Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): It was just mentioned in last week's weekly review how anything can happen in one weekend of a Bookie Challenge competition, and how all handicappers in the league, especially those within the bottom tier of a point standings, can quickly turn around their fortunes and get into serious contention to win an overall Bookie Challenge championship. This past weekend, two handicappers, Theopholis and jcvike28, did just that after each handicapper produced 7-point outings to inject new life in their respective seasons. In particular, Theopholis rose five slots in the point standings after his 7-pt performance, rising from 9th place to 4th place and ending his weekend with the 4th top seed. More impressively, jcvike's 7-pt outing enabled him to vacate the cellar of the point standings, soaring over seven slots and ascending from 14th place to 7th place. He finished his weekend tied with DawgPound with nine total points and just one point behind from gaining the 4th and final top seed. This past weekend ended with catman23 still hanging on to the overall lead of the point standings, but after just scoring two points for his outing, he saw TCU cut his lead down to three points after TCU registered a 3-point outing. After this past weekend, catman maintained his overall top seed, TCU kept his second top seed, and after Theopholis cracked into the top seeds this past weekend, he finished with the fourth top seed. The third top seed of the standings belongs to dbucc, who like Theo this past weekend, was able to snatch a top seed for the first time this season. As a result of dbucc and Theo acquiring their respective top seeds, the previous holders of those top seeds, both DawgPound and DIRTYBIRDS, were both bumped out of their top seeds and dropped down in the standings, with the Dawg finishing his weekend in fifth place and the Birdman sliding down to seventh place after failing to post his weekly picks.

Overall, apart from Theo and jcvike hitting respective parlay winners this past weekend, the Challenge field--once again--had a dismal outing after concluding its weekend with a fourth-straight losing best-bet record to start out its season. Incredibly, however, the field saw seven of its handicappers culminate their respective outings with exact-score hits worth one point apiece after they each connected on the exact scores of just one team. Four of the exact-score hits took place in Thursday night's game after four participants--dbucc, TCU, moemonie, and HOF City Kid--correctly predicted Green Bay to score 20 points, while three handicappers--catman23, jcvike28, and Blitzkrieg--correctly picked Seattle to score 24 points in the Monday night game. Interestingly, all the one-point exact-score wins had a substantial effect upon the point standings. To begin with, TCU ended his outing with three points beause of his exact-score hit, and if catman didn't add his exact-score hit to his one best-bet winner, TCU would have sliced his lead to two points instead of three. Additionally, if dbucc had not complemented his two best-bet winners with his one-point exact-score win, he would have ended in a tie for third place and for the third top seed with Theopholis at 10 points apiece, of which dbucc would have lost the tiebreaker with Theo and would have finished the weekend with the fourth top seed. Also, if Blitzkrieg had not hit his exact-score winner and didn't tack it on to his two best-bet winners, he would not have tied the City Kid for 7th place in the standings. But he did and Blitzkrieg easily won the tiebreaker over the City Kid by virtue of more best-bet wins (7 wins vs 0 wins). By the way, Hall of Fame City Kid wouldn't have ended the weekend tied with Blitzkrieg if not for him also nailing a one-point exact-score winner, or his only point of his outing. What's more, after moemonie hit his one-point exact-score hit on this past Thursday night but didn't score another point for the rest of the weekend, he was fortunate enough to join the City Kid in escaping the weekend without plopping down a goose egg.

But the most significant one-point exact-score hit from this past weekend, one that detrimentally affected Theopholis, was produced by jcvike. His 7-point outing matched Theo's scoring output, but more importantly, it denied Theopholis to register a week-won, which is the third-best tiebreaker in the regular season behind most best-bet winners (1st tiebreak) and most parlay wins within one's combined parlay combinations on the season (2nd tiebreak). In the case of jcvike, his parlay hit from this past weekend was his 19th all-time for regular-season handicapping, but overall it was his 23rd all-time 6-point parlay hit for the regular season and postseason combined (jcvike has four postseason 6-pt parlay hits). But in what has to be deemed as a highly amazing coincidence, this past weekend jcvike snapped a parlay drought of 22 weeks in a row and became the third handicapper, with the other two being DIRTYBIRDS and TCU, to each end parlay droughts of EXACTLY 22 consecutive weeks. As it concerns Theopholis, his parlay hit from this past weekend was his 12th all-time for regular season handicapping. But neither jcvike nor Theo would have connected on their respective 6-point parlay winners if not for a late interception in the closing minutes of the game between the Raiders and the Chargers, of which the Bolts were 6-point favorites. For starters, as is usually the case, a participant needs a little bit of good luck to hit a parlay combo, and the parlay winners by Theopholis and jcvike this past weekend were no exceptions.

Theo's parlay combination consisted of the Texans (+3) versus the Steelers, the Jets (+10) vs the Chiefs, and the Chargers (-6) versus the Raiders. He was super lucky when Patrick Mahomes, who was headed for a sure TD in the closing seconds against the Jets, slid down at the Jets' one-yard line. Otherwise, the TD would have resulted in a pointspread loss. Jcvike's parlay combo consisted of the Bills (-3) versus the Dolphins, the Rams (+2) versus the Colts, and the Chargers (-6) versus the Raiders. The Rams luckily came through for jcvike after they scored a TD in overtime. But it was the Chargers who saved the day for both handicappers. The Chargers saw the Raiders slice their 24-10 early 4th quarter lead to 24-17, which was a score that covered the spread by just one point. But in the closing minutes of the game, the Raiders converted a 4th-down-and-10 from the Chargers 22 yard line and then faced a 1st-and-goal at the Chargers' 3 yard line. It looked like curtains for both Theopholis and jcvike, but the Raiders' backup QB, Adian O'Connell, threw an interception that was caught by Asante Samuel at the Chargers' 3 yard line to not only preserve the Chargers' 24-17 victory but also the parlay hits by Theo and jcvike.

• ROOKIE STILL SEARCHNG FOR THAT FIRST-EVER BEST-BET WINNER: Rookie entrant Hall of Fame City Kid should be grateful that he has sidestepped the worst start to a Bookie Challenge competition in the history of the Bookie Challenge. If not for a 6-point parlay hit from two weeks ago and a one-point exact-score winner from this past weekend, he would have been the first handicapper to start a Bookie Challenge competition with four-straight scoreless outings. Instead, the City Kid unwillingly had to settle for an egregious all-time record of a different kind after he failed to connect on a best-bet winner this past weekend. In doing so, he entered the Challenge's history books this past weekend for the wrong reason, as in he became the first handicapper, whether a veteran or a rookie, to open up the first-four weeks of a Bookie Challenge season without having a best-bet winner to his name. Entering this upcoming weekend, the HOF City Kid will have in tow a year-long, best-bet record of 0-7-1 which factors out to a winning percentage of--well--NOTHING! Maybe there was an overreaction when the City Kid connected on his first-ever parlay winner from two weeks ago, and maybe he isn't going to be okay after all, not have that competitive greenhorn season it was thought he would have. Fortunately for him, however, this is the Bookie Challenge competition and not some sort of handicapping "survivor" contest, so he'll have plenty of outings to prove he is that handicapper from week #3, the week he connected on his first-ever parlay winner, and not the listless handicapper from his other three outings.


• WEEKLY TICKER......DawgPound lays a goose egg in wk#4, ends his recording-setting, all-time scoring streak at 25 consecutive weeks.....Blitzkrieg still leads the league with top best-bet record after going 2-0-0 with his best bets this past weekend, now owns overall 6-1-1 best-bet record for the year for a phenomenal .857 win percentage......jcvike28, TCU, and rookie HOF City Kid register first-ever exact-score hits......