• CHALLENGE FIELD SETS ALL-TIME RECORDS FOR TURKEY SHOOT WEEKEND, BUT DOES SO IN AN ANOMALOUS MANNER: This year's Turkey Shoot weekend saw a couple of all-time records get broken for the holiday extravaganza, of which two of the most popular all-time records were singlehandedly broken by jcvike28, who set the all-time scoring record for a Thanksgiving day (21 pts!) and then also set an all-time scoring record for an entire Turkey Shoot weekend (22 pts for combined dual outings). "El Duque" only connected on one of his best bets on this past weekend's second set of picks for the Turkey Shoot weekend, of which he had predicted that the LA Chargers (-1) were going to cover over the Atlanta Falcons--in Atlanta!. Although the Chargers were chosen four total times by Challenge participants, only jcvike and Vikings17 selected the Chargers on this past Sunday as respective best bets, and for "El Duque" the one point he collected for the Chargers' best bet was what enabled him to set the all-time record for an entire Thanksgiving weekend. Collectively, however, the Challenge field additionally set a different all-time record, but the broken record was sporadically and irregularly set on the past weekend. For example, the 85 total points the field racked up for the weekend ranked only as the 4th highest for a Turkey Shoot weekend, but the field still managed to set the all-time top best-bet record for a Turkey Shoot weekend after it belted out an overall best-bet tally of 31-19-0, which factored out to an all-time high .780 winning percentage for an entire holiday outing. For the record, the highest point-total the field has ever produced took place back in Challenge year #7, when that year's field went berserk and set a Turkey Shoot all-time record for total amount of points scored, as in it tallied an astonishing 134 total points, all thanks to 10 overall 6-point parlay winners that the field pounded out (2 on Thx day & 8 on 2nd set of picks for the rest of the weekend). Lastly, if anybody in the competition failed to notice, the Challenge field only laid two goose eggs for its dual outings of this past weekend's Turkey Shoot, of which the two goose eggs were totally dwarfed by the scoreless outings in the Turkey Shoot weekend that took place back in Challenge year #4, when that year's field embarrassingly laid eight goose eggs and five golden goose eggs for an overall 13 scoreless outings--OUCH!

El Duque, as jcvike28 is popularly known by his main Bookie Challenge moniker, is one of just a handful of active handicappers in this year's Bookie Challenge competition who are former champions of the Bookie Challenge. To be certain, winning an overall Bookie Challenge competition is no walk in the park, and it's extremely difficult for most handicappers to defeat those former champions, as the list of former champions is a short one. Without an iota of a doubt, the present group of former champions are some extraordinarily strong-headed handicappers who year in and year out are serious contenders to win overall championships. They are the Biased Nihilist (3-time champ), Driveline (2-time champ), dbucc, jcvike28, and 7mick7, and that's it. The rest of the league's veteran handicappers have been trying to corral an overall Bookie Challenge championship for years and years, but it seems that they can't stay super focused for an entire competition long enough to win the whole enchilada. But here's some food for thought, let's take jcvike for example. Last season, jcvike lost his way just before last year's postseason, but nonetheless he hanged in there, did not quit, and as a result, he headed into last year's final round, the Super Bowl round as one of the final contenders who had serious shots at winning last year's overall Bookie Challenge championship, of whom the handful of handicappers who entered last year's Super Bowl round with real chances of winning it all were Driveline (30pts), 7mick7 (29pts), jcvike28 (28pts) and the Biased Nihilist (26pts). But as it concerns jcvike, he could have entered the postseason as a divisional champion, but he shamefully failed to handicap last year's Thanksgiving day outing, and making matters worse for him, he also failed to show up for last year's Super Bowl round. In retrospect, jcvike28 didn't pull out a championship last season because he went AWOL for the two-most important weekends of the year. But when the former Bookie Challenge puts his head to it, there is not a handicapper in the league who he can't outhandicap. He's patient, and he's patient because he knows that sometines being successful in this league means being an even-keeled handicapper, and that's precisely how he's been handicapping this season, with a steady optimism. To this point of the season, jcvike28 has compiled the top best-bet record of the season, but had not hit a 6-point parlay winner until his Thanksgiving day outing from this year's Turkey Shoot. And what a Turkey Shoot weekend he had--unbelievable! In one fell swoop of a Turkey Shoot weekend, jcvike complemented his one best-bet winner and 6-point parlay hit on Thanksgiving day with the following propositional selections: he came closet to predicting the total points in the Chicago/Detroit game (won 3pts), and he also came closest to predicting the longest TD of the Chicago/Detroit game (won 3pts). Then, in the second game on Thanksgiving day he correctly predicted the exact total of the NY Giants/Dallas game (won 4pts), and he additionally predicted the longest FG for the Giants/Cowboys game (on 3pts). Lastly, just to add a cherry on top, he predicted part of the exact-score of the Thursday night game between the Packers and Dolphins, of which he got Miami's points exactly right (17 pts which won him another point for the day). As already known, jcvike28 would hit one more best bet on the ensuing Sunday of this year's Turkey Shoot to break his father's all-time record of 21 points after JC accrued 22 overall points over the holiday weekend. Now what remains to be seen is if jcvike can stay laser focused and doesn't make any foolish mistakes the rest of the way, as in he had better not miss any remaining outings left in this year's competition. And he knows why!

If anybody within the Challenge field doesn't think there's a precedent for TCU to have missed one of the two outings for any previous Turkey Shoot weekend--well--think again! Before the start of this year's Turkey Shoot weekend, Too Tall Tommy was handicapping his comeback tour and was finally handicapping like the TCU of old and not like the TCU who suffered through the last two years for being the Bookie Challenge's worst handicapper. Not for nothing, but this was the season that TCU had reinvented himself, and more importantly, he got back to being, once again, a real contender for a Bookie Challenge championship. On top of it all, his handicapping game morphed into a unique modus operandi, of which involved him connecting on one-point exact-score hits as if they were going out of style. In all, before the start of this year's Turkey Shoot, TCU had been on a torrid five weeks in a row in which he rattled off at least one-point exact-score hit for each of the previous five weeks . What's more, before entering this past weekend's Turkey Shoot weekend, Too Tall Tommy was leading the Red Zone divisional race over second place Hall-of-Fame City Kid by a comfortable four points (Tcu 28 pts vs HOF City kid 24 pts). But then the wheels of his stage coach started to wobble badly after he registered just one point on the first leg of this year's Turkey Shoot weekend, or Thanksgiving day, of which was an outing that had the potential to rack up a boat load of points through propositional selections alone. Regardless, Too Tall Tommy didn't fair too well on Thanksgiving day and just garnered one measly point for his opening outing of this year's Turkey Shoot. Worse yet, the wheels came completely off his wagon after he pulled off the competition's Cardinal sin, as in he went incognito for the second outing of this year's Turkey shoot. AS mentioned earlier in this segment, this year is not the first Turkey Shoot that TCU has gone AWOL, with the Thanksgiving day of the Turkey Shoot of Challenge year #12 being the last and only time TCU had disappeared for one of the legs of a Turkey Shoot holiday special before he went missing for this year's Turkey Shoot. By pure happenstance, or coincidence (for a better word), in both of the Turkey Shoots that Too Tall Tommy went missing (yr# 12 and this season's T.S.) he had only scored one point for the entire weekends in each of the previous Turkey Shoot outings he had missed. This season, in particular, TCU really screwed up his holiday outings, so much so that he was the weekend's lowest scorer after he eked out just one point for the entire weekend. But worst of all, after this year's holiday extravaganza, he saw his once-promising comeback season take a major detour after the four-point lead he had entered the Turkey Shoot weekend with--had completely evaporated and he had dropped in the Red Zone divisional standings from leading the division by four points down to third place and trailing the new divisional leader Kr@tos by four points. To note, in Challenge year #11, or the Turkey Shoot weekend before he missed his first outing on Thanksgiving day of the Turkey Shoot of Challenge year #12, TCU had won the Turkey Shoot weekend in year #11 after he led all scorers for the weekend with 14 points in that year's dual-outings of the holiday weekend. The big question to be asked now is whether TCU will come back to handicap the rest of this Red Zone divisional race or has he already gone the way of the noose? But if the truth be told, the one handicapper who could not afford missing one of the two outings in this year's Turkey Shoot weekend was Too Tall Tommy, who had just worked bis way back to repectability after taking it on the chin over the last-two previous season.