Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): The penultimate weekend before this year's Turkey Shoot, week #11, was a handicapping weekend in which the league's handicappers were afforded one last opportunity to jockey themselves into better positions within their respective divisional races before the arrival of the year's most highly anticipated weekend--the annual Turkey Shoot extravaganza. Two veteran and seasoned handicappers of the Bookie Challenge competition--jcvike28 and moemonie--did just that over this past weekend after both handicappers belted out 7-point outings apiece, of which both handicappers nailed respective 6-point parlay hits and one best-bet winner each to achieve their respective 7-point weekends. The two 7-point outings were as clutch as clutch could get, as the sensational outings significantly catapulted both handicappers' up their respective divisional point standings, especially in the case of jcvike28, who this past weekend finally dislodged catman23 from the Hail Mary divisional lead. El Duque, as jcvike is known by his good Challenge moniker, ended this past weekend with a 4-point divisional lead over catman in the Hail Mary division (29 pts vs 25 pts), but for jcvike the newly acquired divisional lead was only the half of it. By knocking down his third 6-point parlay hit of the season, jcvike not only tied 7mick7 for the league lead as it concerns the most parlay hits accrued this season (3 apiece) but also he concluded this past weekend as the league's highest scorer after he amassed his 29th overall point on the season. Important to realize is how jcvike's 29th point on the season has ushered him to the head of a list of handicappers who are seriously in contention to capture this year's highly valuable and sought after regular-season championship. It's a never-before-seen bottleneck in total points that has turned this Bookie Challenge competition into one of the most competitive contests ever, not to mention one of the most suspenseful competitions in the history of the Bookie Challenge. If separating those contenders by a PERFECTA's point total (8 pts), the participants in contention for the regular-season championship are presently as follows, and in order by tiebreakers: jcvike28 (29pts), 7mick7 (28pts), DawgPound (27pts), Theopholis (26pts), moemonie (26pts), catman23 (25pts), Blitzkrieg (23pts), DIRTYBIRDS (22pts), and Vikings17 (21pts). When doing the math, the nine handicappers presently vying for this year's regular-season championship is tantamount to two-thirds of the league's handicappers. With that in mind, it can readily be seen why this year's dual-outing Turkey Shoot weekend has the great potential to be critical game-changers for the respective seasons of almost every handicapper in the league.

One handicapper who made huge strides this past weekend to get himself into the thick of serious contention in this year's competition is moemonie. He's one of the league's longest-tenured participants who is presently in his 11th season of handicapping the Bookie Challenge competition, and he's also known to be one of the league's heavyweight handicappers. His powerful track record in the competition has seen him win two regular-season championships, of which one of those regular-season titles resulted in him pocketing the 3rd-place prize of a Latinum jackpot ($50). Additionally, the Moola Hawker has won two number-one top seeds from divisional seedings and five divisional titles. The only things moemonie has yet to seize is an overall Bookie Challenge championship and a second-place prize of a Latinum jackpot. But after he connected on his second-consecutive 6-pt parlay hit this past weekend, he's very much in shape to possibly achieve either one of those two feats this season. Of interest is that moemonie is one of four handicappers who lives in a Greenwood, South Carolina, hood that has the four participants living in close proximity of each other, just mere blocks from each other. The other three handicappers who live in the same neighborhood as does moemonie are the Biased Nihilist, DawgPound, and catman23, with the Nihilist and DawgPound being close friends of moemonie. But here's the rub, after moemonie hit his second-straight 6-pt parlay hit for his second-straight 7-pt outing this past weekend, he was able to close within one-point (27pts vs 26pts) of DawgPound's divisional lead of the Run-&-Shoot division, of which the divisional duel between the two friends makes for another handicapping sideshow that is sure to maintain the interest of the Challenge field for the remainder of the regular season. What has to be remembered is that DawgPound is not going to be as easy to bounce from his divisional lead as were DIRTYBIRDS and catman from their respective divisional leads. For starters, unlike both DIRTYBIRDS and catman, of which both handicappers never won divisional titles, the Dawg-Day-Afternoon Handicapper has two divisional titles under his belt, and like moemonie, he has also won a Swami award. Also, DawgPound is coming off a Challenge competition in which he pocketed the second-place prize of last year's Latinum jackpot after he finished last year's postseason as the runner-up to Driveline, who won last year's Bookie Challenge championship. As mentioned earlier, moemonie has yet to win a second-place prize of a Latinum jackpot. Another thing that must also be remembered about the Dawg is how he is battle-tested when it comes to holding his own in tight divisional races, as an example, he perservered over Tony Soprano to edge him out for the divisional championship in last year's Red Zone divisional race.

This past weekend started off innocently enough for the Moola Hawker after he won one of his two best bets he had chosen for last week's Thursday night game. He easily connected on the Thursday night game between the Ravens and Bengals after he chose the game to go over the pointspread total of 46 points (Balt won 34-20), but his parlay combo on this past Sunday was anything but easy. His parlay combo only came to fruition after two underdogs staged late-game rallies to win two of his parlay picks, of whom were the Packers (+3 beat the Chargers 23-20) and the Rams (+1 beat the Seahawks 17-16). The Browns were moemonie's third pick within his parlay combo, and they won a close thriller versus the Steelers as 2-point favorites (Cle won 13-10) and turned out to be a part of moemonie's winning trifecta. Regardless that the Moola Hawker had to sweat out his 6-point parlay hit, the end result is all that mattered. What's more, the back-to-back parlay hits now sets up moemonie as the third handicapper this season, with catman23 and Vikings17 being the other two, to have a shot at tying Theopholis' all-time regular-season record for nailing down three-consecutive 6-point parlay hits. For the record, apart from his two-straight parlay hits over his last-two outings, moemonie has only hit back-to-back 6-point parlay hits just twice before, but the last time he accomplished the feat he did so in breathtaking fashion. Back in Challenge year #6, in week #11, the week before that year's first leg of that year's Turkey Shoot weekend, the Moola Hawker unleashed what has come to be known as a SUPER PERFECTA after he connected on both a PERFECTA outing (8pts) and a 5-point exact-score hit to finish his outing with 13 overall points, which back then was the highest total of points a handicapper could win for a single outing. He then followed that spectacular weekend with a 7-point outing on the ensuing first leg of that year's Turkey Shoot weekend. The other time moemonie ever hit back-to-back 6-point parlay hits was back in Challenge year #5, when on weeks' #7 and #8 he produced consecutive 7-point outings.

Yet, as impressive as moemonie's back-to-back parlay hits have been over the last-two weeks, it was jcvike's league-tying third 6-point parlay hit of this season on this past weekend that bristled with more grandeur. To begin with, jcvike uncorked the second divisional lead change of this year's divisional races after he dealt catman a gut-wrenching blow to his "dream season". However, it's not as if anybody didn't see it coming, meaning catman's inevitable fall from grace. In fact, right after this year's divisional seeding, it was forecasted that out of all the top seeds who emerged as divisional leaders to start off this year's divisional races--Theopholis (#1 top seed/Corozal div.), catman23 (#2 seed/Hail Mary), DawgPound (#3 seed/Run-&-Shoot), and DIRTYBIRDS (#4 seed/Red Zone)--only DawgPound was given a vote of confidence to win his divisional race, while Theopholis, catman, and DIRTYBIRDS were all predicted to struggle mightily and be hard-pressed to perservere and capture respective divisional championships. And as has already and prophetically come to pass, after just three weeks of this year's divisional races, DIRTYBIRDS and catman have indeed already lost their respective divisional leads, of which leaves Theopholis as the only other predicted divisional leader from this year's divisional seeding projected to blow a divisional lead. Speaking of which, Theo's precarious lead of the Corozal divisional race might be squandered as soon as the conclusion of this year's Turkey Shoot weekend.

• WEEKLY TICKER........THE SWAMI WATCH: After this past weekend, Blitzkrieg still kept a firm grip on his lead to finish this season as this year's Swami award honoree. Although the Snowman (aka Blitzkrieg) broke even with both of his best bets this past weekend, Theopholis, who entered this past weekend as the closet pursuer chasing Blitzkrieg for the league's top best-bet numbers, lost both of his respective best bets, of which allowed another participant to surpass him and become the newest participant to be in position to directly challenge Blitzkrieg's league-leading best-bet record. That handicapper is DawgPound, who over the span of the last-four weekends, to include this past weekend, has reeled off four-straight 2-0-0 best-bet outings to improve his year-long best-bet record to 13-9-0 (.591 win%), of which the BB record ranks 2nd overall in the league only behind Blitzkrieg's overall 15-6-1 best-bet tally. The league-leading BB record by the the Snowman factors out to a Ruthian-esque .714 win percentage...........ROOKIE RACE RIVALRY: After this past weekend, there is something that has to be said about the battle between Vikings17 and the Hall of Fame city Kid for this year's Rookie-of-the-Year award, of which is HOLD THE PRESSES! After the HOF City Kid outscored Vikings17 over the past-two weekends by a point total of 5 pts to 1 pt, the race for this year's rookie honors has turned into a humdinger. Vikings17 still leads the City Kid in total points, but after this past weekend, the City Kid has closed the deficit to just three points (21 pts vs 18 pts), and also the City Kid ended his outing with a better best-bet record on the season than Vikings17 (9-12-1 BB record for .426 Win% vs Vikings17's 8-12-2 BB tally for .400 Win%)..........THE OVER/UNDER ROYAL RUMBLE: As it turns out, 7mick7 does own a better over/under record than those of TCU and Vikings17, but in a smaller sample size. The Mick has only handicapped 16 overall O/U selections this season, while Vikings17 has handicapped 25 O/U picks for the season and TCU has played a total of 21 O/U pointspreads. Surprisingly, however, their respective O/U records are as follows: 7mick7 (10-6-0 W% .625), Vikings17 (12-13-0 W% .480), and TCU (10-11-0 W% .476). Stay tuned.........

It was definitely a tough choice when it came to picking this week's WHO'S-HOT HANDICAPPER between jcvike28 and moemonie. Both handicappers pounded out significantly impressive outings, with moemonie landing a consecutive 6-point outing for another successive 7-point weekend and jcvike nailing down his third 6-point parlay hit of the season, which tied 7mick7 for the most 6-point parlay winners this season. What's conspicuously noteworthy is how both handicappers' recent rallies in this year's competition seem to be peaking at nearly the same time, of which their respective comebacks this season invoke memories of their starts to their respective Bookie Challenge careers. Both handicappers came on like gang busters in their respective first-four or first-five seasons in the competition, and those respective starts easily rate as the best-two starts in the history of the competition. In the case of jcvike, he produced four 6-point parlay hits in each of his first-two seasons and amazingly won four divisional titles out of his first-five seasons handicapping the competition. Likewise, moemonie won three divisional titles out of his first-four seasons handicapping the Bookie Challenge, and he also won a regular-season championship in his fourth season to boot. All things considered, however, it's jcvike who gets the nod for being this week's WHO'S-HOT HANDICAPPER because he ended this past weekend with the divisional lead of the Hail Mary division, not to mention he also ended the weekend with a one-point edge in this year's crucial battle for the regular-season championship. Equally impressive was jcvike's presence of mind to aptly select his lone best-bet winner and select a parlay combo that turned out to be a relatively easy winner. He wisely took the Houston Texans as a best-bet favorite of -4½ to cover against the Arizona Cardinals, and avoided putting the Texans in his parlay combination, of which the -5 pointspread would have made him lose his parlay combo had he chosen the Texans as a parlay pick. As it concerned his parlay combo, jcvike easily won his first-two selections of Jacksonville (-7) over Tennessee (Jax won 34-14) and Dallas (-10) over Carolina (Dall won 33-10). And even though his third parlay pick appeared to be a nail-biting pointspread cover by Minnesota (+3) against Denver, of which Denver won on Sunday night by a final of 21-20, the final score didn't truly reflect the Vikings' relatively easy pointspread cover. To jcvike's credit, he is one of those handicappers who doesn't let his heart get in the way whenever it comes to handicapping his beloved Minnesota Vikings. For some concrete examples, back in week #5 kansas City played Minnesota in Minnesota and were coined as 4-point favorites. It was the game that jcvike had attended earlier this season. Regardless, that weekend he chose the Chiefs as a best bet in the Bookie Challenge to cover over his Vikings, of which the Chiefs did as much with a 27-20 victory. In week #7, jcvike took his Vikings (+7) on a Monday night to cover versus the 49ers and incredibly the Vikings won the game outright. Then, in the ensuing week, week #8, he took his Vikings (-2) to cover over the Packers and he won that game. When including his Vikings' pointspread cover from this past Monday night, jcvike has won his last-four selections that involved his favorite Vikings. All in all, it's a no-brainer that jcvike is once again on top of his handicapping A-game, of which can spell trouble for the rest of the league if he continues to stay focused as he currently is.