The Loser Pool has come a long way since its humble beginnings. In order to understand where we are now, sometimes it's helpful to look at the past:
This was the first year of the Loser Pool, but alas there are no records of it to be found in the archives.
Why? Because it was run over email. What fun! Thankfully it was much smaller back then, so managing it was
easier, but it was still clear that something had to change. For all historical stats, this season is
omitted.
The Loser Pool did not run this year. I'm not sure why. Probably a case of laziness and/or procrastination.
2004 brought a hack of a website that had no bells or whistles, but it served its purpose. The website was
written in ColdFusion and was run on a dev server on my employer's network (with my boss's blessing). In
2004, there was no such thing as the Best Record pot or the Biggest Loser pot; all you had was the Stay-Alive
pot. This turned out to be pretty anti-climatic, since by week 2, literally half of the players had been
eliminated from the game and were done for the season. 2004 also had an entry fee of only $10, and there was
no prize for second place. Two players wound up splitting the top (and only) spot, and that was that. Game
over by week 9.
In 2005 the Best Record pot was added, meaning that players could now be engaged with the game for the full year.
The payouts were also modified to award money to players that finished in 2nd place in either pot, which offered
more opportunities for people to win. The problem was with the way the initial payout rules were written.
The rules said that the player(s) who finished in 2nd place in either of the pots would get their entry fee back,
while those who finished in 1st place would get the rest. However, for ties it was determined that the relevent
pot would be split amongst those players who tied. Clearly this did not work as intended, as three different
players wound up being tied for 2nd place in the Best Record pot. This meant that the $10 prize intended for
the "player" finishing in 2nd for that pot was split amongst them, resulting in them all winning a mere $3.33.
Clearly I hadn't thought that one through. Aside from that stuff, this was also the first year that the system
would automatically re-select a player's pick from last week if they failed to make a pick by the lock time.
However, the tracking of that fact wouldn't be added until 2007, meaning that if you look at the Pick Boards on
the season archives for 2005 or 2006, you won't see any picks as having been Set by System.
The first stab at resolving the payout mess from 2005 was taken in 2006. Instead of 2nd place getting their
entry fee back, and 1st place getting the rest, the payout was changed so that 2nd place (or all users tying for
2nd place) would share 40% of the pot in question, and 1st place (or all users tying for 1st place) would share
60% of the pot in question. While the intentions of this change were good, clearly this was not the proper
solution as the end of the year bluntly illustrated. With 4 players tying for 1st in the Best Record pot, and
3 players tying for 2nd in that pot, those players in 1st place wound up getting $64.50 each (15% of the pot),
while those players in 2nd place wound up with $57.33 each (13.3% of the pot). Clearly the delineation wasn't
sufficient, and it opened up the opportunity for players in 2nd to actually get MORE money than players in 1st
if the ties worked out differently. Aside from the adjusted payout structure, there were a few other changes
as well. The entry fee was increased to $20, the ability to post messages (or "trash talk") was added,
automated email reminders were added, and the lock time for each week was changed to be what it is today:
One hour prior to kickoff of the first game of that week.
The payout mess was finally resolved in 2007 using the same system we have today: Any players finishing in 1st
place in a given pot will receive twice as much as any players finishing in 2nd place in that pot. Additionally,
I added the database tracking of Set-by-System picks.
Based on all my research, I can't find anything new that happened in 2008. I'm a slacker.
In 2009, I left my employer (and gracious host of the Loser Pool website), and had to frantically port the site
from ColdFusion (which is not free) to PHP (which is). There were a few kinks along the way, but after a few
days the site was up and running on my personal webserver at home. This was apparently enough stress for one
year, as no other updates were made to the system.
The 2010 season is when Winner Trophies were added to the system so that users who had previously had success
could be properly decorated for the rest of time. I also added the Past Winners page so users could find out
who'd won the most times, the most money, etc.
In 2011, there were a number of fun features added to the site. First and foremost was the Power Ranking, which
attempts to rank all players by how good they are overall. The formula is constantly being tweaked, but in
general it gives a pretty good idea of who's had the most success in the Loser Pool. In a similar vein, badges
were also added. Similar to trophies, badges were created to recognize special or unique properties of a user
besides just winning money. Some of these were rewarded retroactively for achievements that had been made prior
to 2011. Finally, a number of pieces of information were added, including the Statistics page, the Past Seasons
archive pages, and the Season Outlook section on the homepage.
In 2012, a Profile/Options page was finally added, allowing users to change their Username or Password, and, more
interestingly, upload an Avatar of their choosing.
The trials of running a website on a home PC are many, and in 2013 this was rectified by moving the Loser Pool
from my home server to a hosted server. This removed the reliance on my house's power and internet being being
online, which is great for everyone. The other big change was the addition of the Biggest Loser pot. This
pot (suggested by FOX) was originally optional, but since every player opted in, it became a regular part of the
Loser Pool. Beyond those changes, I also added the Stat Rankings page, and also started locking down certain
pages for users that hadn't paid their entry fee to encourage people to pay early so I didn't have to keep
hounding them.
For 2014, the site, which had been running on effectively the same spaghetti-style hack of a website's code for
a decade was rewritten using Yii Framework and Twitter Bootstrap. The goal of the rewrite was to provide a
better platform for future upgrades, and to make the site more accessible to other devices. During the rewrite,
several other changes were made. Most importantly, the Bandwagon feature was added. Also, the Power Ranking
formula was rewritten and made public, the ability to "Like" posts was added, and player profile pages were added.
With things largely stablizied, no major changes have been made.
In 2020, hardcore mode was added, allowing a different version of the game where each player may only pick each
NFL team once for the entire season. This added several badges as well, for the new mode.