SCARFACE CATCHES THE TOMCAT FROM HANDICAPPING ALLEY! THEO PUTS "FRANKENSTEIN FIX" ON CATMAN TO CORRAL OVERALL LEAD OF CHALLENGE COMPETITION

Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): The seventh weekend of the 13th annual Bookie Challenge competition was supposed to be a critically important weekend in which nearly every handicapper from the Challenge field needed to step up in some form or fashion and pounce out a highly pivotal outing to enhance his respective positioning within the point standings so as to increase his odds of securing one of the four top seeds ahead of this year's divisional seeding. But instead, the Vegas Crocodiles had their way with a plethora of unsuspecting Joe-Public handicappers, to include the vast majority of the Bookie Challenge's handicappers, and they ran roughshod over them after coaxing them to select fradulent favorites and unavailing underdogs. This past Sunday, the NFL celebrated its tight ends in what has recently been coined over the last several years as "National Tight Ends Day". In like manner, this past Sunday, the Bookie Challenge competition also celebrated its handicappers, and it was coined as "The Challenge Handicappers' Fuck-Up Day". As a whole, the Bookie Challenge field was so bamboozled by the Vegas Crocodile's pointspreads this past weekend that it had its most pitiful outing in recent memory, especially when it came to scrounging out parlay wins within its combined parlay combinations. The field just simply went belly up this past weekend, that is, with the exception of two handicappers, Theopholis and jcvike28, both of whom each won their two respective best bets. But it was Theopholis, aka Scarface, whose name was featured in the Bookie Challenges' marquee lights this past weekend, and for good reason. Theo continued his meteoric rise of late to the top of the point standings after he pressed on to maintain his hot handicapping over the course of his last-four outings. Because of his relentlessly savvy handicapping over the last several weeks, to include this past weekend, Theopholis was able to take the overall lead of the Bookie Challenge competition after he connected on both of his best bets this past weekend and catman23 goose egged his outing. Ultimately, the weekend ended with Theopholis dramatically taking a one-point lead over catman23 by a final tally of 20 points vs 19 points.

Don't look now, but Theo will head into this year's divisional seeding as the solid odds-on favorite to win the number-one overall top seed at this year's divisional seeding. Of course, with 20 points tallied on the season, Theo presently has just a one-point lead over second-place catman23 (19 pts), a two-point lead over third-place DIRTYBIRDS (18 pts), and a three-point lead over fourth-place DawgPound (17 pts). However, barring a 6-point parlay hit this upcoming weekend by any of those three handicappers who presently trail Theo in the point standings, Scarface (aka Theo) controls his own destiny because he holds a major tiebreaker advantage over all three of his pursuers, of which is the league's number-one regular-season tiebreaker, most best bet wins. As it stands right now, heading into this weekend, Theo has a best-bet record of 8-6-0, and he basically just needs to connect on one best-bet winner this upcoming weekend to lock up an overall number-one top seed. Again, that is contingent on none of his closest pursuers nailing down any 6-point parlay hits, of which also entails fifth-place TCU, who currently has 15 points accrued on the seaqson, not pounding out a suspenseful parlay winner either. But, to reiterate, if Theo knocks down just one best-bet winner this upcoming weekend, and if catman, DIRTYBIRDS, DawgPound, and TCU all fail to connect on their respective 6-point parlay combos, then there is no possible scenario in which Theo can lose the overall number-one seed solely through best bets alone. Conversely, however, if Theopholis squanders his golden opportunity and happens to lose both of his best bets this upcoming weekend, then catman is the only participant who can rain on Theo's parade by nailing down both of his best bets and winning the overall number-one top seed outright by virtue of more total points. Of course, it has to be repeated again that any of the aforementioned best-bet scenarios will only play out if all of the present front-runners in contention to win the overall number-one top seed all fail to connect on their respective 6-point parlay combos. In an interesting aside, if Theo prevails and wins the overall number-one top seed or if DIRTYBIRDS miraculously connects on a third 6-point paraly hit this season, either handicapper can become only the third participant in the history of the competition to win an overall number-one top seed for the second time at divisional seed, with the other two participants having accomplished the impressive feat being moemonie and a now defunct CarolinaNYD. In the case of CarolinaNYD, he won his two number-one top seeds in back-to-back seasons (Challenge yrs' #6 and #7).

As already known, this past weekend, catman23 finally saw his run to become the first handicapper in the history of the competition to go wire-to-wire atop the Challenge point standings and win an overall number-one top seed at a divisional seeding go by the wayside after he goose egged his outing this past weekend. But that's not to say that everybody else in the competiton didn't see his demise coming before his year-long consecutive lead of the point standings came to a crashing halt this past weekend. As commendable as his attempt was to set an all-time record for going wire-to-wire atop the standings and winning a number-one top seed, the raw truth of the matter is that the Tomcat from handicapping Alley failed to take full advantage of all of his scoring opportunities by not submitting all of his exact-score selections for each of the first-seven weeks of this year's competition. His inability to stay fully focused and fully in tune with this year's competition began to show its consequences after week #3, when he held a four-point lead in the standings. In the ensuing four weeks after week #3, his overall lead of the competition incrementally started to fall apart by one point on each passing weekend that followed week #3. To summarize, after week #4 his previous lead slipped from four points to three points over TCU (16 pts vs 13 pts). In week #5, his lead got pared down to two points over DawgPound (18 pts vs 16 pts). After week #6, his lead dwindled down to just one point over Theopholis (19 pts vs 18 pts). And as has already been covered, after this past weekend, his lead totally evaporated and turned into a one-point deficit to Theo (20 pts vs 19 pts). What's really telling about catman's overall inability to stay fully engaged in this year's competition is the disconcerting fact that this past weekend catman became the first handicapper this season to not post exact-score selections for both of the weekly exact-score games.

To say the least, the looming and all-important divisional round that's upcoming this weekend will conclude the first significant stage of this year's Bookie Challenge competition, and so the importance of the divisional seeding cannot be underestimated. It's a weekend that has enormous benefits for those who have the intestinal fortitude to snatch one of the four top seeds in the standings, especially for the two participants who snag the overall number-one and number-two top seeds. By doing so, both top seeds will start off their respective divisional races with only two divisional counterparts to deal with within their respective divisions, while the remaining two divisions will consist of four overall participants. The more participants battling for a divisional title the more problems a divisional combatant will have to squelch. But the number-one overall top seed is the one who'll reap the most advantegeous benefits of a divisional seeding, mainly because he'll start the divisional races by being seeded with the league's worst-seeded handicappers, which virtually guarantees him to win his divisional race if only he doesn't squander the huge leads in total points that he'll begin his divisional race with. Then there's this one tidbit about a divisional seeding. One of the overlooked beauties of a divisional seeding is that many handicappers will get to reset their respective seasons and will start off divisional races with smaller deficits than they are presently facing in the point standings, but that's all dependent on the best possible seeds they can win this upcoming weekend. But it's going to take fortuitous outings to pull off a better seeding. As to those handicappers who are presently languishing in the lower tier of the point standings, they're going to be desperate to produce clutch 6-point outings so they don't wind up getting seeded in the top-two seeded divisions, of which if they do get seeded in the top-two seeded divisions, they'll have huge deficits to overcome at the start of this year's divisional races. To sum it all up, this upcoming divisional seeding is not just all about how the present four top seeds in the standings will fare, but more about how each and every participant will fare.

• REAL LIFE ONCE AGAIN TRANSCENDS BOOKIE CHALLENGE COMPETITION, PROVES ONE MORE TIME WHY CHALLENGE TAKES A DISTANT BACK SEAT TO WHAT REALLY MATTERS: Again, a couple of major and potentially life-threathening situations over the course of the last-two weekends have adversely fallen upon two members of the Bookie Challemge competition like a ton of bricks. Both dbucc and Blitzkrieg have recently experienced harrowing episodes within their personal lives. For some unexplainable reason, and not by design, dbucc has been at the epicenter of such unnerving incidents far more times than any other participant in the league, too many times for comfort to say the least. Two weeks ago, the Donald missed posting his weekly set of picks in the competition, and at first, it was thought that he missed those picks because of computer problems. But in what has since been found out, nothing can have been further from the truth. On early the Sunday morning from two weeks ago, at around three a.m. in the morning, dbucc began coughing up blood. He had been coughing a lot for about a week leading up to the coughing-of-blood episode on that early Sunday morning. He immediately called his daughter, who is a registered nurse, and she told him to immediately go to the hospital, of which dbucc directly proceeded to do by himself, meaning he drove to the hospital while still coughing up some blood. Upon his arrival to the hospital, the ER took him in right away. Then, after x-rays and different scans were done, it was determined that dbucc had an acute case of bronchitis. Subsequently, he was kept overnight as a precaution, and after he stopped coughing up blood, he was released late Monday morning. Thankfully, the expedient medical attention he received led to a quick recovery, and he is now feeling much better. But in the case of Blitzkrieg, this past Saturday night turned out to be a more terrifying ordeal.

  To begin with, from his first marriage, Blitzkrieg has a grown-up son, Austin (36 yrs old), and a daughter, Lauren, who is a couple of years older than Austin. Incidentally, Lauren lives neraby Austin and is a registered nurse. In any event, at around 6:40 pm this past Saturday, Austin, his wife Ashliegh (34 yrs old), and their 3-year-old daughter named Grey returned home after attending a birthday party and all three donned "comfy clothes" and were settling down for the rest of the evening, with Ashliegh entertaining Grey on the sofa. Suddenly, in the flash of a moment, Austin noticed that Ashliegh was no longer moving on the sofa, her face had turned "droopy", which is the tell-tale sign of a stroke, and when Austin asked her what was wrong--she was unresponsive. In a state of panic, Austin hurriedly called his sister and told her what was going on, of which she told him to immediately call an ambulance and that she was on her way. In what was a direly exigent situation, the expeditious reactions by both Austin and Lauren later turned out to be of critical importance and also a godsend for Ashliegh. Once at the hospital, Ashliegh was very fortunate that a highly adept medical staff quickly nailed down a spot-on diagnosis of Ashliegh's condition after identifying its symptoms. In short, Ashliegh had multiple blood clots stemming from her carotid artery in her neck that ultimately resulted in a stroke. Within 30 minutes she was put in a Medivac helicopter and flown to a hospital in Greenville, S.C., where she promptly had surgery to remove the blood clots. By the grace of God, the surgery was successful and Austin was told by the surgeon that he anticipates Ashliegh eventually making a full recovery, but that it's going to take a good bit of time before she'll fully regain all of her cognitive skills. Blitzkrieg is asking for prayers from the Challenge field so that his daughter-in-law makes a speedy recovery. What has to be remembered as it concerns Blitzkrieg is that his brush with this past weekend's ill-fated ordeal was not the first time he has had to deal with a personal hardship of the health-related kind. If ardent readers of the weekly reviews might have forgotten, several years back Blitzkrieg had to endure some trying times after his second wife Judy was diagnosed with cancer. But by an earlier blessing from God, the cancer was caught early enough that subsequently Judy is now cancer free today.

  There's also one last tidbit to Ashliegh's plight from this past weekend, and in a colossal coincidence--it involves dbucc. Earlier this season, the Biased Nihilist wrote a memorial article on the death of moemonie's wife, Brenda, who passed away this past summer. In the article, it explained how in hindsight it came to be found that some major similiarities existed between moemonie's wife passing away and dbucc's wife passing away. These latest episodes that befell dbucc and Ashliegh betray the same eerie happenstance. Specifically, over the span of the last three weeks, Ashliegh has been severely and incessantly coughing, of which the constant coughing over the last-three weeks might have had something to do with Ashliegh's stroke. Not for nothing, but leading up to dbucc's coughing up blood from two weeks ago, he too was coughing for a while. Granted, his coughing episode did not last as long as Ashliegh's three weeks, but nonetheless dbucc did keep coughing for a good week or so. It might not mean anything, but nonetheless it is a strange coincidence. All in all, when it comes to human-interest stories about members of the competition, and mainly because those heart-rendering accounts are about life itself, the Bookie Challenge will always endeavor to recount those stories whenever possible.



• WEEKLY TICKER.......Rookie HOF City Kid loses both best bets for league-leading 4th time this season and collects league-leading 10th best-bet loss of season, also loses 3rd consecutive 3-pt parlay attempt and 4th of rookie year........Blitzkrieg takes first substantial lead over TCU for this year's Swami award after winning one best bet this past weekend to raise league-leading best-bet total to 9 overall and after Too Tall Tommy lays 2nd scoreless outing in a row. Year-to-date top best-bet records include Blitzkrieg (9-4-1 win% .692), Theopholis (new to Swami-award race at 8-5-0 win% .615), and slumping TCU (8-6-0 win% .571)........THE OVER/UNDER SIDESHOW: This past weekend rookie Vikings17 was able to inch closer to TCU in their interesting over/under duel to see who comes out on top for the best over/under performance on the season. Amazingly, both handicappers each chose two respective over/under selections and both continued to register the exact same amount of over/under selections on the season, with each recording their 13th over/under picks this season. And although Vikings17 got the better of it this past weekend after breaking even with his two selections and TCU misfired on his two picks, Too Tall Tommy still continues to hold the overall lead, but just barely after this past weekend: TCU over/under record of 7-6-0 (.538 win%) vs Vikings17 over/under record of 6-7-0 (.462 win%)........After catman23 recorded his first scoreless outing on the season this past weekend (goose egg), it now leaves Theopholis and DIRTYBIRDS as the only two handicappers in the competition to not yet register a goose egg nor a golden goose egg outing this season.....