How to Adjust Your Picks When A Game Is Postponed or Canceled

Different pools handle postponed games in different ways. We review the most common rules, and explain how to adjust your picks accordingly.

When a game is postponed less than a week before the originally scheduled kickoff, that can throw a wrench in pick’em pools, especially those that use confidence points.

The biggest complicating factor, though, is that different pool administrators and hosting sites have different ways of handling postponed games. We’ll review the most common rules here, and provide advice on the best way to update your picks based on each rule. But first, two important notes:

• Check your official pool rules. It’s extremely important that you know for sure how your pool handles picks for games that end up getting postponed or canceled. Acting based on an incorrect understanding of your pool’s policy here can put you at a big disadvantage.
• Remove the postponed or canceled game from your weekly game slate. If you already got picks for the week, including a pick for a game that later got postponed or canceled, the instructions below all require you to update your picks and remove that game from your “Games Added” when you get to this screen:

As long as you don’t also remove any  non-postponed games from you game slate, any locked picks (i.e. picks for games that already started) should remain locked, though some may slide up or down one confidence point slot to account the postponed/canceled game getting removed.

Pool Variation #1: Remove The Game + Adjust Available Confidence Point Values

This rule is fair and straightforward. Let’s say that originally you needed to assign confidence points 16 through 1 to all games in a given NFL week. If a game then gets postponed, some pools will simply remove the game from your picks and slide the other picks up or down to fill the gap.

As a result, you’ll end up with confidence points that go either from 16->2, or from 15->1, depending on which direction the site shifts the points.

To account for this in your custom picks, all you need to do is:

• Click “Get Updated Picks” for the pool
• Remove the postponed game from your game slate
• Adjust the confidence points to match the new ones for your pool (i.e. 16->2, or 15-> 1)
• Answer the rest of the questions as normal

At the end, you’ll have updated picks that match your new confidence point values.

Pool Variation #2: Count All Picks On The Postponed Game As A Win

Some pools count any picks on postponed games as wins. That has pretty big strategy implications, since taking advantage of free points is always the right move.

If the postponement happens before your picks lock, and you can still change your confidence points, here’s how we suggest dealing with it in your custom picks:

• Click “Get Updated Picks” for the pool
• Remove the postponed game from your game slate
• Adjust the confidence points to remove the highest value for your pool (so 16->1 becomes 15->1, for example)
• Answer the rest of the questions as normal

You’ll end up with picks for your pool that exclude the postponed game. You should slot that game into the top confidence point spot, since you’re going to be getting an automatic win for it. Then use the rest of the picks as displayed.

Pool Variation #3: Count All Picks On The Game As A Loss

Instead of wins, some pools count any picks on postponed games as losses. That also has pretty big strategy implications, since you want to minimize the damage from that automatic loss.

If the postponement happens before your picks lock, and you can still change your confidence points, here’s how we suggest dealing with it in your custom picks:

• Click “Get Updated Picks” for the pool
• Remove the postponed game from your game slate
• Adjust the confidence points to remove the lowest value for your pool (so 16 through 1 becomes 16 through 2, for example)
• Answer the rest of the questions as normal

You’ll end up with picks for your pool that exclude the postponed game. You should slot that game into the lowest confidence point spot, since you’re going to be getting a big fat zero for that game. Then use the rest of the picks as recommended.

Pool Variation #4: Count All Picks On The Game As A Tie Or Push

Other pools count picks on postponed games as ties or pushes, and assign half points. So, for example, an 8 point pick would receive 4 points.

This rule is a bit deceptive, strategically. That’s because the best strategy depends both on whether your pool is a spread pool or a game winner (straight up) pool, and in some cases also where you are in the standings.

4a. Game Winner (Straight Up) Pools

In pools where you pick the winner straight up, you’ll want to use the postponed game as your lowest confidence pick.

Why? Because your expected points for the game are the same as the expected points for picking a team with 50% win odds. And, a team with 50% win odds is generally going to be at or near the bottom of your rankings.

It’s true that sometimes we suggest picking underdogs, but those are usually cases where the public pick percentage is highly skewed against the underdog, and you stand to gain or lose a lot ground by picking against the crowd.

There’s no opportunity for that here, as everyone is going to get the same result (tie/push) from this game.

4b. Spread (ATS) Pools

On the other hand, we have spread pools. In these pools, your odds to get a lot of picks correct are pretty close to the 50% mark anyway, and the main difference between those games and an automatic push is just variance.

By that we mean, in a real 50/50 game, you either end up with full points (if you get the pick right) or no points (if you get it wrong), but in this game you’ll end up with half the points every time.

This is where the standings (and how late it is in the season) come into play. If you’re protecting a lead late in the season, then playing it safe and ensuring you get half the points rather than a zero is a good strategy, and you should rank this game with high confidence points.

If you’re behind and need to take risks to catch up (or in you’re a weekly pool where you want to maximize your upside), then you’d rather take your chances on real games where you have an opportunity to earn full points. So you should slot the postponed game at the lowest confidence point value.

The Process For Both Types

To handle postponements in pools with this rule:

• Decide where you want to slot the game in, based on our advice above
• Click “Get Updated Picks” for the pool
• Remove the postponed game from your game slate
• Adjust the confidence points to remove the value that you plan to use (so if you’re behind in a spread pool and want to use the 1-point slot, 16->1 becomes 16->2)
• Answer the rest of the questions as normal

You’ll end up with picks for your pool that exclude the postponed game, and that leave one of the confidence point values out. You should slot the postponed game in at that removed spot. Then use the rest of the picks as recommended.

Other Pool Rules Variations Not Covered Above

There may be other rules we haven’t covered above. In those cases, basic process is:

• If you still need to submit a pick for that game, figure out if it should be high or low confidence
• Click “Get Updated Picks” for the pool
• Remove the postponed game from your game slate
• Adjust the confidence points to remove the value that you plan to use (so if you’re behind in a spread pool and want to use the 1-point slot, 16->1 becomes 16->2)
• Answer the rest of the questions as normal

This will give you a set of picks with the postponed game removed. You can slot that game in where appropriate based on your rules.

If you still have questions, of course, feel free to ask us in the Q&A Forum.