JCVIKE AND VIKINGS17 GO AT IT!

MIKE ANDREW'S DROPPED 2-PT CONVERSION KEEPS JCVIKE28
AND VIKINGS17 A POINT APART ATOP PLAYOFF POINT STANDINGS

Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): The second round of a Bookie Challenge playoffs is almost identical as a first round in which every handicapper with the exception of an at-large participant has to select five best bets, a 3-team parlay combination, and two exact-score selections for both the first and second rounds. But the main difference between the two rounds are the amount of points awarded for each participants respective best bets (10 in all for the first-two rounds) and that in the first round the at-large participants don't get to submit parlay combinations. The overall handicapping strategies should come as no surprise to the veterans of the competition, but for rookie handicappers they can't really know what to make of a Challenge playoffs unless they've been through it. All in all, however, the first two rounds of a Bookie Challenge playoffs comes down to two different things depending on one's playoff qualification. One, the handicappers with the best playoff qualifications, the regular-season champions and all of the divisional champions, must take full advantages of those scoring advantages and take hugely significant leads over the rest of the playoff qualifiers, the divisional wild cards and the st-large participants. Two, the main goal for divisional wild cards and at-larger participants after the first -two rounds of the postseason is just to be super close to the overall lead in the playoff point standings. They just need to survive the first-two rounds, stay close, real close, and then make it to the last-two rounds of a postseason, of which no handicappers will have any more scoring advantages in those last-two rounds, because in the final two rounds all participants are on the same playing field--a level one--and the scoring format is the same for each handicapper.

Amazingly, there are a handful of handicappers who get it, who understand how the Bookie Challenge playoff format is to be negotiated, and that group of handicappers are mainly composed of former Bookie Challenge champions or a handful of handicappers who have come within a point or two, or a few points, of taking down an overall Bookie Challenge championship. With the aforementioned in mind, and to that regard, take a gander of the front-runners in the playoff point standings after the first-two rounds of last year's postseason and after the first-two rounds of this year's postseason--and one will come to understand the caliber of handicapper it takes to win overall Bookie Challenge championship: Last season, after the first-two rounds--Driveline (22pts-playoff qualification A), Biased Nihilist (19pts-A), Vikings17 (18pts-A & regular-season champion), and 7mick7. Please note, that after the third round of last year's playoffs, both Blitzkrieg and jcvike28 had joined the aforementioned group of contenders in last year's point standings. Now look at the handicappers atop the playoff point standings after the first-two rounds of this year's postseason, jcvik28 (19pts-A), Vikings17 (18pts-A) Blitzkrieg (12pts-B), and Driveline (10pts-A). Please note that both 7mick7 and the Biased Nihilist are still contenders in this year's postseason because of their respective selections of the teams they had predicted to win this year's Super Bowl (KC). Regardless, it's uncanny how a core group of handicappers were big-time contenders for last year's overall Bookie Challenge championship and are the very same handful of contenders for this year's overall Bookie Challenge championship.

To begin with, a couple of similarities abound between the two postseasons, meaning last year's playoffs and this year's playoffs. Strangely, after the third round of last year's postseason Driveline was atop the playoff point standings, and the week before (end of last year's 2nd round), a red-hot rookie upstart back then was also near the top of the point standings (3rd place in playoff pt. standings and just 4 pts behind Driveline for the overall lead). However, heading into last year's final round, the Super Bowl round, both Driveline and Vikings17 had NO preseason Super Bowl picks still alive to help them out, respectively, in the final round of last year's competition. But the rest of last year's top contenders who headed into last year's Super Bowl round still had preseason Super Bowl selections still in play: 7mick7 (had both KC vs SF), jcvike28 (SF), Blitzkrieg (KC). But in a crazy turn of events, jcvike28 was hosting a Super Bowl party in Maryland, and before he had remembered to post his Super Bowl selections, the Super Bowl's posting deadline had passed him by, of which realistically left 7mick7 and the Biased Nihilist as the last two contenders who had a shot of winning the whole enchilada as last year's final round played out and came down to the wire. Ultimately, it was 7mick7 who prevailed over the Biased Nihilist after 7mick7 collected 10-bonus points because Kansas City was his preseason Super Bowl pick that subsequently won last year's Super Bowl, and did as much with just three seconds left in the 4th quarter, otherwise it would have been the Nihilist who would have won last year's overall Bookie Challenge instead of 7mick7. Much to the chagrin of the Biased Nihilist, 7mick7 won last year's overall Bookie Challenge championship by 10 points--49 pts vs 39 pts--and in large part won the overall Bookie Challenge championship because he had taken KC as his best-bet selection for the Super Bowl round (worth 4 pts), and because he also collected 10 bonus points after KC came through for him and as his preseason pick to win last year's Super Bowl.

The big question to be asked now as the competition heads into the final two rounds of this year's competition, is whether there will be another heart-pounding finish to this year's 14th annual competition as there was in last year's grand finale? Will jcvike, who presently holds a one-point lead over Vikings17 in the present point standings after this past weekend's second round of the playoffs went into the books (jcvike 19 pts vs Viking17 18 pts), show up at the end of this year's contest to perhaps collect the spoils reserved for a Bookie Challenge champion? Or will he blow it again by going incognito for the final round? Interestingly, Vikings17 stands to once again be victimized by his preseason selections of the two teams he believes will play in this year's Super Bowl, amd more importantly, will any of his two selections win this year's Super Bowl. The answer is a resounding "NO". In fact, when looking at the present point standings--jcvike (19pts), Vikings17 (18pts), Blitzkrieg (12pts), and Driveline (10pts), both Vikings17 and Driveline have no preseason Super Bowl picks left to rely upon. Vikings17 had chosen the San Francisco 49ers to defeat the Baltimore Ravens, while Driveline had chosen the Cincinnati Bengals to thump the San Francisco 49ers. Obviously, the 49ers, the Ravens,and the Bengals have all been eliminated from this year's postseason. Therefore, if either one between Vikings17 and Driveline wants to win this year's overall Bookie Challenge championship, then they're going to have to do it by respectively scoring a boat load of propositional points over the course of the last-two upcoming rounds. Speaking of which, the last time the Challenge field dabbled with a slew of propositional selections was in the dual outing of this year's Turkey Shoot weekend, or when jcvike set a new all-time record for amassing the most prop points for a Thanksgiving-Day holiday weekend--which was 21 total points! As already mentioned, and for the most part, the only handicappers who can win 10-bonus points in this year's final round, that is, if Kansas City wins this year's Super Bowl, are presently jcvike (19pts), Blitzkrieg (12pts), 7mick7 (9pts), and the Biased Nihilist (6pts). However, there is still another handicapper who can rack up 10 bonus points in this year's Super Bowl round, and that handicapper is the Hall-of-Fame City Kid, who presently has the Philadelphia Eagles pegged to win this year's Super Bowl.

The next upcoming round, the NFL Championship round (3rd round of the postseason), will feature the Philadelphia Eagles (-6) hosting the surprising Washington Commanders in this Sunday's early matchup (3 pm EST) to be followed by the game between the Buffalo Bills at the Kansas City Chiefs (-2). As it concerns the Bookie Challenge competition, aside from each handicapper from the competition having to select two best bets and a 3-team parlay combination (only a 3-point parlay combo can be selected), and the exact-score of the Bills/Chiefs game, each handicapper will also be required to select three propositional selections for both games: 1) the combined scoring for each game, 2)the longest field goal for each game (must select correct team and exact yardage of FG kicked), and 3) the longest touchdown scored in each game (must select team and exact yardage of TD). When doing the math, a grand total of at least 32 points can be tallied by a single handicapper, but only if the handicapper is lucky enough to run the table, especially when it comes to the propositional picks. The key words from the proceeding sentence are "if a handicapper gets lucky enough". For starters, having Lady Luck on one's side is a handicapping blessing that each handicapper within the Challenge field will be praying for. With that being said, after the first-two rounds of this year's playoffs, about two-thirds of the 13 overall handicappers still handicapping the competition have already had Lady Luck turn her back to them. But in the case of a good handful of handicappers, last weekend's outing was overflowing with good luck. Those fortunate handicappers included the likes of Vikings17, this year's regular-season champion who rebounded from a horrific first round but who nailed four of his five best bets in the second round to finish the past weekend's round with 12 overall points to lead all scorers. He also got credited for a week-won. Unfortunately for Vikings17, who led the regular season with a new all-time scoring record of 23 propositional points this season, he concluded last weekend one point behind jcvike28 for the overall lead in the Challenge's playoff point standings.

"El Duque" (aka jcvike28) was one of four other handicappers beside Vikings17 who had significant scoring rounds for last weekend's outing. Both jcvike and Driveline, as divisional champion qualifiers in this year's postseason, each knocked three best-bet winners apiece and each also complemented their nine-point outings with one-point exact-score winners to end their respective rounds with 10 total points apiece. Two other handicappers, both wild card qua;ifiers in this year's playoffs, Blitzkrieg and 7mick7, each had decent weekend's to keep themselves in contention for this year's overall championship, albeit that they each have to have two spectacular rounds apiece if either one is going to pull outa handicapping miracle. Blitzkrieg scored nine overall points this past weekend to raise his total in this year's postseasonto 12 total points, while 7mick7 tallied seven points over the past weekend to run his overall playoff total to nine total points. Of interest, however, an unlikely handicapper--the rookie Jets69--also ended the second round with nine total points accumulated in this year's postseason, and as a matter of fact, he won the tiebreaker for fifth place in the playoff point strandings over 7mick7 by virtue of one more postseason best-bet winner than 7mick7 had won (6 best bets vs 5 best bets). Incredibly, both handicappers ended up in a total-points stalemate after the playoff's first tiebreaker had been implemented, of which the first tiebreaker went to the handicapper with the most regular-season points tallied (but each handicapper had 47 pts on the regular season). Speaking of the aforementioned tiebreaker (most pts from the regular season), it's highly unlikely, almost impossible that a tie in this year's postseason will not be decided by the first tiebreaker (most pts from the regular season, especially when keeping in mind that only two sets of handicappers posted identical point totals in this year's regular season, of whom were Blitzkrieg and Kr@tos (46 pts apiece) and the just mentioned pair of Jets69 and 7mick7 (47 pts apiece). In the case of the former, hell will freeze over before Kr@tos will end up in a tie with Blitzkrieg (Kr@tos has zero points scored in this year's playoffs), while it's almost a virtual impossibility that Jets69 and 7mick7 will wind up in a second tie in total points. Granted, some crazy shit can happen in a Challenge postseason, but not not even lightning will strike the same place twice!

• SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: It's all but official! From all appearances, jcvike28 is going to cruise to this year's SWAMI Award (honor given to participant with the top best-bet record for an entire Bookie Challenge season). To his credit, jcvike28 has chalked up a best-bet record of 7-2-1 (.728 Win%) for the first two rounds of this year's postseason. Of course, as everybody in the competition should already know, jcvike tied the all-time record in this year's regular season for the most all-time best-bet winners tallied in one regular season in the history of the competition (Blitzkrieg had 26 best-bet winners in the regular season of Challenge year #13). But after the first two rounds of this year's postseason, jcvike has accumulated 33 overall best-bet wins for the regular season and playoffs combined, of which has him presently tied with dbucc for the most best-bet wins in a single-season in the history of the Bookie Challenge competition (dbucc set the record back in Challenge year #11). So, with just three best bets left to make in this year's competition, it's a given that jcvike will win this year's SWAMI award. However, El Duque needs one more best-bet winner to set the new all-time, single-season record of 34 best-bet wins, which will be the most best-bet wins for one entire Bookie Challenge competition (regular season and postseason combined).


• WEEKLY TICKER .......Not Applicable