Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): The last regular-season weekend of the 14th annual Bookie Challenge competition is almost always guaranteed to be teeming with suspenseful handicapping and dramatic finishes to all of its divisional races. Known as DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, this year's final weekend to the regular season could wind up matching what happened for the first time in last year's divisional races, in which an inexplicable scenario played out for the first time in the history of the Bookie Challenge's divisioonal races that could possibly happen again this upcoming DOOMSDAY SUNDAY. Specifically, all of the four top seeds from last year's divisional seeding who emerged to start qt the helm of their respective divisional races, each divisional leader from the start of last year's divisional races all went on to lose their respective divisional leads and each failed to win divisional titles. Until last year's divisional races, it had never happened before, but amazingly here we are again. The only divisional race in this year's competition that did not see one divisional lead change this season has been the Corozal divisional race, of which is a divisional race that features three former Bookie Challenge champions--Driveline, the Biased Nihilist, and dbucc--going each other for the Corozal divisional championship. More intrigung is that two former champions who have each won multiple Bookie Challenge championships, meaning Driveline (2x champion) and the Biased Nihilist (3x champion), have been battling it out in an epic war for handicapping supremacy. Just a mere three weeks ago, it seemed as if the Nihilist was on the verge of losing a shot at a divisional title after he trailed Driveline by 11 overall points, but deep down, anybody who knows the history of the Bookie Challenge competition had to know that somehow--someway!--the Nihilist was going to make one last run at Driveline, and in week #16 he came awfully close to landing a PERFECTA outing that he just barely missed hitting after the Washington Commanders upset the Philadelphia Eagles with just seconds left to play in their game. Regardless, there was still no quit in the Nihilist. In the ensuing weekend, week #17 (or last weekend), and after his heartbreaking near-miss from the week before, he followed up his near-miss with a stunning PERFECTA outing to keep his faint hopes of winning the Corozal divisional title still alive. It was an emotional piece of handicapping that few participants, if any, could have ever pulled off, especially for its sheer display of courage.

To explain it fully, at the end of last week, the Nihilist had started to slowly hemorrhage blood, of which he had spotted in his stools late Friday afternoon. By Sunday morning the hemorrhaging had gotten a lot worse, and as a consequence, the Nihilist barely made it to the hospital after his wife made an emergency call for an ambulance. He was eventually stabilized at the local hospital in Greenwood, S.C., then he was transferred overnight to an LVAD hospital in Charleston, S.C., where he was operated on early Sunday morning to stop his intestines from bleeding any further. It wasn't until Monday morning that the Nihilist came to find out he had landed a PERFECTA outing and had chopped his deficit to Driveline down to four points (Driveline 38pts vs Nihilist 34pts). Interestingly, just to show how each race for a divisional championship is still in play, entering this past weekend, Driveline had held the largest divisional lead in the league, which was 10 points over the Nihilist. But after this past weekend went into the books, rookie superstar Kr@tos is the competition's divisional leader who is now sporting the largest divisional lead in the league. In what has to be deemed as one of the most dramatic handicapping performances from this past weekend, and one that rivals the clutch handicapping from the Biased Nihilist, the rookie phenom Kr@tos landed his first-ever PERFECTA weekend of his rookie season and extended his previous 2-point lead over a resurgent DawgPound in the Red Zone divisional race to a nearly insuperable 8-point edge (46pts vs 38pts) with just one last week to handicap in the regular season.

Obviously, when considering that Kr@tos' divisional lead of eight points is the leagest by a divisional leader entering this year's DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, and how he could still possibly lose the Red Zone divisional championship, it goes to show how tight each race is entering the final weekend of the regular season. Over in the Hail Mary division, Vikings17 presently holds a 6-point lead over a shocked Blitzkrieg by a tally of 50 points versus 44 points. Blitzkrieg's agonizingly slow fall from grace is detailed further in the "WHO'S-NOT-HOT-HANDICAPPER" segment of thisweek's weekly review. In short, however, Vikings17 took advantage of his extremely lucky exact-score hits, of which included three 5-point exact-score winners, and then the Purple People Eater finally came through this past weekend on his first 6-point parlay winner of the season that resulted in a "just-in-time" PERFECTA weekend. But now it's Blitzkrieg's turn to answer the bell if he wants to reclaim the divisional lead of the Hail Mary division at the 11th hour of the regular season. But as exciting as are the three aforementioned divisional races, of which all three are headed into a suspenseful DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, the last remaining divisional race is the closest of them all, to mean the down-and-dirty Run-&-Shoot divisional race.

Whereas Kr@tos owns an 8-point edge over DawgPound in the Red Zone divisional race, Vikings17 owns a 6-point edge over Blitzkrieg in the Hail Mary divisional race, and Driveline owns a 4-point edge over the Biased Nihilist in the Corozal divisional race, only three points separate the top three handicappers in the Run-&-Shoot division! Heading into DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, jcvike28 (48pts) holds a 2-point divisional lead over second-place Jets69 (46pts) and 3-point lead over this year's defending Bookie Challenge champion 7mick7 (45pts). The Red Zone divisional race is so close that a 6-point parlay hit by any of its divisional handicappers can take the divisional title, and the divisional championship can even be decided through the combination of best-bet winners and exact-score points alone. With such a tightly knit race coming down to the wire, tiebreakers become paramount. But realistically it is jcvike28--El Duque--who owns all the cards, for he has the league's number-one tiebreaker advantage over both Jets69 and 7mick7, of which are more best-bet winners: jcvike (26), 7mick7 (21), and Jets69 (15). So, to that regard, both Jets69 and 7mick7 are going to have to outscore jcvike28 in total points on the season for either one of them to pull off a last-minute upset.

There's one last race that will play out on this DOOMSDAY SUNDAY that can be more important than winning a divisional title, and that's the race to win this year's regular-season championship. Winning the regular-season championship gives the lucky winner the best scoring advantages to start off a Bookie Challenge postseason. For example, in the first two rounds of a Bookie Challenge postseason, all handicappers have to select five best-bets and almost every handicapper has to also choose a 3-team parlay combination (at-large participants don't get to select parlay combinations in the opening round of the playoffs). In the first round, the regular-season champion will be awarded THREE POINTS for each best-bet winner, while divisional champs will only be awarded TWO points for each best-bet winner. Worst off are the divisional wild cards and the at-large participants, all of whom will only be awarded ONE point for each best-bet winner. Then there's the matter of the regular-season champion pocketing $100 for winning the regular-season championship, and let's not forget that the regular-season champion automatically wins any tiebreaker scenarios in the postseason. With all the aforementioned in mind, heading into DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, the battle within the battle to capture this year's regular-season championship is as follows: Vikings17 (50 pts), jcvike28 (48 pts), Jets69 (46 pts), Kr@tos (46 pts), 7mick7 (45 pts), and Blitzkrieg (44 pts). Everybody else? Well, as the British say--"they can all go fuck off!" That's right, it's DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, and not a neighborhood charity event.

• VIKINGS17 AND SON KR@TOS ON VERGE OF POSSIBLY DUPLICATING SPECIAL FATHER-AND-SON FEATS BY THE BIASED NIHILIST AND JCVIKE28: The father-and-son tandem of Vikings17 and Kr@tos have a golden opportunity this coming DOOMSDAY SUNDAY to match the all-time feat or feats of the league's only father-and-son combo of the Biased Nihilist and jcvike28. If per chance both Vikings17 and Kr@tos each win divisional titles this upcoming DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, they will be only the second father-and-son team to ever pull off the special feat. The Biased Nihilist and jcvike28 each won divisional titles in the same season twice before, in Challenge year #8 (Nihilist won Corozal div. and jcvike won Coffin Corner div.) and once in Challenge year #4 (Nihilist won Corozal div. and jcvike won Sneaky Pete div.). What's more, Vikings17 and Kr@tos can set a new father-and-son all-time mark if both win divisional titles this upcoming DOOMSDAY SUNDAY and one of them goes on to win an overall Bookie Challenge championship. The closest the Nihilist and jcvike ever came to pulling off such a feat was back in Challenge year #5, when jcvike won the Whiskey Legs divisional title and the Nihilist won the overall Bookie Challenge championship as a divisional wild-card qualifier in that year's postseason. Whether or not Vikings17 can share in some Bookie Challenge history with his son Kr@tos, he has still set an all-time scoring record this season that has never been established in the history of the Bookie Challenge competition. Explicitly, Vikings17 set a new all-time record this past weekend after he garnered his 50th point of this year's regular season for a second-consecutive season (he tallied exactly 50 pts in his rookie season of last year's competition). No handicapper in the history of the Bookie Challenge has ever scored back-to-back 50-point seasons. In fact, the only other handicappers to ever score more than 50 points in a single season of a regular season were the Biased Nihilist and Tony Soprano, both of whom scored 54 points back in Challenge year #11 and ended that year's regular season tied for that season's regular-season championship.


• WEEKLY TICKER ..................Rookie Kr@tos can follow in his father's footsteps (Viking17's footsteps) if he miraculously wins this year's regular-season championship as a rookie, which would match Vikings17's all-time feat that he accomplished in last year's handicapping competition .....................CURSE OF THE NUMBER-ONE TOP SEED? Blitzkrieg captured his first-ever overall number-one top seed at this year's divisional seeding, but if he knew about the "curse" would he have gone after it? Or maybe he just doesn't know about the "Curse of the Number-one Top Seed". In any event, no number-one top seed from a divisional seeding has ever gone on to win an overall Bookie Challenge championship....................Every single divisional race is going down to the wire on DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, but in this year's Corozal divisional race, it might not really matter who between Driveline (present divisional leader 38 pts) and the second-place Biased Nihilist (34 pts) fails to win the divisional crown and winds up as the division's wild card. For the record, Driveline and the Biased Nihilist are the only two participants in the history of the Bookie Challenge who have won overall Bookie Challenge championships as "wild card" playoff entrants...................This year's Rookie-of-the-Year battle between Jets69 and Kr@tos, who by the way are close friends, can't get any tighter as both rookies head into DOOMSDAY SUNDAY with identical point totals on their respective seasons (46 pts each). What's more, both have opportunities to win divisional title--so stay tuned!...................WINNING REGULAR-SEASON CHAMPIONSHIP DOESN'T GUARANTEE WINNING OVERALL BOOKIE CHALLENGE CHAMPIONSHIP: In the history of the Bookie Challenge competition, or in the previous 13 Bookie Challenge competitions, only four handicappers have ever won both regular-season championships and overall Bookie Challenge championships: Driveline (Challenge yr #9), Tony Soprano (yr #8), Bomber7 (yr #2), and the Biased Nihilist (yr #1)..........................With the Bookie Challenge looming on the not-so-distant horizon, it's time to do some scoreboard watching and keep with with this year's preseason Super Bowl picks, of which preseason Super Bowl picks can aid a participant in winning a Bookie Challenge championship if his preseason predictions are on target. At the present time, only three handicappers in the Challenge competition have both of their preseason picks still alive to play in this year's Super Bowl--7mick7, dbucc, and Kr@tos. All three have the selections of Kansas City and Detroit to play in this year's Super Bowl, with dbucc and Kr@tos having chosen Detroit to win it all and 7mick7 having chosen Kansas City to three-peat................