Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): The 6th week of the 16th annual Bookie Challenge competition saw this year's defending Bookie Challenge champion 7mick7 blitz the rest of the Challenge field after he connected on a 7-point outing and two-exact score points to finish his weekend with nine total points. As a result of his astounding handicapping performance, the "Irish Hustler" got himself into serious contention for this year's number-one overall top seed with just two weeks left to handicap before this year's divisional seeding takes place. After easily winning this past weekend outright with his 9-point scoring outburst, 7mick7 climbed over seven different handicappers in the point standings to finish his weekend in third place overall. Heading into this upcoming weekend, and with 16 points accrued on the season, the Irish Hustler only trails the father-and-son duo of Vikings17 (21 pts) and Kr@tos (17 pts), respectively. The Mick actually finished the weekend tied for third place with the Biased Nihilist at 16 points apiece, but 7mick7 easily won the third place slot in the point standings over the Nihilist because of the league's first tiebreaker in the regular season, which is most best-bet wins (7mick7 6 BB wins vs the Nihilist 4 BB wins). Rounding out the five top seeds in the standings was rookie KingDarsh (14 pts). As a consequence of 7mick7 finishing the weekend in third place with the #3 overall seed in the standings, rookie JamesGang was the odd man out and he got bumped down into a two-way tie with two-time Bookie Challenge Driveline at 13 points apiece, of which JamesGang officially ended his weekend in 6th place after having more best-bet wins than Driveline (JamesGang 7 wins vs Driveline 5 wins). On the whole, because no other handicappers apart from 7mick7 connected on a 6-point parlay hit over the past weekend, the rest of the scoring over the past weekend was below average, as in four handicappers scored two points each, 10 handicappers scored just one point each, and four handicappers went scoreless for their respective outings. Overall, the competition's two-week streak of producing winning best-bet outings was snapped after the field collectively registered a 14-24-0 best-bet tally for the past weekend, of which the poor best-bet record factored out to a dismal .368 winning percentage.

This year's defending champion, 7mick7, got off to a sluggish start this season after he sandwiched a goose-egg outing in between two one point outings to start off the first three weeks of this year's regular season. However, he had a four-point outing in week #4 after he rebounded from his ho-hum start to this year's regular season and connected on both of his best bets and also knocked down one-point exact score winners for both ends of his exact-score selections for the week. The crooked number, meaning his four-point outing of week #4, was the very impetus that kicked started in earnest 7mick7's handicapping campaign. Lest anybody forgets, the Irish Hustler, if anything, is a scrappy competitor who has proven as much by capturing two out of the last three Bookie Challenge championships in breath-taking fashion. The Mick subsequently followed his four-point outing from week #4 with just a single best-bet winner in week #5, of which after the fifth week of this season, 7mick7 sat in 11th place overall in the competition's point standings after having accrued just seven total points on the season. But after this past weekend, the 6th week of this year's competition, the Irish Hustler snapped out his handicapping doldrums and recorded a fascinating outing that propelled him to third place in the point standings, situated him with the 3rd overall top seed, and more importantly, rejuvenated his season to the point that he still has an outside shot to overtake Vikings17 and possibly win this year's overall number-one top seed at this year's divisional seeding, of which there remains only two more weekends to handicap before this year's divisional seeding takes place. In a large coincidence, 7mick7's 9-point outing from this past weekend enabled him to get credited with a "week-won", and he won the week outright in just a mere week after Vikings17 won the previous weekend with a 9-point outing also. The only difference between the two outings was that Vikings17 produced his 9-point outing after knocking down a PERFECTA outing (8 pts) and complementing it with a one-point exact-score winner, while 7mick7 produced his 9-point outing after connecting on a 6-point parlay hit, a best-bet winner, and TWO one-point exact-score hits. Inexplicably, 7mick7 has now hit both ends of his exact-score predictions for the second time out of the last-three weekends! If anything, the four points 7mick7 has won over the last three weeks is a prime example why EVERY handicapper in the league should always submit both ends of their weekly exact-score selections--ALWAYS! In the case of 7mick7, if not for the four exact-score points he recently won, he would not be occupying one of the five top seeds in the point standings [UPDATE! 7mick7 won another exact-score point in this past Thursday night's exact-score game between New England and Chicago that opened up week #7].

And if there were not enough coincidences to go around, this past weekend Mick Balls (aka 7mick7) connected on his 6-point parlay winner after winning three parlay picks that consisted of all over/under selections, which was exactly the way Vikings17 won his back-to-back 6-point parlay winners in weeks' #4 and #5, with nothing but over/under selections. As it turned out this past weekend, 7mick7's over/under parlay combination had two games he easily won after he chose Buffalo and Las Vegas to go "over" 54 points (Buffalo won 33-30) and also chose Monday night's game between Washington and San Francisco to stay "under" 51 points (SF won 23-17). But the over/under game that the Mick had to sweat out was the very first game he selected in the early games of this past Sunday afternoon, of which he chose the game between the NY Jets and New England to go over 44 points. Incredibly, with time running out and the Jets trailing the Patriots 26-16 (42 total pts), the "Green Slime" drove the ball to the Patriots' 18 yard line with just 42 seconds left to play in the game. It should be needless to say that the football Gods must have been looking down on 7mick7 because the Jets opted for a quick field goal of 36 yards to pull within seven points of the Pats 26-19. Of course, the Jets did not convert the onside kick, but that mattered little to the Irish Hustler. What did matter to 7mick7 was the late field goal kicked by the Jets that ran the game's total to 45 points, of which the field goal covered the "over 44 pts" by one point. As the old saying goes in the world of handicapping the NFL, "sometimes it's better to be lucky than good". And this past weekend, the Irish Hustler wholeheartedly agreed.

• WEEKLY TICKER..................One of the last things a participant wants to do is be the last-seeded handicapper at a divisional seeding. The reason is obvious, and that's because he'll be seeded with the league's overall number-one top seed and stands to start his divisional race with an insurmountable deficit to overcome. Those in serious trouble in the upcoming two weeks before this year's divisional seeding to possibly end up as the number-one cellar dweller in the standings are the following group of handicappers who are presently languishing in the bottom tier of the points standings: Blitzkrieg (6 pts), dbucc (6 pts), Brooklyn211 (6 pts), catman23 (6 pts), and TCU (4 pts)..................Both Vikings17 and jcvike28 share the league's top best-bet record, as each handicapper owns a 8-4-0 best-bet tally on the season (win % .667).................Tiebreakers are more than likely going to play a major role as to who crashes the five top seeds at this year's divisional seeding and tiebreakers will also possibly determine the final order of the five top seeds before the start of this year's divisional races.................