Standard Pick'em is a game where you pick the team that you feel is going to win each game. If there is a spread, the favored team must also overcome the spread to "win." If you pick the correct team, you'll receive points. There are no penalties for bad picks.   The full tournament is broken into rounds. Rounds follow the typical playing pattern of the games. They typically represent weeks of a season. Each round closes the night before the games in that round are to be played. You can make your picks or change your picks as you wish, up until the time the round closes.   A tournament can either include the spread or not. That is determined when the tournament is set up. A spread is an indication of how gamblers are placing their money in Vegas. The belief is that common knowledge will have more people betting on the winning team. To balance the bets,Vegas casinos set a spread to entice more gamblers to bet on the weaker team. We will usually determine the spread (if there is one) on the day after the previous round closed (this is usually on Tuesdays). We'll pull this from a reputable source on the Internet. While it is common for spreads to change as the game approaches, the casinos are usually very good at setting the initial spread and it doesn't usually move by much. As a result, we will set the spread and leave it. So, if you see a spread when you make your picks, those will remain the spreads that are used for the actual round.   We'll make every effort to score the games as quickly as possible. There are a lot of games each round, so scoring does take time. We have an internal goal of scoring the evening of the day after a round completes (i.e., Tuesday). The points each person gets are calculated immediately. You'll see your running total and the running totals of the leaders. When the tournament is over, the person with the most points (who picked the most games correct) is the winner of the standard pick'em tournament.   Good luck!