The Quick Start is intended to be your introduction to our game, basics to play today and feel you at least have a handle on how to start and where to go to get more in-depth information. Don't expect to learn it all in a day or two- where's the fun in that?! After all, if the video game you bought was so easy to master you did so in just a few plays, you'd feel like you'd wasted your money, wouldn't you?

First, a quick tour of the major pages on the site. The Home page is where you can get logged in or registered, if you haven't already. The Portfolio page (members just say 'port' for short) is where you can see the stocks you've purchased, how much cash you have available, and what your 'port' value is. Each account has multiple portfolios to play, all but the total value port resets to the initial $1mil at the end of their period. There are also various indicators there to let you know whether, for example, you've gotten your Pick'em picks or your Autosell ticket for the day (if you don't know what those are, they're covered as the tour continues). The Market page is where you can find all active stocks in all 6 sports we currently follow and where you can access each stock's profile or purchase shares. Both the Port and Market pages have drop downs that allow you to change which portfolio you want active, so it's easy to switch back and forth when you're playing more than one. The Leaders page is where standings are for the various competitions; don't be discouraged to see the huge numbers showing for leaders on the Total Value leaderboard- after all, those people have several years head start on you! For your first 180 days, your name will be listed on our 'Rookie TV' leaderboard and we have plans to create other features there to keep your interest. Pick'em is an additional game we have at Jockstocks; each day you can pick who you think will win a particular game and other similar picks and earn a Pick'em point for each correct pick. At noon eastern each day, picks for the next day's games appear and you have until noon eastern the next day to get your picks in. Currently, we have both a 'Total' leaderboard and a monthly leaderboard there which update at noon eastern daily.

I would be remiss if I didn't also point out our FAQ page and The Oasis where a wealth of information is available to you.

We have our own set of slang terms here at Jockstocks. I already mentioned port being short for portfolio. But on the market, members refer to the movement stocks make with buys and sells as 'moo'. Some have other reasons to call it that, I consider it slang for the 'moovement' of stock prices. Some players love to 'play the moo' as part of their enjoyment of the game. Others, tho, aren't able to play the game as actively; so we created Pick 10 as, basically, a 'no moo' competition. 'Moo' has no effect on Pick 10- you simply have until 9am eastern each morning to pick the 10 stocks you believe will receive the largest dividends that day. You'll receive a dollar amount for each pick based directly on the dividend percentage that stock receives- share prices don't matter in Pick 10 because you're not buying stocks, you're picking them. By the way, here's a good spot to mention another slang term- dividends are generally referred to simply as 'divis' (hence the reason you see a column titled 'Last Divi' on the Market page...which lists each stock's share price at 'divi time', 9am eastern).

A key to playing Jockstocks is to maximize your earnings- and the best way to do that is to buy 'max' (another slang term simply meaning you buy the maximum shares you can) of the stocks due the largest divis each day, sell them all in the morning, and do it all over again the next day. Not everyone plays that actively, but the key is to maximize the use of each dollar in your port. We have a 'max share' rule of 10% or 10,000 shares- meaning you can buy up to 10% of your port's value up to 10,000 shares. Therefore, in the beginning, you would normally be buying 'max' of only 10 stocks each day you play. When your port's value is large enough to be buying 10,000 shares of stocks, you'll also be buying more than 10 stocks and even 'long terming' stocks (keeping them for days or longer rather than selling them all daily). There is no WRONG way to play- buy a few shares of MANY stocks if you'd like, keep them in your port for weeks if you want....but to grow your port the fastest, you'd 'buy max' of all stocks and sell 'em all on a daily basis.

Before we continue, one area not yet covered is our forums. This is where you can ask questions, talk sports, enter contests we have like our Monday Night Football contest where you can win $100,000 for your TV (Total Value) port by picking the score of the game more closely than anyone else, etc. We'd LOVE to have you actively participate in our community. Our forums are quite active at times, slower at others, but never think that because you're new we don't want to hear from you- we do!

There's some basics for you. Continue the tour by clicking the Market link at the top of the page, or just start playing- the rest of the tour will be here for you whenever you want to come back to it.