Square dancing

Jim O'Donnell breaks down the history of the Super Bowl's most popular party pool

Now for the real sweepstakes today -- one that won't be completely squared on the turf at Dolphin Stadium.

Instead, spanning the four corners of the globe as the uber-invasive reach of the NFL knows it, spinning out of tens of thousands of bars, fraternal lodges, offices, knitting circles, knothole gangs and assorted other dens of the seasonally speculative, The Super Bowl Pool.

One hundred squares, one grand-prize winner, three or more lesser winners (depending upon whether a pool pays quarter-by-quarter or with each score change). On your mark, get set, go off -- especially if you drew some numbers from Super Bowl Stiffsville. And, believe us, numbers from Stiffsville abound in the history of Super Bowl pools.

As a matter of fact, of the 100 available combinations -- through 160 quarters of Super Bowls, including 40 final scores -- 46 never have hit as quarter or final winners, and another 24 have hit only once.

On the flip side, the most frequent quarter winners are the ever-popular 0-0 (12 times) and AFC 7-0 (12 times). But please note that 0-0 has hit only once after halftime and never has been a final winner.

Also from the success ledger, next, at nine times each, are AFC 4-0 and NFC 3-0. The only other combinations to occur more than six times in Super Bowl history are NFC 7-0 and NFC 7-4. Both ended seven quarters.

As a remarkably well-timed public service, The Bright One presents the first annual -- and probably only annual -- Sun-Times Pool Tool. Listed below are the number of times each pool square had paid off at the end of one of the 160 quarters during the first 40 Super Bowls.

One final note: If you're laying your hopes today on a 2, 5 or 8 anywhere, good luck. The chances of those numbers coming up appear longer than Joe Biden winning the Iowa caucuses.

In descending order of inclusions in winning combos (160 times 2), the happiest Super Bowl numbers have been: 0 (91 times), 7 (63), 3 (51), 4 (34) and 6 (26). The distant trailers are 1 (16 times), 9 (14), 8 (9), 2 (8) and 5 (8).

Speculators, start your square stakes.

KEY

•  A Super Bowl never has gone to overtime, so there have been 160 quarter winners for the 40 Super Bowls