ATROPOSEliminator, knockout, last man standing: same game, different names
Survivor pool, eliminator pool, knockout pool, last man standing, suicide pool, king of the hill — one format, six names. Pick a team each week, win and advance, lose and you're out, never use a team twice. The name tells you where the pool came from (ESPN says eliminator, Vegas says survivor, a Dublin pub says last man standing); the rules sheet tells you everything that matters.
What actually varies
- Ties: loss in the money contests, push in many office pools.
- Strikes / extra lives: casual-pool option; never in the majors.
- Buybacks: early-week re-entry windows, pool-specific.
- Wipeout handling: the big contests split the pool among the last cohort eliminated — an ending that hits 53.6% of simulated seasons.
- Field size: a 20-person office knockout and a 22,700-entry championship reward opposite levels of aggression.
Full edge cases: survivor pool rules. The strategy, under any name: how to make picks and split-adjusted EV.
What is the difference between a survivor pool and an eliminator pool?
Nothing but the name. Pick one team per week, a win advances you, a loss eliminates you, each team is usable once. 'Eliminator' is the label ESPN popularized with its Eliminator Challenge; 'survivor' is the label the money contests use. Rules variations (ties, strikes, buybacks) come from the individual pool, not the name.
What is a knockout pool in the NFL?
The survivor format again: one pick a week, lose and you're knocked out, no team reuse. 'Knockout pool' is common in office-pool software and UK-facing sites. Strategy is identical — win probability times ownership, managed across the whole season.
What is a last man standing pool?
The same one-pick-a-week elimination game, under the name most common in UK and Irish football (soccer) pools and pub competitions. NFL versions run identically to survivor pools. When nobody is left standing, most pools split the prize among the last surviving round's entries — the wipeout rule.
What is a suicide pool?
The older, bluntly-named version of a survivor pool — one wrong pick and you're dead. The name has fallen out of use in favor of 'survivor' and 'eliminator,' but the game is unchanged, and decades-old suicide-pool strategy debates (save the good teams or spend them?) are the same debates the $21M contests are fought over today.
Does survivor strategy work the same in eliminator and knockout pools?
Yes — the math doesn't care what the pool is called. Two things transfer completely: picks are a win-probability-times-ownership decision, and prize equity comes from splitting, not surviving. What changes strategy is pool size and rules: field size, ties, strikes, buybacks, and whether a wipeout splits the pot.