How to play Howzat! - Trial
The essence of each Competition is to score points by correctly answering as many questions as possible. The winner of the Competition will be the person with the highest score.
On average, each Competition has ten multiple-choice questions with answers of varying values graded by probability. At this stage a player can only make one entry per Competition.
COMPETITIONS box.
This is the starting point. Reading along each Competition’s information line will replicate your progress through a Competition.
The first six columns are statements of fact with no player interaction. They are Competition Number, Competition Title, Entry Deadline (which is strictly adhered to, with an automatic cut-off), Number of Questions, Points Range and Status showing the current state of a Competition – either OVER, LIVE (currently in progress), still OPEN for entry or DUE at a later date.
There then follow two sections Entered? (see "Making an Entry" below) and Progress (see "Competition Scoring and Results" below.)
Making An Entry
Entered? is divided into two columns. The first shows whether a player has made an Entry, YES or NO.
If NO, then ENTER appears in the column alongside. On clicking this, up will come the Entry Form featuring a list of questions with multiple choice answers.
Entries are made by clicking on the selected answer circle. If there are mistakes in completing the Entry Form, the entry will not be accepted and the offending questions will appear in red to be corrected. When happy with all their answers, players enter the Competition by clicking on the SUBMIT button at the bottom. If they decided not to enter after all, they click on CANCEL.
Entry Confirmation
On clicking SUBMIT, four things then happen.
- In the Entered? column NO changes to YES and ENTER to CHANGE.
- An e-mail will be sent to the player confirming the details of the entry.
- A record of your entry will be visible in the "Progress" columns, by clicking on "Results", once the Competition is LIVE.
Changing An Entry
Having made an entry, players have the option of changing their answers upto the Entry Deadline. To do this, they must click on CHANGE?
Their previously completed Entry Form will come up and players can alter their selections as they wish before clicking on the SUBMIT button to update their entry. The player must click SUBMIT before the deadline - if the deadline is missed, the original entries will be retained.
Once submitted, the Entry Confirmation procedure above will be repeated.
Players will not have sight of other players’ answers until the Competition goes LIVE, after which it is not possible to make changes to entries.
Competition Scoring and Results
Once the Competition begins, the Progress columns come into play. Progress is also divided into two columns; in the first is RESULTS. Clicking on this brings up the RESULTS CARD displaying each player`s answers and their potential points score below.
As the Competition progresses, the Card keeps a running record of the player’s performance until the end of the Competition.
The second Progress column is the Competition Leaderboard - click on this will display a full list of all players with their nominated answers (by the letter) and current and potential scores, with the highest scoring player at the top. The logged-in player’s line will be highlighted. This too is updated as the Competition progresses, culminating in the final positions.
A click on any of the Qs in the Leaderboard table will bring up another box displaying the question ni full, with the answers and their points value selected by each player. As a result, players will know exactly how they stand with fellow competitors.
Staking Plans
At this stage players can only enter one line of answers. At a future date it is hoped to introduce more lines and also permutations.
Prize Money
There will be no stakes so no prize money during the trial period. If Howzat! goes “live” all stakes will be pooled and then divided up among winners. Because it is a pool system, and because the size of this can only be determined when entries close, it is not possible to state in advance precise figures; however it should be possible to give an idea of distribution on a percentage basis and such details can be included on each Entry Form. Generally, the smaller the number of entries the prize money will be concentrated at the top; as the pool size increases so the distribution will become wider. In the long term it is hoped that in some Competitions at least 40% of players will at least get their stakes back.