2025 PRESEASON ANNUAL SPECIAL

THE PARTICIPANT'S GUIDE TO THE 15TH ANNUAL COMPETITION

MEET LAST YEAR'S BIG WINNERS:
VIKINGS17 AND JCVIKE28

THE COLOR PURPLE: Two of the league's biggest Viking fans--Vikings17 and jcvike28--win last year's top prizes and top awards

Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): As is almost always the case, last year's Bookie Challenge competition, the league's 14th overall handicapping contest, was rife with breathtaking suspense and high drama. When it was all said and done, the Most Valuable Participant of the competition was somebody who nobody had envisioned seizing last year's overall Bookie Challenge championship. Simply put, it was Vikings17 who stole the show and persevered to win his first-ever Bookie Challenge championship, of which he was able to do in only his second year of handicapping the competition. To put Vikings17's achievement into perspective, nobody else, with the exception of the Biased Nihilist, has won a Bookie Challenge championship faster than Vikings17 did after joining the competition. In fact, the only reason the Nihilist won his Bookie Challenge championship quicker than Vikings17 was because the Nihilist won the Bookie Challenge's inaugural competition. Amazingly, however, Vikings17, also known by his Challenge moniker as the "Purple People Eater", became the first handicapper in Bookie Challenge history to win back-to-back regular-season championships. Also impressive was that Vikings17 was honored as the Rookie of the Year for Challenge year #13. But last year's run propelled him to Bookie Challenge stardom, as he not only won last year's first-place prize of $450 from the Latinum jackpot but he also won $100 for snagging his second-straight regular-season championship. In total, Vikings17 won $550 in last year's competition, which was a grand total of earnings that ranked second only to Tony Soprano's $560 that Soprano won in Challenge year #8 ($490 1st-place prize for winning Bookie Challenge championship and $70 3rd-place prize for winning regular-season championship).

Also having a fantastic handicapping campaign in last year's competition was 11-year veteran jcvike28, who is the son of the Biased Nihilist. El Duque, as jcvike28 is known by his Challenge moniker, was able to pocket $120 for finishing as the runner-up to the overall Bookie Challenge champion Vikings17. For his incredible moxie in last year's competition, jcvike took home two awards: 1) The Rudy award, which is considered as the second-highest prestigious honor a Bookie Challenge participant can win behind the MVP award, and 2) the Swami award, which is doled out to the participant who manufactured the season's top best-bet record (regular season and postseason combined), of which jcvike did after posting a 33-17-1 best-bet tally that was good for an extraordinary .660 winning percentage.

With Vikings17 winning the first-place and third-place prizes in last year's handicapping contest, and with jcvike hauling in the second-place prize, a fourth-place prize was also up for grabs in last year's competition for the first-time ever, of which the prize of $50 was awarded to Blitzkrieg for being the league's overall number-one top seed from last year's divisional seeding (completion of week #8). The "Snowman and his Falcon" (aka Blitzkrieg) also won the league's "sportsmanship" honor after being awarded with the Brian Piccolo award, which was his first-ever Piccolo award. But when looking back at last year's competition, despite recouping his $50 membership for winning last year's overall number-one top seed, the rest of the regular season turned out to be a huge disappointment for Blitzkrieg. Yes, he won the overall top seed, and as a result he got to start last year's divisional races with the largest lead held by a divisional leader last season, which was a 10-point lead over second-place Vikings17 (25 pts vs 15 pts). Ultimately, however, Blitzkrieg blew his large divisional lead after an intense divisional battle with Vikings17, who eventually captured last year's Hail Mary divisional title by four points over Blitzkrieg (50 pts vs 46 pts). Incredibly, Blitzkrieg had knocked down three 6-point parlay winners en route to capturing last year's overall number-one top seed, and not to forget that he ended the regular season with the most 6-point parlay winners (4). Conversely, Vikings17 didn't hit a single 6-point parlay winner before last year's divisional seeding, and he would go on to nail just one 6-point parlay hit, of which he did as much in week #16 of last year's regular season. In fact, week #16 was the straw that broke the camel's back as far as Blitzkrieg's divisional championship hopes were concerned, for the Snowman went into week #16 with a 2-point Hail Mary divisional lead over Vikings17. But Blitzkrieg goose-egged his outing in week #16, while Vikings17 hit on a PERFECTA weekend (won both best bets and hit 6-point parlay) and then he added a one-point exact-score hit for good measure to end the weekend with nine total points and a 7-point divisional lead to boot over Blitzkrieg (49 pts vs 42 pts). More importantly for Vikings17, his new divisional lead over Blitzkrieg after week #16 turned out to be a lead who not relinquish for remaining two weeks of the regulars season.

Interestingly, even though Blitzkrieg won the 6-point battle over Vikings17 by a margin of four to one, the Purple People Eater became the first handicapper in Bookie Challenge history to connect on thrre 5-point exact-score winners, In all, Vikings17 set an all-time single-season record last year for the most exact-score points won, 19 points, for a regular season of handicapping. It used to be that back in the day, Challenge year #10 and for most of the year's that preceded Challenge year #10, starting out as a divisional leader after a divisional seeding usually meant winning a divisional title. Even better was winning a yearly overall number-one top seed at a divisional seeding. Win one of those and a handicapper damn-near was a lock to win a divisional title. But by the same token, winning an overall number-one top seed came with a curse, as in a number-one seed from a divisional seeding has never gone on to win an overall Bookie Challenge championship. And as crazy as it may sound, every top seed from year Challenge year #2 through Challenge year #10 won their respective divisional titles. However, that hasn't been the case in recent years. No, in Challenge year #11, DIRTYBIRDS became the first overall number-one seed to lose his divisional race, in year #13 it was Theopholis who lost a divisional title after winning that year's overall number-one top seed, and sadly, we know what happened last year to Blitzkrieg.

What's also inexplicable is the recent trends of the competition's divisional races over the last two seasons. As already mentioned, divisional leaders that came out of divisional seedings always fared well, usually the winning percentage of divisional leaders from divisional seedings was about a 70 percent win rate of divisional titles. In fact, to get an idea how divisional leaders coming out of a divisional seeding took care of business, in Challenge year #4, a year that held FIVE divisional races, each divisional leader went wire-to-wire in their respective divisional races and each won their divisions. To this day the feat has never been duplicated, especially the part about going from wire to wire (Rexkramer-JAACK DUNDEE DIVISION, the Biased Nihilist-COROZAL DIVISION, Tony Soprano-WHISKEY LEGS DIVISION, 1947Lifer-ROGUE'S SCHOLAR DIVISION, and jcvike28-SNEAKY PETE DIVISION. But a statistical anomaly struck the Bookie Challenge competition two years ago (Challenge year #13). In that specific regular season, and for the first time in the history of the Bookie Challenge, all of the divisional leaders from that year's divisional seeding each LOST their respective divisional races! Theopholis lost the Corozal divisional race, catman23 lost the Hail Mary divisional race, DawgPound lost the Run-&-Shoot divisional race, and DIRTYBIRDS lost the Red Zone divisional race. What's really puzzling is that last year's four divisional races almost saw the same thing happen, in which all divisional leaders from a divisional seeding all lost their divisional races.

Of the four divisional leaders who came out of last year's divisional seeding, only Driveline was able to win a divisional title--and it wasn't easy because he had to stave off the Nihilist to win last year's Corozal divisional race. As already mentioned, Vikings17 pulled a stunning comeback to edge out Blitzkrieg in last year's Hail Mary divisional race, and also mentioned was how jcvike28 captured last year's Swami award after winning the Run-&-Shoot divisional title in come-from-behind fashion to oust both 7mick7 and Rookie Jets69. In last year's final divisional race, the Red Zone divisional race, rookie Kr@tos pulled out the year's biggest upset as it concerned divisional races after he climbed from fourth place after last tear's divisional seeding and overtook TCU, Hall-of-Fame City Kid, and DawgPound to win the Red Zone divisional title. Losing the Red Zone divisional title to a rookie was bad enough for DawgPound, but his collapse that led to Kr@tos sensational divisional title earned DawgPound last year's Humpty Dumpty award, or the one award that no Challenge participant wants to be dishonored with. As it concerned last year's Rookie of the Year award, the two contenders for the honor, Kr@tos and Jets69, both put on a rookie race for the ages. Of course, Kr@tos barely got the nod over Jets69 because he won the Red Zone divisional title against some tough veteran handicappers. But Jet69 did hang on to enter last year's postseason with the last wild card slot, or Special Wild card. Unfortunately for Jets69, he posted a losing best-bet record for last year's regular season (16-22-0), while Kr@tos, the son of Vikings17, followed in his dad's footsteps by having a winning regular-season best-bet record (21-17-0 W% .552). Oddly, despite winning last year's Rookie-of-the-Year award over Jets69, Kr@tos had an atrocious postseason after he embarrassingly produced a miserable 1-11-1 best-bet record in last year's playoffs, of which the nasty handicapping resulted in a pathetic .083 win percentage. Incidentally, although Jets69 eked out a winning best-bet record in last year's postseason of 7-5-1 (W% .581), both Kr@tos and Jets69 produced the bizarre in their rookie debuts, as Jets69 led the league with the most best-bet losses in the regular season (22 losses) and Kr@tos led the league with the most best-bet losses in last year's postseason (11 losses).

And finally, one last award that was doled out in last year's competition was bestowed upon dbucc, aka the Joker, for winning last year's Comeback-Handicapper-of-the-Year award. The Joker finished in 3rd place in last year's Corozal division despite owning a best-bet record of 22-15-1 (W% .581) and laid only one goose egg for the entire season. As can be readily seen, dbucc had a pretty good regular season last year, but he just had the misfortune of being seeded in the only division that contained the league's only active multi-Bookie Challenge champions in Driveline and the Biased Nihilist. And still, dbucc almost won the division as can readily be seen in last year's final standings in the Corozal division: Drivline (39 pts), B. Nihilist (35 pts), and dbucc (34 pts).

THEO'S COMEBACK AND ROOKIE-RECRUITMENT EFFORTS BY 7MICK7 AND VIKINGS17 BOLSTER CHALLENGE'S ROSTER FOR 15TH ANNUAL CONTEST

As of this printing, and with the 15th annual Bookie Challenge competition at the precipice of starting its handicapping wars, it's looking more and more as if this year's Bookie Challenge contest is going to consist of just 14 overall participants, that is, only 14 participants will fill out its ranks barring any late entrants joining the handicapping mayhem at the 11th hour. Interestingly, that the Challenge competition is--at the very least--going to kick off its regular season with 14 overall members is an unexpected boon the competition's main administrator--the Biased Nihilist--did not anticipate happening. No, at the end of this year's off-season, the Nihilist seemed resigned to seeing his magical handicapping contest start its season with only 10 participants, of which 10 participants would have marked the lowest enrollment total to the start of a competition in the history of the Bookie Challenge, or a grand total of 14 previous Challenge competitions. The weird thing about the possibility of only a 10-member handicapping competition, was that the low membership did not come about because of a handful of contestants came to hate the competition and didn't want to participate in the handicapping contest anymore, but instead it was more about how life imitates art. In a way, the "life imitates art" causation affected seven-year veteran DawgPound this past summer more than anybody else, but it all really started four years earlier--when one of the competition's longest tenured handicappers, Theopholis, started having health issues. And coincidentally, two years after Theo's health started going south, the Nihilist became the next man on the totem pole to lose his health, but in a more serious way, as in the Nihilist had a nearly fatal heart attack that would change his life forever.

Four years ago Theo (or David) had problems with his pancreas, which caused a blood disorder that he couldn't get rid of. As a consequence, the disorder interfered with his internal organs. David had to deal with kidney problems for a couple of years. He then subsequently developed liver problems on top of the kidney problems, but the medications he took for the liver ailment, along with a change of diet, miraculously cleared his kidney issues. Unfortunately, at around the first part of this year, David's liver was only functioning at 40 percent. But today, by the grace of God, his liver problems are almost non-existent, as his liver is presently functioning at a 97 percent effectiveness. Another medical issue that's been bothering David recently is his gall bladder, of which the doctors wanted to remove the organ but David refused the operation. After all, why remove the gall bladder if there were no gallstones causing any pain? The truth is that many people with gallstones experience no symptoms and require no treatment, others may suffer from painful attacks when the stones block the bile ducts. David, however, has had no gallstones and thus no pain.

As it concerns David's past health struggles, and when taking everything into account, David soldiered on through the pain, of which included him having to go to the emergency room several times throughout the last four years, of which he had to be hospitalized on three separate occasions. But when it came to Theo's health affecting his participation in the Challenge competition, he only missed Bookie Challenge year #14 after having handicapped the competition for 10 straight years (Challenge yrs #4 thru yr #13). One thing that doesn't sit well with the Nihilist is when he loses a long-tenured veteran at the start of a new Bookie Challenge competition, so when Theo opted out of Challenge year #14, the Nihilist was inwardly perturbed after being unable to convince Theo to continue to participate in the Challenge competition of year #14. In retrospect, what really threw the Nihilist for a loop back then was when Theo had told him just before the start of Challenge year #14's contest: "I may not be alive by the end of this year!" And here the Nihilist thought it was him who was knocking at death's door after having had a major heart attack on March the 6th of 2024, of which the heart attack was so serious that the Nihilist agreed to the installation of a small pump to be attached to the left ventricle of his heart (or the pump is better known as an LVAD--Left Ventricular Assist Device). But inasmuch as the Nihilist felt Theo's departure from the competition before the start of Challenge year #14 was a minor slight, the thought of losing Theo as a solid member of the Challenge contest weighed more on the mind of the Nihilist, seeing that he had always considered Theopholis as the most eccentric character of the Bookie Challenge competition, not to mention that both shared a deep rooted love for history, in particular World War II history and early soviet history.

Subsequently, early on during this past off-season, the Nihilist received a call late on one Saturday night, and to the Nihilist's surprise, it was David (Theo) calling. The two exchanged health stories and afterward David told the Nihilist that he was probably going to participate in this year's competition, that is, if David stayed on the mend from his health troubles. However, despite the earlier call from David at the start of this year's off-season, the Nihilist wasn't sure if Theo was going to be in or not as it pertained to his participation in the 15th annual Bookie Challenge competition. And although the Nihilist had not heard from Theo before the start of this year's competition, and with the participation of several other veterans up in the air, and because this year's commitments to participate in this year's handicapping contest amounted to just 10 overall participants, the Nihilist called Theo to check and see if Theo was going to return back to the Bookie Challenge. Thankfully, Theopholis answered in the affirmative. Still, the competition's enrollment was badly lacking. Yes, it was life imitating art, especially for DawgPound, an eight-year veteran of the competition. He had broken up with his wife in this past off-season, and worse yet, exacerbating matters even further, DawgPound's factory where he had worked for years and years had closed down. DawgPound had to eventually put his house on the market, and if it couldn't get any worse, the Nihilist and DawgPound lost touch with each other. As a consequence, not only was DawgPound's participation in doubt but also the participations of his uncle (1-yr vet Realtalkrob) and his brother (2-yr vet Hall-of-Fame City Kid). The bad luck continued for the Bookie Challenge competition after the membership rolls took another hit once it was found out that 12-year veteran moemonie had not contacted the competition, and just like DawgPound, he too lost touch with the Nihilist. Without question, the Bookie Challenge was in turmoil. Things, however, would slowly but surely get turned around.

For starters, DawgPound consequently signed in with a new account on the competition's message board, with his new username being "Cleveland 66". But as of this printing, DawgPound's return is not etched in stone and there are still questions surrounding the participations of his kin folk (Raltalkrob and Hall-of-Fame City Kid). All things considered, though, the Bookie Challenge made a "comeback" of sorts after the return of Theoppholis to the competition and the probable resurrection of DawgPound at the last minute. But a major boost to the membership rolls came after the recruitment of two rookies, of whom 7mick7 recruited Kennypie86 and Vikings17 recruited Matty_Ice3110. A sentimental Nihilist put the recruiting miracles by 7mick7 and Vikings17 in historical terms, by invoking Winston Churchill: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much been owed by so many to so few". Additionally, even before the late rally by the Bookie Challenge, 10 core members of the competition got the ball rolling this season by making their commitments to participate known two weeks before the start of the season. The 10 members who are owed a ton of gratitude for putting the competition on solid ground are the Biased Nihilist, jcvike28, TCU, dbucc, Driveline, Blitzkrieg, 7mick7, Vikings17, Kr@tos, and Jets69.

When it came to selecting this season's favorite to win this year's overall Bookie Challenge championship, the usual names were tossed around to select the number-one ranked handicapper. For sure, thenames of the league's top handicappers over the years were bandied about, such as the Biased Nihilist, Driveline, jcvike28, dbucc, and Blitzkrieg just to name a few. However, a special handicapper, one relatively new to the competition--Vikings17--had to deservedly be included in the aforementioned list of the Bookie Challenge superstar handicappers. No handicapper, not even the Biased Nihilist, has had a tenacious resoluteness of handicapping than has Vikings17 after handicapping his first-two seasons of the unique Bookie Challenge competition. Moreover, no handicapper has ever won a regular-season championship in his rookie season as did Vikings17 two years ago in his grenhorn debut. But that one accomplishment doesn't even begin to tell the magnificient story of the Purple People Eater and his swift rise to Bookie Challenge stardom. Specifically, Vikings17 won the Rookie-of-the-Year award in Challenge year #13 after he tallied 50 points in that year's regular season. He then followed up his sensational rookie season after he tallied another 50 points in last year's regular season en route to winning back-to-back regular -season championships, of which was a head-turning feat that had never been accomplishred before in previous Challennge competitions. But that wasn't the end of it, Vikings17 went on to incredibly win last year's overall Bookie Challenge championship, and pulled it off in just his second season in the competition. So yes, Vikings17 is a special handicapper who has proven he can find different ways to win in the league, whether it's through parlay winners or exact-score hits--he just finds a way to get it done. Next up for Vikings17? He can win back-to-back Bookie Challenge championships this upcoming season, he'll become only the second handicapper in the history of the Bookie Challenge, with the exception of the Biased Nihilist, to become a repeat champion.

What's the 64-million dollar question as it concerns Kr@tos sophomore season in the competition? It goes like this: Will the "Handicapping God of War" continue to follow in his father's footsteps, as in will he win a Bookie Challenge championship in his second handicapping campaign after winning the Rookie-of-the-Year honor in his greenhorn season of Challenge year #14--just as father Vikings17 has done? Admittingly, it's a "tough ask" to expect Kr@tos to win this year's overall Bookie Challenge championship. Besides, after piecing together his handicapping masterpiece in last year's regular season, in which he won the Red Zone divisional title after coming back from 4th place in the divisional standings to start off last year's divisional races, Kr@tos will be hard pressed to duplicate his rookie performane in last year's regular season. Not for nothing, but Kr@tos is lacking some serious momentum heading into this year's competition, for he imploded in last year's postseason and recorded one of the worst best-bet records in a Challemge postseason after he embarrasingly produced a best-bet tally of 1-11-1, of which the winniing percentage spawned by such a miserable record amounted to a despicable .083 win percentage. Only Driveline's horrendous 1-12-0 (Win% .077) best-bet tally in the postseason of Challenge year #8 was worse than Kr@tos' postseason numbers from last year's playoffs. All things considred, Kr@tos needs to get off to a great start in the 15th annual competition so he can shake off his handicapping disaster from last year's postseason, because if he doesn't get off to a great start--his sophomore season handicapping the Bookie Challenge can turn out to be a mediocre showing.

After reading Kr@tos preseason power ranking from above, Jets69 had better not be content to keep up with Kr@tos in this year's handicapping competition. Last season, vying for the Bookie Challenge's Rookie-of-the-Year award against Kr@tos was one thing, but this season will spell trouble if "Broadway Al" doesn't get from underneath Kr@tos' handicapping shadow.

Scarface (aka Theopholis) is supposed to have recuperated health-wise and plans on resuming his Bookie Challenge participation with a comeback season for the ages. Um, maybe we had better not get ahead of ourselves. To be totally honest, nobody in their right frame of mind really thinks that Scarface will be so good in the upcoming competition that he'll be saying the following at some point in the upcoming competition: "Say hello to my little friend"!

The only reason rookie Kennypie86, or the "Ken Doll (aka Barbie's lover)" is being ranked higher than this year's other rookie Matty_Ice3110 is because Kenny is more of a die-hard Donald Trump supporter than is Matty_Ice. But to get an idea of how both rookies will fare in this season's competition, please read the last ranking that is shown below...