To avoid the monotony of all the lists having half the same names on them, I've decided to format the pool as a draft. Once a person is drafted, they are the exclusive property of the drafter. This will mean no duplication on the lists and a lot more variety in the field. This also means more thinking on your parts. Everyone has had plenty of lead time to prepare for the pool.
For those out-of-towners, fear not! You too can still play. It may take a little more advanced effort on your part. Simply submit every celebrity you can think of (along with your entry fee, of course) in order of preference to me ahead of time. I will order all my picks in advance and stick to them so that you don't have to worry about me leeching off your list. This may mean you'll have to come up with 200 picks to be safe, but I still hope you make the attempt. Obviously, you won't be thinking as hard about pick #200 as pick #11, and neither will anyone else at the draft party I imagine. 200 was just a number I picked off the top of my head. I have no idea to what degree the lower depths of people's lists will overlap,
so use your own judgment / take your chances.
I will designate a proxy from the non-participating guests at the draft. Note: Sometimes proxies make mistakes. All picks are final nonetheless.
The 1999 pool featured 315 (draft format) unique names. The 2000 pool should have between 300 and 400. The degree of originality of your list to a large part determines the degree to which it overlaps others'. In the woful event that all of your advanced picks get taken before you've filled out a lineup card, I will appoint one of the non-participating partygoers to make your picks when the time comes. This should give you some ease of mind. Please don't let the seeming enormity of the task dissuade you from participating. This will be the same effort you would be making that night, but you will have the luxury of putting some thought into it ahead of time. Others would do well to put some forethought in also.
In 1999 some people barely squeaked in with their 50 picks. Some people went much deeper. I'd recommend more for 2000.
Each contestant will get 15 picks.
Positions in the draft will be determined randomly. The draft will be reverse order every other round. That means in a 4-player draft, the person with the first choice would get picks #1 #8 #9 #16, while the person with the second choice would get picks #2 #7 #10 #15. This will even out the luck of position in the first round. When it is a player's turn to pick, he/she will have 15 seconds after the bookkeeping of the previous pick is completed to name a pick or will have that pick delayed until the end of the next round. For this reason, even attending players will be well served to have preordered lists. Drafting will continue until the completion of 15 rounds.
All picks are final.
Last Modified 2/8/00