About making predictions in a pool

When you join a pool, you're making predictions against a real tournament, whether that's picking winners in a bracket, scores in group matches, a champion for the whole event, or a survivor pick each week. What you actually pick depends on how the pool's organizer set it up, but the way picks behave (how they save, when they lock, and where you go to manage them) is the same across every pool.

How picks work

You don't submit picks with a save button. As you tap a winner, enter a score, or make a weekly survivor pick, it saves on its own. A small info popup near the picks explains this auto-save behavior if you want a reminder, and you can dismiss it and keep going.

Picks stay editable until the pool's deadline. That deadline is usually tied to when a match, round, or week starts, since organizers lock things down so nobody can change a pick after the outcome is known. Once a match or week is locked, that specific pick is fixed. If your pool is still open, you'll often see a nudge to finish any picks you haven't made yet, since an incomplete pick set means you're missing points you could have banked.

If you're browsing a pool without having joined, you can look around, but trying to make a pick prompts you to sign in and join first. Once you've joined, your picks are tied to your account (or to your browser, if the pool allows anonymous participation), so they're there the next time you come back.

Different pools score different things:

• Bracket or group pools ask you to pick winners, and sometimes exact scores, for individual matches.
• Season-format pools may ask for a champion pick, or a weekly slate of picks across the season.
• Survivor pools work differently: there's no running point total, just a status of alive or eliminated based on your pick each week. If your pool uses a tiebreaker, it's calculated from the games you picked, not something you enter yourself.

Whichever format your pool uses, the save-and-lock behavior is the same: pick, it saves, it locks at the deadline.

Where to pick

Inside a pool, you'll find a few tabs that split up picking, reviewing, and checking your standing:

• Predict is where you actually make and edit your picks before they lock.
• My Bracket shows the picks you've already submitted, laid out like the tournament itself, so you can see everything you've committed to in one place.
• Leaderboard shows where you rank against everyone else in the pool, including your points or your survivor status. Some organizers also let you open another player's submitted picks from here in a read-only view.
• Tournament shows the real bracket or schedule the pool is based on, with actual results as they come in. It's not where you pick, it's where you follow the tournament itself.

Each tab keeps its own place, so you can jump between checking the leaderboard and going back to finish your picks without losing your spot.