10 line football pool
Ten entries, one digit each. There is no second axis here, so this runs on the last digit of the two scores added together — which makes it a genuinely different game from a squares grid, not a small one.
The grid
| Digit | Name | 1st quarter | Halftime | 3rd quarter | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | |||||
| 5 | |||||
| 0 | |||||
| 6 | |||||
| 7 | |||||
| 2 | |||||
| 8 | |||||
| 3 | |||||
| 1 | |||||
| 9 |
Draw seed 481625 · each square covers 10 of the 100 score endings
-
The digits are drawn
Not left blank for you to write in, and the seed prints on the sheet so anybody can check the draw.
-
It says which digits pay
Scores are built out of threes and sevens, so the digits worth having are shaded on the paper.
-
Nothing is uploaded
It all runs in your browser, and a shared link carries the sheet in the part a server never receives.
It reads the combined score, and that is the whole difference
A squares grid needs two axes because it reads a digit from each team. Strip one axis away and there is nothing left to read the second score onto, so the ten-line sheet does the only sensible thing instead: it adds the two scores together and takes the last digit of the total.
This is the detail that gets implemented wrong. Treating the sheet as "a grid with one row" and reading only the home team's score off it silently ignores half the game, and the person holding the winning line never finds out they won. The sheet here is built as its own game for exactly that reason.
A practical consequence worth announcing before kick-off: 21–17 and 20–18 both total 38, so both pay the 8 line. People who have played squares before will expect the two scores to matter separately, and they do not here.
When ten lines is the right sheet
Ten people, one sheet of paper, no grid to draw. This is the office-of-twelve pool, and its appeal is that it can be filled in and drawn in the time it takes to make coffee rather than needing a week to sell out.
The odds sit differently too. Totals cluster harder than individual scores do — a combined score is the sum of two numbers built from threes and sevens, so the middle digits come up more than the extremes. The luck is real either way, and with only ten entries it is felt more sharply than on a full grid.
Printing the ten lines
Ten rows down a single sheet, with room to write a name against each digit and a column for each quarter. It prints portrait, and at this size it stays readable pinned to a wall.
The status line under the grid always states the arithmetic for the sheet you are looking at: ten lines, one digit each, drawn. the winner is the last digit of both scores added together. That figure is read out of the same code that builds the grid, so it cannot drift away from what is actually printed.
One page, ten rows, and a column for each break so the whole game is recorded on the sheet it was played on. Pin it up rather than passing it round: with ten entries everybody wants to check the total after every score.
Common questions
How is a 10 line pool different from football squares?
A squares grid reads one digit from each team's score. A ten line sheet has only one axis, so it adds both scores together and uses the last digit of the total. Any two scores adding to the same number pay the same line.
Who wins a 10 line pool if the score is 21-17?
The 8 line, because 21 and 17 add to 38. So would 20–18, 24–14 and every other pair totalling 38 — the individual scores are not looked at.
Can I use a ten line sheet for every quarter?
Yes. The same ten digits stand for all four quarters unless you choose to redraw, and one sheet carries the whole game with a column per quarter.