the first round of the college hoops tournament, see the setup notes
toward the end of this document.  Another section at the end describes
how to set up a pool for tournaments that have fewer than 64 teams
(e.g., the college hoops Conference Tournaments).

To set up more than one pool for a single tournament, you must install
a separate version of the College Hoops software for each pool you
wish to create.  Refer to notes in the System Setup documentation for
more information.


Pick-em pool quick setup
------------------------
The College Hoops software is friendly enough for most users to set up
their pool with the following instructions.  Refer to the next part of
this document for more information about each step.

  1. SET BASIC POOL SETTINGS.  From the main menu choose 'Setup', and
     choose 'Basic Pool Settings' from the sub-menu that follows.  Enter
     values for POOL SCORING PER ROUND, and enter names under CONFERENCE
     NAMES.  Click 'OK' to save.

  2. ENTER TOURNAMENT TEAMS.  From the main menu choose 'Setup',
     then choose 'Enter Teams' to enter the 64 teams playing in the
     tournament.  You enter 16 teams at a time for each of the four
     conferences.  Use the TAB key to move around the window.  Make sure
     your conference order for entering teams is correct, or matchups
     will be wrong when you get to the Final Four (see detailed setup
     instructions).  After the last conference, click 'Save' to save all
     teams on your hard disk.

  3. GENERATE OFFICIAL ENTRY FORMS.  From the main menu choose 'Setup',
     then choose 'Generate Entry Forms' to generate the 'OUTPUT.CHP'
     file on your hard disk.  Edit this entry-form file with your word
     processor (it's in readable-text format - see detailed instructions
     for editing guidelines), print it, and distribute copies to pool
     players for them to indicate their picks.  Or, if you prefer, use
     a copy of the tournament brackets appearing in most major newspapers
     a few days before the tournament begins.

  4. ENTER PLAYER PICKS.  Once players return completed entry forms,
     select 'Players' from the main menu, and choose 'Add A Player' to
     enter each player's picks into the computer.  You must enter a pick
     for ALL games in the tournament or the player's picks will not be
     accepted.  To divide up the chore of entering player picks with
     others who have purchased a copy of the College Hoops software,
     see detailed information in the next section.

  5. KEEP TRACK OF OFFICIAL TOURNAMENT RESULTS. Once all players' picks
     have been entered, your pool is ready to run.  After each college
     hoops game is played, enter the winner by choosing 'Results &
     Standings' from the main menu, and 'Enter Official Results' from
     the sub-menu.  Be sure to click 'Save' on the Final Four screen
     (following the four conference screens).  If you do not click on
     the 'Save' button, *NONE* of your official results will be saved.

  6. KEEP SCORE AND GENERATE STANDINGS FOR YOUR POOL.  Whenever you
     save new official results, you immediately get updated pool
     standings.  Any other time, choose 'Results & Standings' from
     the main menu, and 'Current Standings' from the sub-menu to see
     the current pool standings.  Print the standings directly to your
     default Windows printer by clicking 'Print'.

  7. USE THE OTHER FEATURES OF THE COLLEGE HOOPS PICK-EM POOL EXTRAVAGANZA!
     FOR HOURS OF COLLEGE HOOPS FUN.  The above describes everything you
     need to do to set up and run your pick-em pool.  But there is much,
     much more you can do with the program.  Read about program features
     below and in the other documentation files provided on your College
     Hoops diskette.


Detailed explanation of pool setup
----------------------------------
To start the College Hoops Pick-Em Pool Extravaganza!, double-click on
the College Hoops icon from the Windows Program Manager.  Follow these
steps to set up your pool:

1. SET BASIC POOL SETTINGS.  You must first provide the College Hoops
software with some basic information about how you will be running your
pool.  From the main menu of the program, select 'Setup', and choose
'Basic Pool Settings' from the sub-menu.  Use the mouse cursor and/or
TAB key to move around the Basic Pool Settings window.

  - Under the section entitled 'POOL SCORING PER ROUND', enter the
    number of points pool players will receive for a correct pick in
    each round.  Valid values range from zero (if your pool does not
    count games in a round) through 9999.  If you do not enter your
    own point values, default settings award players one point for each
    correct game, regardless of round.

    You may change point values at any time during the pool should you
    decide to change the scoring scheme.  This is particularly handy for
    devising TIE-BREAKER schemes at the end of your pool.  For example,
    set games to one point in all rounds to obtain standings of players
    with the most wins.  Set games in round 5 to one point and games in
    all other rounds to zero to see who correctly predicted the most
    teams getting into the Final Four.  By varying points-per-round,
    any number of tie-breaking schemes are possible.

  - Under the section entitled 'CONFERENCE NAMES', enter the four names
    that you will use to refer to the conferences in the tournament.
    Most important to consider is the ORDER in which you will be
    entering pool players' picks for the tournament.  You can use the
    default conference names and order that first appear on the screen, or
    you can change the names and order to suit your own needs or taste.

                * * IMPORTANT * *
    ONCE YOU HAVE ENTERED PICKS FOR THE FIRST PLAYER IN YOUR POOL, YOU
    MUST ENTER PICKS FOR *ALL* REMAINING POOL PLAYERS USING THE *SAME*
    CONFERENCE ORDER.  CHANGING THE ORDER OF CONFERENCES AT ANY TIME
    AFTER YOU START WILL CAUSE ALL SCORE-KEEPING AND ANALYSES THAT
    THE PROGRAM PERFORMS TO BE INVALID!

    ENTER THE CONFERENCE NAMES FOR YOUR POOL IN ANY ORDER THAT YOU WANT
    *BEFORE* THE TOURNAMENT BEGINS, AND *NEVER* CHANGE THAT ORDER FOR
    THE DURATION OF THE TOURNAMENT.

  - The 'Warning Beeps' setting at the bottom-left of the Settings
    window switches an audible warning beep in the College Hoops program
    on or off.  When enabled, the program will routinely beep whenever
    something arises that requires the user's attention.  Once you
    become familiar with the program, you may choose to turn the warning
    beeps off.

  - The 'Include Seeds' option allows a user to add a hypothetical
    player into the pool whose predictions exactly match those of the
    official tournament seedings.  When viewing standings, note that the
    Official Seedings make NO predictions about winners in the rounds of
    the Final Four, and thus receive NO points for correct predictions
    in Final Four games.

Once you have finished entering Basic Pool Settings, click 'OK' to save
the settings.  If you click on 'Cancel', NONE of the settings you
entered become active, and NONE of the settings will be saved.

2.  ENTER TOURNAMENT TEAMS.  Next enter the names of the 64 teams
playing in the tournament.  Most local newspapers publish the official
brackets a few days before the tournament begins.  Copy the teams from
there.  The College Hoops software limits the length of each team name
to 20 characters.  However, for the purpose of printing, as well as
aesthetic appearance on the screen, it is best to keep team names to
10 or fewer characters.  Using familiar abbreviations for college names
or state universities, this is usually not a problem.

You MUST enter a name for each of the 64 teams playing in the tournament,
but Won-Lost records are optional.  The Won-Lost records show up only
when printing official entry forms.


              * * IMPORTANT * *
Looking at the brackets in your newspaper, the first two conferences
that you enter should be BOTH conferences from one side of the brackets
(i.e., BOTH from the left, or BOTH from the right), and the last two
conferences that you enter should be BOTH conferences from the other
side.  If you are not careful about entering BOTH conferences on one
side of the brackets before you enter conferences from the other side,
you will NOT have the correct teams playing each other in the Final
Four.  This would make it impossible to obtain accurate scoring for
your pool in these crucial rounds of the tournament.

3. GENERATE OFFICIAL ENTRY FORMS.  The next step in setting up a pick-em
pool is to have pool players make their predictions for ALL 63
tournament games.  From the main menu of the program, select 'Setup',
and then choose 'Generate Entry Forms' from the sub-menu.  This will
generate a readable text file named OUTPUT.CHP in the College Hoops
directory of your hard disk.  Use a word processor to edit this file
and print it on your printer.  (Use a fixed-size font like Courier for
the printing.)  The result is an official pick-em pool entry form that
you can then distribute to each player in the pool.

Most users will have a copy of the Windows 'Write' word processor in the
'Accessories' group of their Program Manager. The entry form can easily
be generated using Write by following these steps:

   - From the Write main menu, choose 'File' and then 'Open'.  Open
     the file OUTPUT.CHP located in the directory where the College
     Hoops software is installed.
   - Choose 'File' and 'Print Setup', and set the page orientation to
     Landscape.
   - Highlight the entire form (at the top of the file, press
     SHIFT-CTRL-END simultaneously).  Then choose 'Character' and
     'Fonts' to select a Courier font (or some other fixed font) with
     a size of 8.
   - Choose 'Document' and then 'Page Layout'.  Make left and right
     margins .70", and top and bottom margins .50".
   - Choose 'File' and then 'Print', and the entry form will be routed to
     your default Windows printer.
   - If you want to improve the look of the official entry form in any
     way, edit the form using Write, and print again.

If you do not have a copy of Write on your computer system, edit and
print the entry form with your own word processor.  Refer to the above
Write settings to guide your editing.

4. ENTER PLAYER PICKS.  When players return their completed entry forms,
select 'Players' from the main menu and then choose 'Add A Player' to
enter each one's picks into the computer.  The College Hoops Pick-Em
Pool Extravaganza! has made this process as fast and easy to accomplish
as possible.

First, enter the player's name and any other personal information you
want to keep track of.  You can use the two 'Extra Info' check boxes
at the bottom of the window to keep track of things that are specific to
your particular pool (like whether or not the player plans to attend a
Final Four pot-luck dinner).  You MUST enter a name for each player, but
all other information is optional.  BE SURE TO ENTER A *UNIQUE* NAME FOR
EACH PLAYER.  Duplicate player names will confuse the program and lead
to problems managing your pool.

Once you have entered a player's name and other information, click on
'OK' to proceed with the player's picks.

Enter player picks by clicking on the winner for each game, starting
with the first round and moving out into the later rounds.  Whenever a
winner is selected for a given game, that team is automatically moved
forward into the next round.

You must enter picks for ALL games.  When you have finished a
conference, click the 'Next' button to proceed with player picks for
the next conference.  After picks for the fourth conference are entered,
enter player picks for the Final Four, and click 'Save' to store the
player's picks in the file PLAYERS.CHP on your hard disk.

NONE OF THE PICKS FOR A PLAYER ARE SAVED UNTIL YOU SELECT THE 'SAVE'
BUTTON IN THE FINAL-FOUR SCREEN.  IF YOU CLICK 'CANCEL' AT ANY POINT,
ANY PICKS YOU HAVE ENTERED FOR THAT PLAYER WILL BE LOST!

When you are through entering picks, click on 'Quit' in the 'Add A
Player' Window to return to the main menu.  You need not enter picks
for all pool players in one sitting.  You can quit after any player has
been entered - but not in the middle of a player - and return to add
more players to your pool later on.

            * * HANDY FEATURE * *
The College Hoops program includes a DOS utility (MERGE.EXE) in your
College Hoops directory that allows you to split up the work of
entering player picks with others who have purchased a copy of the
software.  To use this utility, follow these steps:

  - Divide up the work of entering player picks with your colleagues.
  - When your colleagues have entered their share of pool players,
    obtain a floppy disk from each of them containing a copy of their
    PLAYERS.CHP file on the Hoops directory of their hard disk.  You
    will be merging their PLAYERS.CHP file with your file of the same
    name.
  - BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANY MERGING, *BACK UP* THE PLAYERS.CHP FILE IN
    THE COLLEGE HOOPS DIRECTORY OF YOUR HARD DISK.  This will prevent
    the loss of player picks you may have entered in the unlikely event
    that there are problems with the merge.
  - At your computer, go to DOS -- THE MERGE UTILITY WILL NOT RUN FROM
    WINDOWS.
  - *NEVER* ATTEMPT A MERGE FROM A WINDOWS DOS-BOX WHILE THE COLLEGE
    HOOPS PROGRAM IS RUNNING!  THIS MAY IRREPARABLY CORRUPT YOUR
    PLAYER FILES.
  - Insert your colleague's floppy disk into the drive, and set the
    current directory of the floppy drive to the one with PLAYERS.CHP.
  - Make your College Hoops directory the current directory of your
    hard drive.  From the hard drive, type the command MERGE, followed
    by the letter of the floppy drive you are using.  For example, if
    the diskette is in drive A, type:

               MERGE A

Note that the command MERGE A: (with the colon appended) will NOT work.

Upon a successful merge, the players that your colleague entered will
automatically be added to your master list of players in the pool.

To provide other pool players who have purchased the College Hoops
software with a complete set of player data and other files needed to
operate the pool, copy all files ending with the extension .CHP in the
College Hoops directory of your hard disk onto a floppy disk.  Other
players need only copy the .CHP files from the disk into the College
Hoops directory of their hard disk to have a fully operational version
of the pool.


5. KEEP TRACK OF OFFICIAL TOURNAMENT RESULTS.  Once player picks have
been entered, your pool is completely set up and ready to run.  After
each game is played in the College Hoops tournament, enter the winner
by choosing 'Results & Standings' from the main menu, and then choosing
'Enter Official Results' from the sub-menu.  Entering game results then
follows the exact same easy-to-use format as entering player picks.

You can also easily UNDO official results (e.g., in case of errors or
typos).  Simply position the mouse cursor over the game you want to
reset, and click once on the RIGHT mouse button.  The result for that
game instantly disappears.

              * * IMPORTANT * *
Even if you do not need to update game results in all four conferences,
be sure to click 'Next' to pass through ALL conference screens until
you get to the 'Save' button on the Final Four screen.

YOU MUST CLICK THE 'SAVE' BUTTON ON THE *FINAL FOUR* SCREEN IN ORDER
TO SAVE OFFICIAL RESULTS.  IF YOU CLICK 'CANCEL' BEFORE THEN, ANY
RESULTS YOU MAY HAVE ENTERED SINCE THE LAST SAVE ARE *LOST*.

Clicking 'Save' also displays the updated pool standings on your screen.

6. KEEP SCORE AND GENERATE STANDINGS FOR YOUR POOL.  Instantly check
current pool standings at any time by choosing 'Results & Standings'
from the main menu, and then selecting 'Current Standings' from the
sub-menu.

Click the 'Print' button to print the standings on your default
Windows printer. Click 'Done' to return to the College Hoops main menu.

7. USE THE OTHER FEATURES OF THE COLLEGE HOOPS PICK-EM POOL EXTRAVAGANZA!
FOR HOURS OF COLLEGE HOOPS FUN.  The above describes everything you need
to know to set up and run your College Hoops Pick-Em pool.  But the
College Hoops Pick-Em Pool Extravaganza! is also the ultimate pick-em
pool analysis tool.  With it you can:

  - Generate pool stats for your College Hoops Pick-Em pool.  See how
    many players picked a given team to make the Final Four - or win it
    all.  Or check out the teams that players predict to win any given
    game.

  - See what the standings would be if a given team wins or loses an
    upcoming game.  You can enter endless combinations of 'What-If'
    scenarios and instantly see the pool standings with a click of
    your mouse!

  - Evaluate a player's chances of winning the pool assuming that his
    or her predictions come true.

  - Identify your key competitors in the pool, and instantly see which
    games you'll have to win to overtake the competition.

  - Generate standings for all combinations of possible outcomes prior
    to the rounds of the Final Four.

  - And much, much more!

It's truly a College Hoops Pick-Em Pool Extravaganza!  Read about all
these features in the other documentation files provided on the College
Hoops diskette.  Have fun using the software, and good luck in your
College Hoops pool.  Happy Pick-'Ems!


Setting    up a pool that starts after round 1
-------------------------------------------
If you are not counting all of the games in your College Hoops Pick-Em
pool and are instead starting with a later round of the tournament
(i.e., not the first round), follow these steps to set up your pool:

  - Follow all instructions in #1 above to set Basic Pool Settings
    for your pick-em pool.  However, be sure to enter 0 (zero) points
    for those rounds which you are NOT using in the pool.

  - Follow all instructions in #2 above to enter ALL original 64 teams
    playing in the tournament.  You must enter all 64 teams even though
    your pool will only be using a subset of these teams.

  - As games are played in the college hoops tournament, enter the
    official results for games in those initial rounds that don't
    count in your pool (see #5 above).

  - When results of all early-round games have been entered, you are
    ready for players to supply their picks.  Generate an official
    entry form as described in #3 above.  Then use your word processor
    to edit the file OUTPUT.CHP appearing in the College Hoops
    directory of your hard disk.  Put the early-round winners into the
    appropriate places on the form, print it, and distribute the form
    to players for them to make their pick-em pool predictions.

  - Enter player picks into your computer exactly as described in
    #4.  When the College Hoops program asks whether you want to skip
    over early tournament rounds when entering the picks, answer 'Yes'.
    You need only enter player picks for those games that count in
    the pool -- and NOT for any of the early games that don't count.

  - Keep track of remaining tournament games, keep score, view the
    standings, and use the pool software exactly as described in
    sections #5 through #7 above.  From this point on, everything about
    using the College Hoops Pick-Em Pool Extravaganza! works exactly
    the same as though you are playing a full, 63-game pool.



Setting up a pool for tournaments with less than 64 teams
---------------------------------------------------------
The College Hoops Pick-Em Pool Extravaganza! software can easily be used
to administer pick-em pools for tournaments that start with 64, 32, 16,
8, or 4 teams.  For less than 64 teams, follow these steps:

  - Modify the POINTS PER ROUND in 'Basic Pool Settings' (under 'Setup'
    on the main menu) by indicating 0 points for initial rounds as
    follows:  32-team tournament pools must zero out the first round,
    16-team tournament pools must zero out the first two rounds, 8-team
    tournament pools must zero out the first three rounds, and 4-team
    tournaments must zero out the first four rounds.

  - When you enter the names of teams playing in the tournament, you
    still have to enter 64 names, even though the tournament has fewer
    teams in it.  Input team names in each of the four conferences as
    follows:
      * 32-team tournaments have 8 teams in each conference.  Start at
        the top of the Team Entry window and enter each team name TWO
        times.
      * 16-team tournaments have 4 teams in each conference.  Start at
        the top of the Team Entry window and enter each team name FOUR
        times.
      * 8-team tournaments have 2 teams in each conference.  Start at
        the top of the Team Entry window and enter each team name EIGHT
        times.
      * 4-team tournaments have 1 team in each conference.  Start at the
        top of the Team Entry window and enter each team name SIXTEEN
        times.

  - Select 'Results & Standings' from the main menu and choose 'Enter
    Official Results'.
     * For 32-team tournaments, select "winners" for the games in the
       first round.
     * For 16-team tournaments, select "winners" for the games in the
       first TWO rounds.
     * For 8-team tournaments, select "winners" for the games in the
       first THREE rounds.
     * For 4-team tournaments, select "winners" for the games in the
       first FOUR rounds.

  - Enter player picks into your computer exactly as you would for a full,
    64-team tournament. When the College Hoops program asks whether you
    want to skip over early tournament rounds when entering player picks,
    answer 'Yes'.

  - Once you have set up your pool with these modifications, all features
    of the College Hoops Pick-Em Pool program will work exactly as they do
    for a 64-team tournament.


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