How to make your bracket

This is the part of the program that every newbie gets hung up on. This contest's bracket will once again be done at BracketMaker.com. Many of you are may be familiar with it, but if you're not, follow along.

The 2 Main Divisions

This is the part of the program in which you make your bracket online. Making your bracket here will require you to register (for free) at the web site. People who used this method in any of the previous contests, just put in your username and password, and continue on. This method of bracket making is not time consuming--you can get through this in less than ten minutes. Before I continue:

A vulnerability within Bracket Maker's web site allows for anyone who makes a bracket also has the ability to check other people's brackets as well, which enables him or her to see what everyone else has for their predictions, which could be interpreted as cheating. As a result, as soon as the deadline for entries pass (12 AM ET, June 12, 2009), I am deleting the contest from Bracket Maker, so please be sure to print or save a copy of your bracket. To keep score, I will have a printed copy of everyone's bracket. Now then, to make the contest bracket:

1) The link to the contest brackets: http://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?tid=323880

2) Click it, and you will see all the contest divisions: Virtuous Division, Outer Haven Division, CB10 Losers' Match, CB10 Final.

3) Pick Virtuous Division or Outer Haven Division. I'll use Virtuous Division as the example here. Once you click Virtuous Mission, you see this:

4) Near the top, you see a link that says Predict It! Click it to begin making the bracket. If you are a newcomer to Bracket Maker, clicking Predict It! will take you to a screen telling you to register before you can make your bracket. Follow the links, it's self explanatory.

5) Once you register, go back to the division you want to make a bracket for and click Predict It. You will then be taken to this:

6) All you now need to do is just select each character that you want to win. Don't worry about filling in the box. Just select your winner for each battle. Once you have finished making all your choices for Round 1, click Enter. It will then AUTOMATICALLY move your winners to the next round, forming the next round's battles.

A note on bracket making: Don't necessarily be bound by the seeding of the players. Just because a character has a higher seed doesn't mean that he or she will automatically move through the rounds. For all you know, when the time comes, a #1 seed (or another higher seeded character) could get knocked out early. One strategic method of voting is tactical voting-predicting who you think everyone else will pick. Ultimately, you will choose your own predictions. Pick who you think will win each battle-this may be different from a character that you want to win in a particular battle. You're trying to gain the most points, I would assume, so pick who you think will win.

7) Make your Round 2 predictions, click Enter. It will move them over to the Quarterfinals, and so on until you get a Division Winner. If you decide that you want to change your mind about your predictions, you will have to delete the entire division and start again by clicking the 'click here to cancel and delete this prediction' link below the ENTER button.

8) When you're done with the first division, go back to the link where you first saw all the divisions, and do it again for the other 3. I'll now go over the last two brackets.

Losers' Match and Championship

In past contests, as we had 4 main divisions, I made a 4-battle bracket to determine the winner--the 4 winners become two, those two would be the championship battle, and then came the confusing part--manually telling me who you wanted to have in a losers' match, because there was no such type bracket on the site. NOT ANYMORE. With 2 divisions, the problem of manually telling me your Losers' Match picks is now a thing of the past. Follow along.

1) We go back to the main screen, the link: http://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?tid=323880

2) Click on CB10 Losers' Match. You will see the pic below:

3) Again, click on Predict It! Now, sadly, you can't change the wording on here-you can't fill in the 'Loser of Virtuous Final' and so on. All you do here is just take your LOSERS of the Virtuous Final and Outer Haven Final, pair them up, pick a winner.

4) The CB10 Championship Match follows the same directions. Go back to the screen that shows the list of divisions, click on CB10 Championship, and do the same thing--except these are now your WINNERS of the two divisions.

5) And that is it. Bracket done. I encourage you to print out a copy for yourself, because if you need to make changes before the June 12 deadline, you're going to have to start the division for editing all over again from Round 1 by clicking the 'click here to cancel and delete this prediction' link at the bottom. I've already set up the divisions to not take any more entries after midnight, Eastern Standard Time, June 12. I will not take late entries unless you give me a damn good reason, because YOU HAVE over 3 FLIPPING WEEKS. Do the time zone conversion from Eastern Time to whatever your time zone happens to be.

One final note: if you need to check out the pics of all the characters involved in the contest, go here: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v242/LLoire/CB10%20Pics