NEW SEASON, OLD RULES

Welcome back to the third annual "Pick Em'" Championships.

This 38 week journey is not for the weak at heart. Like the real Premier League this competition stretches from mid-August until well into May.

You will win some weeks, bomb some others, but just remember how much I appreciate your inevitable donation to my bank account.

Unlike Chelsea, I will not rest on my laurels and have been rigorously preparing to defend my title. In case you happened to forget how last year ended:

Last years title was wrapped up earlier than Sunderland's relegation, so the last few mont....err....weeks were a bit anticlimactic.

So after listening to some of the plebians who have consistently finished below me, I've decided to tweak the rules again to keep things interesting, and hopefully close.

So let's dive into the rules.

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HOW THE GAME WORKS

The Premier League season has 38 weeks, with each of the 20 teams playing each other home and away. Every week each player will pick the score of each game. At the conclusion of the matches each pick will receive a point designation (see below).

POINTS

The points are awarded as follows:

3 POINTS FOR PICKING THE CORRECT OUTCOME

4 POINTS FOR PICKING EXACT RESULT

So: pick a 3-2 game 2-1, 3 points. Pick it 3-2, 4 points. It’s really fucking simple.

Finally, 5 POINTS FOR THE HIGHEST POINT TOTAL OF THE WEEK

EXTRA COMPETITION

In addition to the overall champion we will have one other competition. So Chase can lose at multiple things.

- Boxing Day Madness

A portion of your entry will be set aside to allow for a little Boxing Day competition.

For those of you who don’t know, on Boxing Day (December 26th) every team plays a match. It’s the best day of the year, even better than that one magical day a year Chip gets laid. So to up the ante for the amazing one day 10 game affair, we will have a small cash prize for whoever scores the most points from the Boxing Day matches. All points will be counted normally. Chelsea sucks. Let’s continue.

TIE-BREAKERS

If any week is tied, whoever got ALL of their picks in first wins. Point is, get them in early. It makes my life easier and you are going to lose anyways.

ENTRY FEE/ END OF SEASON PRIZES

So everyone pays a $40 entry fee.

-$5 to the Boxing Day competition.

-$10 to the website: (at a little over $200 a year the contribution is appreciated...I'm a teacher)

-$25 will go to the end of the season pool.

Assuming there are about 10 players:

-You can make your money back on Boxing Day

- Keep the website operating by helping everyone pitch in half

- Win $250 bucks at the end of the season.

Finally, you can't put a price tag on the chance to mercilessly mock Scott!

HOW TO MAKE YOUR PICKS/ SEE YOUR SCORES

Go to www.theschoolofsoccer.net, click on the button in the middle of the screen :

That will shoot you to the PICK EM PAGE, just enter your scores and you are done.

I will usually post the picks on the front page of the site early Saturday morning, assuming post people have gotten their picks in by that point.

Once the week is over I will update the scoreboard and post the full pick sheet in the PICKS ARCHIVE page so you can go back and ask yourself why you really picked Brighton to pull out the three points at Tottenham.

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That's it, nothing too difficult, just enter the picks, watch the games and lose your money!

So man up and join. Or you can play fantasy football, like you wife, and track yards from scrimmage. Cool.