Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): The Bookie Challenge's 15th overall playoffs got underway with a bang over the past weekend after the handicapper who hails as Kr@tos stunned the Biased Nihilist to take a one-point lead of 10 points versus nine points over the self-proclaimed "Greatest Handicapper of All Time". The Nihilist had to tip his hat to Kr@tos after Kr@tos' riveting start to this year's postseason: "Man, I never saw that coming", said the Nihilist, "and I'll be the first to admit it--he really deserves a round of applause because he had a hell of an opening round." The Nihilist entered this year's postseason as the regular-season champion and and as such was afforded the best scoring advantages in the opening round of this season's playoff, while Kr@tos went into the opening round as a divisional champion and thus held the second-best scoring advantages to open up this year's so-called "second season". The main goal for those handicappers who enter a Challenge's postseason without the scoring advantages of a regular-season champion is to try their hardest to stay within close proximity of the regular-season champion, and if at all possible, try to also negate altogether the scoring advantages of a regular-season champion. For that matter, every handicapper who has "lower" playoff qualifications when they enter a Challenge postseason must strive to stay within a reasonable striking distance of those participants who have the best playoff qualifications after the first-two rounds of a Challenge playoffs. If several handicappers with lowly playoff qualifications can survive the first-two rounds of a postseason without spiraling down to extreme point-total deficits, then they have the opportunity to perhaps pull off some handicapping magic for the last-two rounds of a Challenge postseason, when all handicappers are under the same scoring format. With all the aforementioned kept in mind, Kr@tos accomplished precisely what he needed to do, and if only for the opening round of this year's postseason, he fired the first meaningful salvos of this year's playoffs, which was something akin to punching the Biased Nihilist on his big-ass mouth. In other words, Kr@tos flipped the script over the past weekend, and at least for the time being, he snapped the Biased Nihilist's supreme reign over the handicappers of this year's Bookie Challenge competition. Now granted, Kr@tos did well in the first round of this year's postseason to offset the Biased Nihilist's scoring advantages, but a one-point lead after the opening round does not guarantee that a significant playoff run is forthcoming. On the contrary, kr@tos, whose username is derived from a comic-book figure known as the "God of War", cannot rest on his laurels from this past weekend's opening playoff round, for he still has his work cut out for himself if he wants to win this year's overall Bookie Challenge championship. To be sure, winning an overall Bookie Challenge championship is no easy task and only handicappers who stay the course and pick NFL pointspread winners at a high rate in the Challenge's postseason will achieve the competition's most coveted goal--to seize the day and capture an overall Bookie Challenge championship, not to mention the lucky participant will also pocket the first-place prize of the competition's Latinum jackpot ($400).

After the opening round of this year's postseason went into the books, only three handicappers were able to separate themselves from the rest of the pack of handicappers participating in this year's postseason. As already mentioned, Kr@tos is presently the top front-runner of this year's playoff standings after garnering 10 overall points. Not to be totally outdone, the Nihilist is currently in second-place in the playoff point standings after chalking up nine points in the opening round, and at the present time he just trails Kr@tos by one point. Then there is Vikings17, who finished his opening round with seven points scored and who culminated his weekend in third place in the playoff point standings. After accounting for the first-three front-runners in the playoff point standings, there is a three-point drop off in the point standings to get to the next group of handicappers, of which six handicappers are deadlocked in total points with four points apiece. And after applying the league's tiebreakers to the six handicappers in question, what follows is the official order as it pertains the six participants who are tied with four points apiece: dbucc (4th place in pt standings), 7mick7 (5th place), Jets69 (6th place), Kennypie86 (7th place), jcvike28 (8th place), and Matty_Ice (9th place). Lastly, the remaining point standings is rounded off by two handicappers who are tied with three points apiece, of whom are Driveline (officially in 10th place) and Blitzkrieg (11th place). Moreover, there were two handicappers over the past weekend who did not post any weekly selections whatsoever. The two handicappers were TCU and Theopholis, and it's not known if both handicappers have officially quit this year's competition and plan to not participate in the remaining three rounds of this year's playoffs. Of note, both TCU and Theopholis probably failed to post any picks for this year's opening round because of their lowly playoff qualifications, of which their playoff qualifications were those of being "at-large participants". It was a shame that both handicappers failed to post any picks because two other "at-large participants"--rookies Kennypie86 and Matty_Ice--both tallied four points apiece in the opening round and are in the mix with all the other handicappers who registered four points in this year's playoff opener. Granted, "at-large participants" are at a huge scoring disadvantage in the opening round of a Challenge playoffs, as they can only submit five best bets that are worth only one point apiece and are not eligible to submit parlay combinations. However, even though "at-large participants" still only receive one point for each of their five best bets in the second round of the postseason, they will be eligible to submit parlay combinations for the first time in this year's playoffs, so one never knows what fate will await any handicappers who are in arrears in the playoff point standings. For the record, apart from Kr@tos' 4-1-0 best-bet tally in the opening round of this year's postseason, three other handicappers also registered 4-1-0 best-bet records in this year's playoff opener, of whom were dbucc, Jets69, and rookie Matty_Ice.

Of course, Kr@tos was the only who took full advantage of his respective 4-1-0 best-bet performance, seeing as he qualified for this year's postseason as a divisional champion. But one has to dig deeper to fully appreciate Kr@tos' sudden rise to Bookie Challenge stardom after the opening round of this year's postseason. There's a saying that goes as follows: "sometimes it's better to be lucky than good". Right now, no handicapper in the Bookie Challenge competition can exemplify the aforementioned saying than Kr@tos, or the "God of War". To begin with, Kr@tos was very fortunate to enter this year's postseason as a divisional titlist qualifier, seeing as he came very close in the final weekend of this year's regular season to losing his Hail Mary divisional championship to second-place dbucc, who came within 3:49 left to play in the previous Monday Night's game between Baltimore and Pittsburgh of pulling off this year's first divisional shocker. Nevertheless, after the regular season went into the books, Kr@tos had dodged a major bullet and ultimately entered this year's postseason as a divisional champion. But the story doesn't end there, as one has to dig even deeper to fully comprehend Kr@tos' streak of good-luck handicapping. One case in point, this past weekend Kr@tos connected on a two-point exact-score prediction, the first of his two-year Challenger career. In fact, in his rookie season of last year's competition, Kr@tos was the only handicapper in the league who dd not register an exact-score point for the entire regular season. He finally snapped the exact-score drought this season after he scored one-point exact-score hits on three separate weekends of this year's regular season (wks' #6, #7, and #9). But on this past Saturday night, he predicted the exact score of the first exact-score game, which was the game between Green Bay and Chicago. Chicago won the game by a final of 31-27, and although Kr@tos predicted a final score of GB to win 31-27, he was able to still win two points for predicting the exact score but without having selected the winning team of the exact score. The aforementioned exact-score hit was the difference that propelled Kr@tos to edge the Nihilist out by one point in this year's opening round of the postseason. However, let's not short change Kr@tos best-bet performance in this year's opening round, for he was awarded two points each for his four bet-bet winners and those eight points were just as important as his two-point exact-score hit.

By all indications, as it pertains to kr@tos' overall handicapping, it appears as if he is cut from the same cloth as his father Vikings17, meaning both handicappers are as tough as nails and have proven to be a couple of the most resilient handicappers in the league. Both won Rookie-of-the-Year honors, and now Kr@tos is trying to follow in his father's footsteps and win an overall Bookie Challenge championship in just his second year of handicapping the competition. Also, in what has to be deemed as a strange coincidence, neither handicapper excelled in their first Bookie Challenge postseasons, especially Kr@tos who bombed out in his first postseason of last year's competition. For those who have forgotten what happened to Kr@tos in last year's postseason, it has to be remembered that he almost tied a record for producing the worst postseason in the history of the Challenges playoffs. Specifically, Kr@tos posted a best-bet record of 1-11-1 in his first postseason of last year's playoffs, of which the winning percentage from the deplorable best-bet tally factored out to a pathetic and shameful .083 winning percentage. If not for that one "push" in last year's postseason, Kr@tos would have tied Driveline for producing the all-time worst best-bet record for a Bookie Challenge postseason, of which was a 1-12-0 best-bet performance by Driveline back in Challenge year #8 that factored out to an abysmal .077 winning percentage. But as one can readily see, Kr@tos' opening numbers for this year's postseason have hopefully exorcised his demons from last year's postseason, and if anything, his opening round of this playoffs proved to be a total vindication for last year's atrocious postseason. To say the least, as it concerns Kr@tos start to this year's playoffs--"what difference a year makes!"