Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): Granted, every weekend in the late stages of a Bookie Challenge's regular season is important, with some of those weekends affecting the overall dynamics of a competition in more significant ways than other weekends, but the 15th weekend of the 13th annual Bookie Challenge competition turned out to be one of the most illustrious weekends in the history of the competition, especially after its electrifying handicapping outcomes collectively contributed to make this past weekend an historically unprecedented weekend. As a matter of fact, it was a Challenge weekend of handicapping that absolutely verified the long-standing dictum of the competition, of which is..."anything and everything is liable to happen in a Bookie Challenge weekend". This past weekend, four handicappers--the Biased Nihilist, Driveline, 7mick7, and DawgPound--all connected on 6-point parlay winners that made that aforementioned "anything and everything is liable to happen" to indeed HAPPEN. But is was the Biased Nihilist's 9-point scoring outburst this past weekend which prompted a devastating ripple effect that immediately affected this year's divisional races in a way never before seen in any previous divisional races in the history of the Bookie Challenge. In short, the Nihilist's superb performance put an end to a long-time trend that saw divisional leaders from previous divisional seedings run roughshod, more often than not, over their divisional counterparts. To be more specific, after the Nihilist amassed his 40th point of the season this past weekend and ousted Theopholis from the divisional lead of the Corozal division, it marked the first time in the history of the competition that every top-seeded handicapper who emerged from a divisional seeding all LOST their divisional leads in the same season. However, with only three weeks left to handicap in this year's regular season, it still remains to be seen if all the divisional leaders from the onset of this year's divisional races will become the first entire group of divisional leaders to all fail to win divisional titles. To explain further, just because all four of the divisional leaders who started this year's divisional races at the heads of their respective divisions all made history by becoming the first set of divisional leaders to all lose divisional leads in the same season, it doesn't mean that one or two of those divisional front-runners won't make a comeback and still snag a divisional title. But the chances are realistically slim to none that a deposed divisional leader from this year's divisional races will bounce back to regain a divisional lead in the remaining three weeks of this year's regular season.

To start off with, DIRTYBIRDS, the initial divisional leader of this year's Red Zone division, has already quit the competition, of which his shameful departure has Theopholis in the Corozal division, catman23 in the Hail Mary division, and DawgPound in the Run-&-Shoot division as the remaining handicappers who are left to possibly recapture lost divisional leads. As it stands right now, second-place DawgPound in the Run-&-Shoot division has the largest deficit (9 pts) to overcome (trails Vikings17 46 pts vs 37 pts), third-place catman in the Hail Mary division has the second largest deficit (7 pts) to erase (trails both jcvike and Driveline 35 pts vs 28 pts), and second-place Theopholis in the Corozal division has the lowest deficit (5 pts) to reduce (trails the Nihilist 40 pts vs 35 pts). However, all the speculation concerning whether or not previous divisional leaders will reclaim divisional leads must be be pushed to the back burner, because what's of greater importance after this past weekend's handicapping action went into the books is which handicappers will win the divisional titles of their respective divisions and which one will seize this year's all-important regular-season championship. Of the four divisional races, the tightest one at the moment is between jcvike28 and Driveline for the Hail Mary divisional crown, of which both handicappers are presently tied for the lead of the division after ending their respective weekends with 35 overall points accrued apiece on the season. The divisional lead, however, technically belongs to jcvike because of his tiebreaker edge over Driveline, which is more best-bet wins (16 vs 13). What's truly remarkable is how Driveline came to be tied with jcvike for the Hail Mary divisional lead in the first place. To that regard, if a participant from the competition has been living under some big-ass rock in Boulder, Colorado, and as such has been oblivious to the dramatic divisional comebacks by not only Driveline but also the Biased Nihilist, it's time for a quick history lesson.

As has already been documented in previous weekly reviews, the "Fisher of Winners" started this year's Hail Mary divisional race in last place, with the second-lowest amount of total points scored in the league, just six points, and also faced the second-largest deficit to a divisional leader, 14 points. But ever since then, Driveline has proven why this year's defending Bookie Challenge champion is one of the competition's best handicappers after he methodically and painstakingly handicapped his way back into contention for the Hail Mary divisional championship. This past weekend, Driveline registered his third 6-point parlay winner on the season after he kncoked down his second-consecutive 6-point parlay hit, with both of his recent back-to-back parlay outings resulting in 7-point weekends. For the record, the consecutive parlay hits by Driveline over the last-two weeks was the first time in his Challenge career that he has registered successive 6-point parlay winners, and those back-to-back parlay hits couldn't have come at a better time. Of course, even Driveline knows that it's not going to be an easy task to outlast jcvike for the divisional title because he should already know that jcvike is also a former Bookie Challenge champion and one who is experienced enough to win another overall Bookie Challenge title, but if the "Fisher of Winners" prevails and does win the divisional crown, he can head into this year's postseason with the super decent scoring advantages of a divisional titlist and possibly go on to become the second handicapper, apart from the Nihilist, to win back-to-back Bookie Challenge championships.

The Red Zone divisional race became the second tightest divisional race after 7mick7 this past weekend landed his league-leading fourth 6-point parlay hit of the season, and as a result, he concluded his outing by surpassing the Hall-of-Fame City Kid for the Red Zone divisional lead by just two points (38 pts vs 36 pts). To say the least, the Irish Hustler had one hell of a week that led up to the close of this past weekend's handicapping action. On the whole, over the span from the previous Tuesday, December 12th, and to the end of this past weekend, it was an emotional roller-coaster type of a week for 7mick7 that had him juggling serious health concerns and the less serious handicapping of the Bookie Challenge competition. In large part, as it concerned the latter part of the week, meaning the Irish Hustler's handicapping of the competition, his outing comprised two quirky outcomes of which both ended with some "luck-of-the Irish" leanings to them. First and foremost, on the Tuesday that started off 7mick7's uniquely unconventional week, the Mick had to undergo a risky and complicated surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his liver, of which the operation was successful. Consequently, on this past Saturday, 7mick7 nailed down one of his two best bets for the weekend after Detroit easily covered its -4 pointspread over Denver. He then entered the second slate of this past Sunday's games needing only the Rams to cover its -7 pointspread over the Commanders to hit his 6-point parlay combination. As it turned out, the Rams would go on to blow an early double-digit lead. But with the Rams still hanging on to a 28-14 lead, the Commanders scored a late 4th quarter touchdown to slice the Rams' lead to 28-20, and if the Commanders would have successfully kicked the extra-point, the game would have ended in a push and would have ruined 7mick7's parlay hit, of which Driveline was also needing a Rams' cover to also connect on a 6-point parlay combo. But with just 1:46 left to play in the game, the Rams' Cobie Durant blocked Joey Slye's extra-point attempt and saved the day for 7mick7.

In addition to his one best-bet winner and his 6-point parlay hit, the Irish Hustler would tack on another point to his 7-point outing to conclude his overall weekend with eight total points after he connected on a one-point exact-score winner on this past Monday night's game. He scored the one-point exact-winner for having correctly predicted that Philly would score 17 points. However, and in what has to be deemed as a big-time stroke of luck, the only reason why 7mick7 won his one-point exact-score prediction was because he inadvertently made a mistake at the time he posted his exact-score selection. He meant to submit an exact score of Philly to win by a 27-17 final over the Seahawks, but instead he wrongly posted an exact-score of 17-17 without realizing what he had done. All in all, when taking into account 7mick7's operation to start off the past week and along with the ensuing handicapping hijinks that followed, it's almost guaranteed that the Irish Hustler will not forget this past weekend for many years to come. To note, the league-leading fourth 6-point parlay hit that 7mick7 tallied this past weekend tied a career-high for the Irish Hustler, of which he initially recorded four 6-point parlay hits in the regular season of Challenge year #7, or the year 7mick7 won his first and only divisional title. What's more, thanks to those four parlay hits, the Mick culminated this past weekend by leading the league with the most parlay wins within his combined parlay combinations on the season, of which he has so far accrued 30 parlay wins within his combined parlay combos. As a result, right now the 30 overall parlay wins that the Irish Hustler has racked up this season has him at the cusp of possibly breaking the all-time, regular-season record of 34 parlay wins that was set by 1947Lifer in the regular season of Challenge year #8.

The third closest divisional race to manifest itself after this past weekend was that of the Corozal divisional race after the Biased Nihilist dramatically took a 5-point divisional lead over Theopholis. The brief details of that divisional race were already touched upon earlier in this weekly review, but for more in-depth details of the Corozal divisional race, please refer to the WHO'S-HOT and WHO'S-NOT-HOT segments of this weekly review, for both of the primary handicappers involved in the race, the Biased Nihilist and Theopholis, are both featured in the two segments. But of higher importance as it concern's the Nihilit's outing from this past weekend, is how his outing severely affected this year's battle for the regular-season championship. First thing that needs to be pointed out is the overall status in the competition that Vikings17 held before the start of this past weekend. After the previous weekend, week #14, Vikings17 had bulldozed his way to this season's largest divisional lead after he took an eye-popping 14-point lead over second-place DawgPound in the Run-&-Shoot division. The Purple People Eater also entered this past weekend with a substantial 10-point lead over the Hall-of-Fame City Kid to make him the clear-cut front-runner to win this year's regular-season championship. Because of his two huge leads, Vikings17 was showered with all sorts of accolades before the start of this past weekend, and deservedly so, for he entered this past weekend facing an enormous golden opportunity in which the skids were greased for him to win both the Run-&-Shoot divisional crown and the overall regular-season championship. However, the combined outings by the Biased Nihilist and DawgPound over this past weekend significantly dampened the hopes of Vikings17 to easily cruise to a divisional title and regular-season championship. In other words, after this past weekend, Vikings17's previous "golden opportunity" to easily snatch a divisional title and the regular-season championship had morphed into "just an opportunity", and "just an opportunity" that no longer consisted of free passes to enter this year's big dance, or the postseason, with two of the league's top playoff qualifications in tow. To the contrary, after this past weekend, the Nihilist sliced Vikings17's previous 10-point lead for this year's regular-season championship to six points (46 pts vs 40 pts), while DawgPound reduced his previous divisional deficit to Vikings17 from 14 points down to nine points (46 pts vs 37 pts).

Just three more weeks are left to handicap in this year's regular season, and if the Bookie Challenge competition has one or two of those weekends like the one it had this past weekend, in which "anything and everything is liable to happen", every handicapper in the competition had better strap on their seat belts, and strap them tight, because there's no telling what's going to happen down the road in these upcoming three weekends.

• CHALLENGE FIELD'S WACKY WEEKEND SEES IT RATTLE OFF SEASON-HIGH FOUR 6-POINT PARLAY HITS, AND SIDESTEP THE ALL-TIME RECORD FOR PRODUCING LEAST AMOUNT OF PERFECTA OUTINGS IN A REGULAR SEASON: If there's one thing that can be said about this year's Challenge field, it is that this year's field has made a pretty decent showing of itself as it concerns nailing down 6-point parlay hits. This past weekend the field registered a season-high four 6-point parlay hits to raise its year-long total to 31 overall parlay hits. The last time a field connected on four 6-point parlay combos was in week #6 of last year's competition, when the field recorded its season-high of four parlay hits for just one time in last year's handicapping campaign. The31 overall parlay hits that this year's field has so far accumulated doesn't come anywhere near the all-time regular-season record of 51 overall 6-point parlay hits that the field from Challenge year #8 tallied, but nevertheless the 31 parlay hits already collected by this year's field are more than what five other Challenge fields registered in their respective regular seasons, and with three more outings left in this year's regular season, this year's field has a shot of bettering the totals of 6-point parlay hits from two other fields. This past weekend, the field broke even with its combined best bets for the second week in a row, and in the process, for a second week in a row, it also maintained its YTD best-bet record at an even 204-204-14 tally. And in one last takeaway from this past weekend that the field could consider as good news, albeit that news was a lot less dramatic when compared to the field's four parlay hits, is that the field was able to avoid the all-time single-season record for producing the least amount of PERFECTA outings in a regular season. Thanks to the Biased Nihilist banging out the competition's fourth PERFECTA on the season, this year's field is guaranteed that it will not end up in a tie with the Challenge field from Challenge year #3 for registering the lowest amont of PERFECTAs in a regular season, of which three PERFECTAs is the all-time low for a Challenge field.

For the second-consecutive week, the self-proclaimed "Greatest Handicapper of All-Time" is being tabbed as the WHO'S-HOT-HANDICAPPER of the competition, and there is a boat load of reasons why he's getting the nod for the handicapping honor. In breathtaking fashion, the Nihilist has produced a phenomenal comeback after ending up as the lowest-seeded participant at this year's divisional seeding. Accordingly, at the start of this year's divisional races, the Nihilist owned the lowest and worst point total of the competition, which was a sickly five points. But over the course of the last-eight outings of this year's divisional races, which includes this past weekend, the Nihilist has erased an initial 16-point deficit that Theopholis held over him as the divisional leader of the Corozal division, and has produced one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the competition's divisional races after he culminated this past weekend with a five-point divisional lead over Theopholis (40 pts vs 35 pts). To put the extraordinary comeback into its proper perspective, after this past weekend the Nihilist now has the second-highest point total in the league (40 pts) and is just six points behind Vikings17's overall lead (46 pts) to capture this year's regular-season championship. The Nihilist was able to reach his YTD point total of 40 points after he banged out his second PERFECTA outing of the season. He then proceeded to tack on another point to his 8-point PERFECTA total after nailed down a 1-point exact-score hit on this past Monday night to conclude his weekend with nine overall points. To note, the crooked number of nine points for a Challenge outing is a rare point total that has only been recorded once before, of which Blitzkrieg registered the numerical oddity back in week #9 of this year's competition. Overall, the 6-point parlay hit the Nihilist landed this past weekend was his third of the season. However, the parlay hit from this past weekend was not only his second-consecutive parlay winner over his last-two weekends but also his third over the span of his last-four outings. But if one includes the previous outing before the Nihilist's last-four outings, which was the outing on Thanksgiving day, one will be in complete awe to find out that the Corozal Kid has strung together an otherwordly five-outing run that has never before been seen in the history of the Bookie Challenge competition.

The mind-blowing handicapping stretch started on Thanksgiving day after the Nihilist hit one of his best bets and registered a 5-point exact-score hit to score six total points for the day, of which the outing was the one that set in motion the Nihilist's epic comeback. In essence, when thinking hard about it, the 6-point outing the Nihilist tallied on Thanksgiving day was tantamount to him producing a 6-point parlay hit. With that in mind, what follows are the Nihlist's point totals for the ensuing four outings after his outing on Thanksgiving day: 2nd leg of week #12's Turkey Shoot weekend--8 pts scored (PERFECTA); week #13--1 pt; week #14--7 pts (includes 6-pt parlay hit); and week #15--8 pts (PERFECTA). After doing the math and including his 6-point outing from Thanksgiving day, the Corozal Kid has compiled a stupefying overall total of 30 points. Nobody in the history of the Bookie Challenge has ever tallied that amount of points over five consecutive outings, not even close. Of course, as already noted, the Nihilist ended this past weekend with a 5-point divisional lead over second-place Theopholis for the divisional championship and is only six points behind Vikings17 in the hunt to seize this year's regular-season championship, but he has also set himself up to possibly set one all-time record and tie two other all-time records in the remaining three weeks left in this year's regular season. Specifically, he can become the first handicapper to win six divisional titles, he can possibly tie Theopholis' all-time record for producing the most consecutive 6-point parlay hits (3 in a row), and he can possibly become only the third handicapper in the history of the Bookie Challenge to win a second regular-season championship besides moemonie and Tony Soprano. But to be realistic, it's going to be extremely difficult for the Nihilist to pull off all three of the aforementioned handicapping feats. Then again, at the start of this year's divisional races nobody could have imagined that the Nihilist would have the second-highest point total of the competition with three weeks still remaining to be handicapped in the regular season.

It took a while, but Theopholis' precarious lead of the Corozal divisional race finally came to its predicted end after the Nihilist made good on his ranting vows to overtake Theo and ultimately go on to win this year's Corozal divisional title. After this past weekend, after witnessing another spectacular performance by the Biased Nihilist, Theo found himself in second place in the divisional point standings and five points behind the smack-talking and red-hot Corozal Kid (40 pts vs 35 pts). Now granted, with three weeks left in the regular season, there is still an outside chance that Theo can rebound and somehow reclaim the divisional lead over the Nihilist before the regular season ends, but the way the cocky Nihilist sees it, hell will freeze over before Theo sees another lead in this year's Corozal divisional race. In all likelihood, the Nihilist is probably 99.9 percent right, because the only thing left to do after the fatal blow he administered to Theo this past weekend was to have a requeim for Theopholis. For all intents and purposes, as it pertains to this year's Bookie Challenge competition, Theopholis died this past weekend. Um, and the last time the Nihilist read up on history, there were only two persons that he knows of who rose from the dead, Jesus Christ and Lazarus, and the last the Nihilist heard--Theopholis is neither of those two persons. Looking ahead, after the aftermath of this past weekend, Theopholis is facing two dispiriting fates: 1) he's three weeks removed from becoming only the second number-one top seed from a divisional seeding to not win a divisional title, and 2) he's looking at becoming the next number-one top seed from a divisional seeding to be victimized by the "Curse of the Number-one Top Seed", meaning that never has a number-one top seed from a divisional seeding has advanced through a Challenge postseason to win an overall Bookie Challenge championship.