(For a full list of the Rules, click here)

It’s easy isn’t it, this predicting lark? Chelsea against Derby: home win. Birmingham versus Arsenal: away win surely. West Ham at home to Man Utd: er, away win? Are you sure? Spurs V Newcastle anyone? Bolton at Villa worth betting on? Perhaps it’s not as straight forward as you think.

Predicting at tPs is very simple but allows for almost limitless possibilities in your overall strategy. Are you going to play it safe or go for broke? It’s up to how you play, as long as you follow these basic rules:

* Punters bet on the score AND result of ten games played every weekend (Saturdays and Sundays only)
* Punters can bet a maximum of 50 points in total per week
* Each score and result must be bet on, from 1 point to a maximum of ten points per bet

Still confused? Here’s an example.

When you open a prediction sheet it looks like this:

The white dropdown boxes are controlled by the user. This automatically populates the information in the grey boxes. Let’s look at a single game:

The above example illustrates how a punter (Percy) might bet on Arsenal’s game against Fulham. Percy thinks that Arsenal will win 2-1 and so selects that scoreline from the dropdown boxes next to the teams’ names. As you can see, this automatically populates the result as a Home Win. All that remains is for Percy to decide how many points to bet on his prediction.

Score: Percy’s quite sure that the final score will be 2-1 to Arsenal so he’s elected to bet 2 points on this outcome. All bets on score have odds of 5:1, so if the game does indeed finish 2-1 to Arsenal Percy will win 10 points, as illustrated under the score column’s Poss Win heading. Percy will also receive his stake of 2 points back, so his total return will be 12 points.

Result: Percy’s sure Arsenal will win so he’s put 10 of his points on the result being a home win. Bets on results yield at 2:1 so any home win would see Percy double his money and win 20 points, plus the return of his 10 point stake.

So, if Arsenal wins 2-1 Percy wins 10 points on his score bet and gets his 2 point stake back, plus he wins 20 points for the correct result and has his 10 point stake returned. If Fulham wins by any other scoreline then Percy will lose his 2 points bet on the score but still collect on the result bet. A draw or a Fulham win means Percy loses all points bet on this match.

Once the whole of the prediction form is filled in it will look something like this:

All the predicted scores have been filled in, and 50 points have been distributed across the score and result bets. Towards the bottom of the form the Total Points Bet are tallied up, and underneath that is shown how many points you’ll win (not including the returned stakes) if all the predictions turn out to be correct, which of course is hideously unlikely! You can bet less than 50 points in a weekend, but if you try to submit your predictions with more than 50 in the Total Points Bet box you will be politely asked to reduce your total stake.

Clicking the Submit Predictions button sends your prediction sheet into the system (unless you have bet more than 50 points). You will then be able to return to these predictions at any time before the deadline and tweak them to your heart’s content. The deadline for predictions is midday every Saturday. Fail to submit before then and you will be penalised! See the rules page for further details.