Armchair Pools Blog

Trash Talk
Poolies at the bottom of the standings can get some of their dignity back by throwing out some good trash talk. Sure they might be losing in the standings, but some other poolie picked Anton Babchuk as his sleeper pick and now he's playing in the KHL. There's fun to be had all season long with that one.

The key to good trash talk is to find an online pool manager that has a good trash talk feature. This can be surprisingly hard. Some pool sites make you maintain a separate login and force you to pick confusing messaging options in order to chat with your fellow poolies. Armchair Hockey Pools uses a simple online chat setup to facilitate it's trash talk that allows poolies to view the pool rankings while they insult their friends. The site even has a bonus feature for those who use the Armchair Pools Facebook component. The example below shows how Facebook users can send "gifts" like a hipcheck or a slewfoot to fellow poolies when they are frusterated with the nights standings.



Monthly Prizes
Winning the season pool is the ultimate goal. But for those poolies who are out of contention by December, having monthly prizes gives everyone something to cheer for. I usually offer a prize equal to my entry fee to everyone who gets the most points in a given month. It takes the sting out of coming last if you are at least able to win a month and break even. Of course, coming last and not winning any months just adds insult to injury. But my brother-in-law will get over it. Besides, he's family, he'll come in the pool next year no matter what.

Play-by-play
Not everyone follows the pool standings as religiously as you might think. For those who only check in once in a while, send out summary emails detailing any interesting goings-on in the pool. For example, in my pool last year, my brother-in-law was set to win a monthly prize. He was behind by a mere point with one night left. However, he had all his top players playing and 2 points was a given. The guy in front of him had only a single player in action - some third line checker who I cannot even remember. It was safe to say that the monthly prize was in the bag. Unfortunately, the impossible happened and my brother-in-law's players all got skunked. Because some poolies had stopped following the pool on a daily basis, I made a point of giving play-by-play via email and it provided good entertainment for everyone. Well, for everyone except my brother-in-law.


Tune in next time for Part 7 of our series, "Ending the pool in style". Want your pool to be popular? Cash and a stupid trophy go a long way towards keeping your poolies coming back. Follow our checklist to make sure your pool ends on a positive note.