Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): After the third round of this year's Bookie Challenge playoffs, the NFL Championship round, two participants from the Bookie Challenge field--namely Kr@tos and Blitzkrieg--found themselves in the enviable positions to seriously vie for this year's overall Bookie Challenge championships. In the case of Kr@tos, he's attempting to follow in his father's footsteps, specifically in Vikings17's footsteps, and win an overall Bookie Challenge championship in just his second season of handicapping the competition. In the case of Blitzkrieg, who is now in his tenth season of handicapping the Bookie Challenge competition, he once again is at the threshold of possibly winning a Bookie Challenge competition. However, after the championship round of this year's postseason, Kr@tos maintained his overall lead of the competition for the third consecutive round of this year's playoffs, and with 26 total points accrued in this year's postseason, he will enter the final Super Bowl round with a precarious two-point lead over Blitzkrieg (Kr@tos 26 pts vs 24 pts). Also in the mix with a decent shot of finishing in the "money", meaning finishing this year's playoffs in either first place or second place in the final postseason standings, is dbucc, who is one of the longest tenured members of the Bookie Challenge competition (now in his 12th season). Heading into this year's grand finale, dbucc, who has amassed 20 points in this year's postseason, will enter the final round of this year's competition in third place in the playoff point standings and only trails the present overall leader Kr@tos by six points and second-place Blitzkrieg by just four points. But unlike both Kr@tos and Blitzkrieg, dbucc has already won an overall Bookie Challenge championship (Challenge yr #11), and so he's attempting to become only the fourth participant in the history of the Bookie Challenge competition to win at least a second overall Bookie Challenge championship, with the other three participants being the Biased Nihilist (3 BC titles), Tony Soprano (3 BC titles), and Driveline (2 BC titles). After dbucc in the present playoff point standings are three handicappers who are each tied with 16 points apiece--the Biased Nihilist, Vikings17, and TCU. All three handicappers are facing uphill battles to finish in the "money", but what has to be remembered is that plenty of points are up for grabs in the competition's Super Bowl round. Mathematically speaking, none of the handicappers who have participated in this year's postseason have been officially eliminated from winning this year's overall Bookie Challenge championship, especially when considering that maybe there is a participant who can get super lucky in the final round and could possibly win upwards to 30 points if everything miraculously falls his way in this year's grand finale.

And before anyone goes dismissing the probability of a participant coming out of nowhere and unexpectedly snatching the overall championship away from one of the heavily favorite front-runners, you had better think again because it has already happened once before, back in Challenge year #9 to be exact. Yes, if one can believe it, in the final round of the postseason of Challenge year #9, Driveline pulled off the unthinkable and won his first-ever Bookie Challenge championship after he registered an all-time scoring record of 27 points for that year's Super Bowl round. But that wasn't the only time Driveline broke out with a fascinating scoring explosion in the final round of a Bookie Challenge postseason. Three seasons after scoring his all-time high of 27 points in the final playoff round of Challenge year #9, Driveline would come close to breaking his own all-time scoring high in the final round of the postseason of Challenge year #12, when Driveline scored 22 points in that postseason's Super Bowl round to stunningly capture that year's overall Bookie Challenge championship, and he did as much enroute to a runaway victory. More specifically, in the postseason of Challenge year #12, Driveline not only scored 22 points in that postseason's final round, but he astonishingly also registered 20 points in that postseason's NFL Championship round, or in the third round before the lead in to that year's final Super Bowl round. When the dust finally cleared after the two inexplicable scoring explosions, Driveline would eventually rack up a record-setting scoring outburst of 54 total points for the playoffs of Challenge year #12. What's more is that he not only set the all-time scoring record for the postseason of Challenge year #12, but he also set the all-time scoring record for an entire season after he amassed 100 total points for Challenge year #12. With all the aforementioned in mind, when taking into account that Driveline scored 27 points in the final Super Bowl round of Challenge year #9, and when taking into account that he nearly duplicated the scoring feat in the final round of Challenge year #12 after he recorded 20 points, one can readily see that the final round of this year's Super Bowl might have the potential to be one of the most dramatically suspenseful Super Bowl rounds in the history of the Bookie Challenge competition, especially when considering that there is a handful of handicappers who occupy the lower tier of the present playoff point standings and who should not be prematurely written off from at least "placing in the money" at the end of this year's Super Bowl round. At the present moment, those positioned in the lower tier of the point standing, or who are presently underneath Kr@tos (26pts), Blitzkrieg (24pts), dbucc (20pts), the Biased Nihilist (16pts), Vikings17 (16 pts), and TCU (16pts), are Jets69 (14pts), 7mick7 (13pts), jcvike28 (11pts), Driveline (10pts) and rookie Matty_Ice (10pts). Not included in the list of bottom feeders are rookie Pennypie86 and 11-year veteran Theopholis.

To both of their detriments, meaning o the detriments of Kennypie86 and Theopholis, each handicapper would consequently give up on the competition, and to think, both handicappers have decided to bail at the most critical stage of this year's handicapping contest, to mean the Bookie Challenge postseason. Now granted, both Kennypie86 and Theopholis qualified for this year's postseason as lowly "at-large participants" and stood to enter the playoffs with the worst scoring advantages in the league for the first-two rounds of this year's postseason. But with that in mind, Theopholis flat-out refused to participate in any rounds of this year's postseason, which is a maneuver that's considered as the biggest Cardinal Sin of the competition--not posting any weekly selections whatsoever! Almost as bad as Theo's decision was that of rookie Kennypie86's decision to call it quits in the third round of this year's playoffs, which was kind of odd when considering that he posted selections for the first-two rounds of this year's postseason. However, for reasons unknown, Kennypie86 failed to place any selections for the third round of this year's postseason after he had registered seven total points on the strength of a 6-2-0 best-bet record, of which his tally also included a one-point exact-score winner. All things considered, it is a damn shame that both Kennypie and Theopholis have pulled the plugs on their respective seasons because one never knows what can transpire in a Bookie Challenge playoffs. For example, in the first round of this year's postseason, another lowly "at-large participant" qualifier--TCU, or Too Tall Tommy--did not post any weekly selections for the opening round of this year's playoffs, and as a result, it was initially thought that he too had bailed from this year's competition. In fact, three years ago, before the start of the postseason of Challenge year #12, TCU failed to participate in that year's postseason after he had qualified for that season's playoffs as an "at-large participant". Interestingly, however, and in what should be deemed as a hard lesson for both Kennypie86 and Theopholis to learn is to NEVER quit a Bookie Challenge competition. Never ever! Amazingly, TCU has dramatically skyrocketed himself into contention in this year's postseason after not posting selections in the first round of this year's playoffs. Indeed, Too Tall Tommy had a major change of heart and decided to participate for the remainder of this year's postseason after failing to post any selections for the first round of this year's playoffs, and to his credit--it has paid off. Incredibly, Too Tall Tommy connected on a 6-point parlay winner in the second round of this year's postseason, and he got himself into contention for an overall Bookie Challenge championship, or at least he now has an outside shot to collect this year's 2nd-place prize ($100) from this year's Latinum jackpot.

For TCU, his 6-point parlay hit in round number two was his first-ever 6-point parlay winner in a Challenge postseason, and after this previous weekend's third round of the playoffs, Too Tall Tommy has quickly tallied 16 overall points so far for this year's postseason and is presently tied with the Nihilist and Vikings17 for 4th place in the playoff point standings. Also connecting on a second-round 6-point parlay winner was dbucc, who registered his second all-time 6-point parlay hit in a Challenge post season, of which he first accomplished the feat back in Challenge year #11, or the year he captured his first and only Bookie Challenge championship. Right now, heading into this year's Super Bowl round, dbucc is sitting pretty as he is in third place of this year's playoff standings with 20 total points accrued in this postseason. He only trails the overall leader Kr@tos by six points (26 pts vs 20 pts) and second-place Blitzkrieg by just four points (24 pts vs 20 pts). But as it concerns TCU, even though he has gotten himself into contention, just imagine if he had handicapped this year's opening round? After all, he could have picked up some valuable points with the five best-bets he was required to post in this year's first round, not to mention that he could have maybe added a point or two with a couple of one-point exact-score hits. So there's no telling how many points he would have accrued if he had participated in all of the rounds of this year's postseason. Another handicapper that has failed to take full advantage of every possible selection in this year's playoffs is the Biased Nihilist, who had his weekly selections from the third round, the NFL Championship round, disqualified for not posting his selections before the third round's final posting deadline. Regardless, and as already mentioned in this week's weekly review, nearly every participant in this year's playoffs still has a shot to make some serious noise in the upcoming final playoff round of this season. And yes, in the aforementioned scenario, meaning the long shots, even though some of those "long shots" are "extremely long shots", there's still an opportunity to finish in the money and perhaps win an overall Bookie Challenge championship. Of course, the lower a participant is positioned down the totem pole of this year's playoff point standings, the lower the odds are against any 11th-hour handicapping miracle coming to fruition. Granted, everybody still has a mathematical chance at finishing in the money, but realistically speaking, it is both Kr@tos (26 pts) and Blitzkrieg (24 pts) who control their respective destinies. They're the two-frontrunners who have golden opportunities to both "finish in the money".

Two-year veteran Kr@tos has had a spectacular postseason, of which his performance in this year's postseason has not been covered fully due to a nationwide winter storm that resulted in the cancelation of the competition's weekly review for the second round of this year's postseason. But to briefly recap, Kr@tos ended this year's opening round with a one-point lead over the Biased Nihilist for the top spot in this year's playoff point standing (10 pts vs 9 pts). He was able to complement his four best-bet winners in the first round, of which were worth two points apiece, with a rare two-point exact-score hit. As a result of the 10-point scoring outburst, and after Kr@tos connected on four of his five best bets in this year's first round, Kr@tos immediately offset the Nihilist's opening-round scoring advantages. And if that wasn't impressive enough, the "Handicapping God of War", as Kr@tos is popularly known by his main Bookie Challenge moniker, blasted out another 4-1-0 outing with his best bets in the second round of this year's postseason to widen his lead over the Nihilist to six big-time points after this year's second round of the postseason (Kr@tos 22 pts vs the Nihilist 16 pts). Additionally, in what was also lost with the cancelation of round-two's weekly review was the fact that the "handicapping God of War" had been credited for two weeks-won after he outright won the first two weeks of this year's playoffs. In doing as much, "the Comic-Book Hero recently turned Bookie Challenge Hero" (aka Kr@tos) became only the third handicapper in the history of the Bookie Challenge to get credited with two-weeks won in a single Bookie Challenge postseason. Ironically, Kr@tos' father, Vikings17, pulled off the feat in last year's competition, while Driveline also accomplished the feat in the Challenge playoffs of year #12. In the previous round that just played out, the NFL Championship round (3rd rd overall), Kr@tos "cooled down" somewhat and went 1-1-0 with both his best bets. Despite the handicapping hiccup Kr@tos still leads all the participants in this year's postseason as it concerns having the top best-bet record so far for this postseason, of which is an astounding 9-3-0 best-bet tally that is good for an unconscionable .750 winning percentage of his best bets in this year's playoffs. The big question surrounding Kr@tos as he enters his first Super Bowl round with the overall lead in the point standings is whether or not he can settle down his nerves enough to produce one last week-won in this year's postseason. One thing is for certain, his main competition, Blitzkrieg, has more experience at handicapping Super Bowl rounds, for he has done it in nine consecutive seasons, from Challenge year #6 through Challenge year #14 (last year's postseason) and so maybe that carries some weight. But come what may, what will make for a fantastic storyline entering this year's final Super Bowl round is that both Kr@tos and Blitzkrieg are attempting to win the overall Bookie Challenge championship for the first time in their respective Bookie Challenge careers. But who really knows who is going to win this year's overall Bookie Challenge championship? After all, there are some solid contenders still lurking in the outer periphery of this year's postseason who would love nothing more than to pull off a Driveline-esque shocker in the final round of this year's postseason. In other words, stayed tuned!