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Time to guess the grim reaper's picks for year

Players try to predict which celebrities will die.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published January 2, 2007

MIAMI - Each approaching new year brings the same for Matt Gitkin. Reflecting on the year past. Looking at what's ahead. And guessing who will die.

Gitkin is the 39-year-old co-founder of the Old Blue Eyes Memorial Death Watch, one of numerous pools in which participants vie for bragging rights - and sometimes money - by guessing which famous people will die in the coming year.

"To me, it's what wraps up the end of the year," said Gitkin, a former university professor who lives in Miami. "It's all about memories, it's all about not forgetting, it's all about what these people do."

But it's also about winning. Players scour for news on celebrities' health and they consider a public figure's lifestyle, absence of recent appearances and rumors of illness.

Among such enthusiasts is Doug Deakin, a 42-year-old Atlanta engineer who participates in three online dead pools, including the Lee Atwater Invitational Dead Pool on Stiffs.com. Deakin won that pool last year and appeared poised to collect the first prize this year, too, with successful picks including actor Don Knotts.

Deakin said pool players rarely wish death on a person, but often can't help feeling excitement when a guess turns out to be correct.

Most longtime players have a story of a "greatest hit" - perhaps an obscure pick that shot them to the top of the rankings.

Jim Wishart, a 51-year-old marketing executive from Shepardstown, W.Va., who founded the Ghoul Pool, said that will earn you praise from competitors.

"It's like a high five," he said. "It's a mental high five."

That attitude doesn't go over well with everyone. Death pool participants and organizers say they endure the disgusted reactions of co-workers and even hate mail from strangers.

Death pools have been around for years. Rules vary on how points are counted: Some contests award more the younger the person who has died, others on how popular a choice is.

Many still exist as informal contests among colleagues or friends similar to Super Bowl pools. But others have grown into sophisticated Web-based operations, such as Stiffs.com.

Zach Love started that game with one friend in 1990. This year, about 1,000 people are vying for a top prize of $2,006.

"I've always been somewhat disdainful of how we deify celebrities," said 47-year-old Love, a Los Angeles-based Web master. "This seemed a perfect way to deflate that."

[Last modified January 1, 2007, 23:50:24]