Closed alpha testing was held on a small cluster for some time, with about 3,000 players chosen from an initial pool of 50,000.

Users of the site, www.dawsonscreekcds.com, will be able to select up to 14 tracks for their CD's from an initial pool of about 75.

Her initial pool for a job search is 50 to 75 applicants, she said.

Nevertheless this nearly final group had come from an initial pool of many thousands of applicants.

Gambia had fielded an under-17 team of 24 players, narrowed from an initial pool of 49 young women.

It appeared that fewer than a half dozen of the initial pool of 88 potential jurors were black.

The three teams that placed second in the initial pools competed in a round robin competition.

From their initial pool of about 150 playtesters, several would have no idea of how to solve certain puzzles.

Starting with an initial pool of 42 different mini-game ideas, only a total of seven games (counting beach volleyball) actually made the final cut.

The judge told the lawyers that jury screening would begin with an initial pool of about 1,000 people.