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Text File | 1991-07-24 | 18KB | 523 lines

NCAAPOOL 1 version 3.0 NCAAPOOL A Pool Management Tool by Tom Cunningham 1 Introduction. If you've ever organized a pool on the NCAA basketball tournament, you know what a hassle it can be. First the easy part: You make a lot of copies of the tournament tree from the newspaper and distribute them and get everyone to fill them out and returned to you in time. Then the REAL hassles start: Every round you have to check a couple of dozen of these sheets and tabulate the results in some sort of meaningful way. You give out the results and everyone wants to know why they aren't winning. You have to spend a couple of hours compiling detailed individual statistics for each round to keep everyone satisfied. It's a hassle. NCAAPOOL was created to eliminate that hassle. NCAAPOOL was created to manage office pools for the annual NCAA basketball tournament. Pool participants would fill out the tournament tree found in any newspaper's sports section, selecting who they think would win each game and each resulting game between winners in previous rounds until the final tournament winner emerged. There are currently 64 teams that start the single-elimination tournament, so 63 games over the span of 6 rounds, taking about two weeks, need to be played to determine the ultimate winner. The problem is that the pool participants want to know how they are doing as the tournament progresses, and taking out their choice sheets and marking them against the progress of the tournament is a time-consuming pain. The problem gets worse when different participants use different newspapers to get their tournament tree setups, so there are different forms that slow the tallying process and encourage mistakes. Out of this came NCAAPOOL. Once the basic first-round team structure is entered, everything is automatic. The pool participants' choices are easy to enter even if they are using different basic forms (since the underlying structure of the tournament is set by the first-round pairings which NCAAPOOL tracks automatically). The results of the tournament can be entered on a round-by-round basis, and reports for both individuals and the overall pool generated as you desire. NCAAPOOL takes the hassle NCAAPOOL 2 version 3.0 (and a good many of the potential mistakes) out of organizing a pool. 2 Licensing Agreement and Registration. NCAAPOOL has taken many hours to program and debug. It is copyrighted software and it is not in the public domain. It is distributed under the Shareware concept. You may try out the program and distribute it freely (so long as both the program and this documentation file are distributed together). You have a limited license to use NCAAPOOL on a purely trial basis. If you continue to use NCAAPOOL you must register it by sending a check for $20 to: Tom Cunningham P.O. Box 3015 Atlanta, GA 30301-3015 When you register, you gain the right to continue to use this software. In addition, I will send you the latest, registered version of NCAAPOOL, and further updates will be made available at nominal cost. This version of NCAAPOOL only supports fifteen participants. The registered version of NCAAPOOL extends that to 300. You may distribute copies of NCAAPOOL only under the condition that the program is unmodified and this complete NCAAPOOL.DOC file is included. Your registration makes products like these possible. Thank you for your support! NCAAPOOL 3 version 3.0 3 Registration Form. To register NCAAPOOL (and NFLPOOL) fill in the information on this page and send it in. _____ I would like to register NCAAPOOL and receive my own copy of this registered version of the program. I enclose a check for $20. _____ I would like to register my use of NCAAPOOL and NFLPOOL (described below). I enclose a check of $29 (normal registration of both would be $40). Note: If you want Express Mail delivery (I have been amazed at the number of people that do), please add $10. Otherwise the registered version will be sent First Class. Send checks to: Tom Cunningham P.O. Box 3015 Atlanta, GA 30301-3015 NAME: _____________________________________________________ ADDRESS: __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ COMPUTER: _________________________________________________ WHERE DID YOU GET NCAAPOOL: _______________________________ DISK SIZE: 5.25" 3.5" COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS: NCAAPOOL 4 version 3.0 4 Legal Disclaimer. This software is provided strictly on an "as is" basis. I make no warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, any warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for any particular purpose. I shall not be liable for any damages, whether direct, indirect, special or consequential, arising from failure of the product to operate in the manner desired by the user. I shall not be liable for any damage to data or property which may be caused directly or indirectly by the use of this product. I shall not be liable to the user for any damages including, but not limited to, any lost profits, lost savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of your use of, or inability to use, the product, or for any claim by any other party. 5 Running NCAAPOOL. To start NCAAPOOL, simply copy the program NCAAPOOL.EXE onto the disk or directory you intend to use (it is never a good idea to work from your original disk. Always work with a copy). Make sure the logged directory corresponds to the location of the program (i.e., if you are running the program from the A: disk drive, make sure you have the program on the disk in A: and have an A> prompt, or put the program in, say, C:\NCAAPOOL, and change to that directory), and type NCAAPOOL. The program takes it from there, creating the necessary data files and moving on to setting up the tournament. 5.1 Setting up the tournament. The NCAA tournament is comprised of four divisions: the East, the Southeast, the Midwest, and the West. Each division has 16 teams, making a total of 64. The four division winners are then paired in the semi-finals, and those two winners play in the finals. NCAAPOOL asks you to enter the 64 team names according to their first-round sequence. It begins with Division 1 (see the next NCAAPOOL 5 version 3.0 paragraph for an explanation of Divisions), team 1. Type in the team name and hit <return>. You are then asked for team 2, which plays team 1 in the first round (the team numbers are NOT the seeding in the tournament). Similarly, team 3 plays team 4, 5 plays 6, and so on. Thus in round 2 (which NCAAPOOL handles for you -- you only enter team names once) the winner of the 1 versus 2 game meets the winner of the 3 versus 4 game. All that is happening is that you are entering the first round teams in the sequence in which they appear in the beginning of the tournament tree. You do the same thing with Division 2, 3, and 4 (the team numbers continue through 64 rather than resetting with each Division -- I have found this to be less confusing). Every 16 teams you are asked to check your work, since everything in the program works off of this initial tree. The team names should appear in the same order as in the tournament tree in the newspaper (with the teams in the first round games appearing next to their opponent). See the following example. EXAMPLE: DIVISION 1 __(team 1 name*)___ __(team 2 name*)___ > --(winner of 1 v 2)-- > -- winner ... etc... __(team 3 name*)___ __(team 4 name*)___ > --(winner of 3 v 4)-- . . . *You enter only these names. NCAAPOOL tracks the rest of the tournament for you. Why NCAAPOOL does not use division names: The pairings in the semi-final round are not always the same. That is, the winner of the East division may play the winner of the Southeast division one year, and next year play the winner of the West, or the Midwest, or even the Southeast again. Because of this, I haven't given the divisions names, just numbers. The winner of Division 1 is assumed to meet the winner of Division 2 in the semi-finals (and Division 3 meets Division 4). Look at the organization of the tournament this year and make sure that you make the correct pairings of divisions, as, again, entering the 64 teams in the proper initial order is critical. For example, if the semi-finals have the winner of the East meeting the winner of the Midwest and the winner of the Southeast meeting the winner of the West, then the East and the Midwest must be Divisions 1 and 2 (or 3 and 4) and the Southeast and the West must then be Divisions 3 and 4 (or 1 and 2). NCAAPOOL 6 version 3.0 EXAMPLE: Semi-Finals Finals __(Division 1 winner)___ __(Division 2 winner)___ > --(winner of 1 v 2)-- > --WINNER __(Division 3 winner)___ __(Division 4 winner)___ > --(winner of 3 v 4)-- You really shouldn't worry too much about making a mistake in setting up the tournament. As soon as you start entering participants' choices, you'll see if you got it right. If you make a mistake, simply exit NCAAPOOL and delete all the files except NCAAPOOL.EXE. 5.2 Entering participants' choices. After you have entered the tournament structure, you are asked if you wish to enter participants choices. You then enter the number of pool participants, their names, and their choices. Since the entire structure of the tournament is determined by the first-round setup you've already entered, entering the choices of the participants is easy! Round 1 consists of 32 games, the winners of which enter round 2. The 16 round 2 winners move to round 3. The 8 round 3 winners go to round 4, etc. NCAAPOOL tracks the outcomes of the games chosen and presents you, the pool manager, with the appropriate team names from which to chose for each game of each round. When you have finished entering the participants, and every time you re-start NCAAPOOL, you will be asked if you wish to enter additional participants. NCAAPOOL allows you to add participants at any time, though how you wish to deal with latecomers is up to you. 5.3 Entering and updating the tournament results. After the tournament structure and participants' choices are entered the pool is set up and NCAAPOOL will ask if you have round 1 results. If not, simply answer no, and run NCAAPOOL when you get the first round outcome. Whenever you re-start NCAAPOOL, it automatically brings you to the latest round for which it does not have results. For example, if you exited NCAAPOOL after you had everyones choices, but the tournament had yet to start, when you NCAAPOOL 7 version 3.0 re-start NCAAPOOL it will ask for round 1 results. If you had already entered results for some rounds, it will ask immediately for the appropriate round (if NCAAPOOL has the complete tournament outcome, it will skip this entirely). Again, since the tournament structure is determined by the first round, NCAAPOOL will track the winners and the match-ups and simply present you with the appropriate choices for the game. 5.4 Getting the results. Any time you finish entering results, NCAAPOOL asks if you would like results printed. First, NCAAPOOL asks if you would consensus picks. This lists the participants' choices for the Final Four, the Final Two and the ultimate winner of the tournament. You really only need to print this once, and probably ought to do it immediately after you've entered all your participants' choices, so you can keep track of the big upsets as the tournament progresses. (This is something you might want to photocopy for everyone, so they can see where their choices match up with everyone else's.) Next, NCAAPOOL asks if you would like individual results. This prints the results for each individual's choices for the tournament so far. If you would like results for individual participants, they must be printed because the results cannot be meaningfully displayed on the screen (for example, if you print individual results at the end of the tournament, each participant will see the result of 63 choices spread over 6 rounds). After NCAAPOOL asks about individual reports, it offers a tally of the overall pool, showing the number of correct choices everyone has made. (This is the whole point of the pool!) This can be printed, or displayed on the screen, or both. The registered version of NCAAPOOL provides for a weighting system that you select that allows for different rounds to be given different values (i.e., each correct pick in each round may be given a different value that correct picks in other rounds). 5.5 Resetting NCAAPOOL for another tournament. Whenever NCAAPOOL is started it checks for the existance of some data files. If it doesn't find them it will create them. To re-use NCAAPOOL for another tournament, simply erase all the files except NCAAPOOL.EXE. NCAAPOOL 8 version 3.0 6 A Plug for NFLPOOL. NFLPOOL is quite similar to NCAAPOOL in that it helps you keep track of participants' choices through the entire NFL season. It will help you manage football pools that are organized along two separate lines: week-by-week choices as the season progresses, or a full-season pick occuring at the beginning of the season (or any combination or permutation along the way). You can start the pool in any week, and skip weeks, or whatever. NFLPOOL is designed to be as flexible as possible to make it as useful as possible! Normally NFLPOOL registration is $20, but if you register NFLPOOL and NCAAPOOL together, the fee is $29, a savings of 27% on both. Thank you for using and registering NCAAPOOL!