Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): Five total rookies were recruited to join the Bookie Challenge competition before the start of this year's 14th annual competition. Four of them were recruited by Vikings17--Kr@tos, Jets69, CAP_ATTACK, and Nelbarada, while one of the rookies--Realtalkrob--was enrolled by DawgPound. This year's rookie class ranks third overall for the largest group of newcomers to start a Bookie Challenge campaign in the history of the competition. In Challenge year #2, a record high of nine rookies joined the handicapping contest, while six handicappers in Challenge year #4 embarked on their rookie seasons. For the most part, every season that has seen four or more rookies join the Challenge, there have been one or two of them who have had sensational seasons, and even when there were just a couple of rookies that joined the competition, sometimes a special handicapper still emerges to make some serious noise in that year's contest (for example, Vikings17 was one of two rookies in last year's competition but he became the 1st rookie last season to ever win a regular-season championship). Keeping all the aforementioned in mind, this year's rookie class has struggled for the most part. As usually happens to a crop of newcomers, they make early mistakes posting their weekly selections, and as a consequence, they get their picks unnecessarily disqualified for not having a good grasp of the contest's official rules. This year's set of rookies are no exception, and up until this past weekend, the majority of them have underachieved. This past weekend, however, one newcomer finally got it right and became the first rookie this season to hit a 6-point parlay combination. His username for the Bookie Challenge competition is "Jet69", of whom is the first Jets' fan to ever participate in a Challenge competition.

To his credit, this past weekend Jets69 outdueled seven overall handicappers who each won two out of three of their respective 3-team parlay combinations (with two of them being rookies--Nelbarada and CAP_ATTACK). But within those seven handicappers were some of the competition's most seasoned veterans, such as the Biased Nihilist, 7mick7, TCU, and jcvike28. Also to be included in that group who had near-misses of 6-point parlay hits is the Hall-of-Fame City Kid, who is now in the midst of handicapping his sophomore year in the Bookie Challenge. Impressively, the City Kid, or last year's "other rookie" besides Vikings17, has had a good best-bet start to this season (6-2-0 win% .750), of which is a best-bet record that contrasts his start of his rookie season last year, when he set records for the worst start by a rookie in the history of the competition. But as it pertains to this year's greenhorns, Jets69 is the first one to make a serious move in this year's competition, and it's a serious move that has captured the attention of the league's top-notched handicappers. Unfortunately, Jets69 only connected on his 6-point parlay combo, and just like Blitzkrieg and the Nihilist did earlier when hitting their respective 6-point parlay winners, Jets69 also missed his two best bets and thus had to settle for an overall 6-point outing. Regardless of him missing out on both of his best bets, when this past weekend's handicapping action went into the books, Jets69--with 11 total points on the season--took the lead of the competition by two points over both the Biased Nihilist and Blitzkrieg (each finished their respective weekends with 9 pts apiece). Owning the last important slot in the point standings, or the 4th top seed, was Vikings17. who rounded out this year's four top seeds in the standings: #1 seed--Jets69 (11 pts), #2 seed --the Biased Nihilist (9 pts and owns #2 tiebreaker over Blitzkrieg), #3 seed--Blitzkrieg (9 pts), and #4 seed Vikings17 (8 pts).

Of course, by taking the overall lead in the point standings after the 4th week of this year's competition, Jets69 has been bestowed with two Bookie Challenge monikers, of which are "Joe Willie" and "Broadway Al" (Jet69's first name really is Al). But beyond all the theatrics and hubbub surrounding his first breakthrough weekend of his rookie season, "Broadway Al" had better tread lightly and had better not fritter away his advantageous top slot in the present point standing. But as most of the veteran handicappers in the competition can attest to, holding a slim lead over the likes of the Biased Nihilist and Blitzkrieg, or even Vikings17, is easier said than done. Granted, Joe Willie has it going on for the time being, but he has yet to prove that he has real staying power. In the lore of Bookie Challenge history, a rookie hitting a 6-point parlay hit in his inaugural season isn't that impressive when comparing the best rookie starts to a season, meaning in Challenge year #8 when two of that year's rookies--H.E. Pennypacker and DawgPound--each opened up their respective rookie seasons with PERFECTA outings apiece. With all that being said, this is the Bookie Challenge competition, and anything is liable to happen on any given weekend of the season, which should give a greenhorn, such as Broadway Al, something to believe in. And who really knows, maybe "Joe Willie" becomes the first rookie to win an overall Bookie Challenge championship.

Um--nahh. Thinking that Jets69 can win it all is somewhat of a stretch, for it takes a year or two to grasp every aspect of the Challenge competition. Naturally, there have been exceptions here and there who have come awfully close to pulling off the impossible. In the case of Broadway Al, he definitely has shown some signs that he's got the potential to be a good handicapper in the Bookie Challenge, perhaps even a surprising contender this season. After all, he has already displayed some of the "must do" maneuvers that can make a participant a true contender in the competition. As an example, of all the five rookies who have entered the competition this season, Jets69 and Kr@tos are the only two newbies who have not had any picks disqualified and who have made every possible selection they had to make in this year's contest, as in they both have even picked the exact-scores of every Thursday night game and every Monday night game. In fact, Jet69 has the overall lead in the competition by just two points, or two points that he won on the exact-score predictions of two Thursday night games.

• BLITZKRIEG BRAVES THE ELEMENTS TO MAKE WEEKLY SELECTIONS FOR WEEK #4: If there is a participant who wants to know why Blitzkrieg is always in the "thick of things", always seeming to be a contender for a Bookie Challenge championship, that participant need not look any further than what the "Snowman and the Falcon" pulled off this weekend. Blitzkrieg has a home in Anderson, S.C., about an hour or so away from the Biased Nihilist's home in Greenwood, S.C., of which both neighborhoods were ravaged by hurricane Helene this past Friday and Saturday. Blitzkrieg, like the Nihilist, had no power since early Friday morning, nor did he have phone service nor internet service as of early afternoon on this past Saturday . But if there's one thing the better handicappers of the competition already know about succeeding in the Bookie Challenge, it is that a participant should not miss any outings of a Bookie Challenge season, or any exact-score selections of all the Thursday night games and Monday night games. Simply put, a participant cannot score any points if he doesn't submit his weekly selections on each and every weekend of the competition. With this in mind, the Nihilist was not at all surprised when he received a barely audible call that was intermittingly breaking up. The call was from his former brother-in-law Blitzkrieg, who drove a mile or so from his lake house and where he knew he could get some type of reception from his phone service. Eventually, the Nihilist went through all the pointspreads and Blitzkrieg made his selections right then and there, did so on the fly one can say. Amazingly, Blitzkrieg was only one of five handicappers this past weekend who won both of their respective best bets. The Nihilist said to himself once he disconnected his call with Blitzkrieg..."that's one tough competitor, one tough son-of-a-bitch." Subsequently, after Blitzkrieg won both of his best bets, he was able to keep pace with the Biased Nihilist and ended the weekend tied with the Nihilist for second place with nine points each. Both veteran handicappers surprisingly trail rookie Jets69 by two points for the overall lead in the point standings after this past handicapping weekend ran its course, but both the Nihilist and Blitzkrieg are both battle-tested handicappers who have already proven that they can both succeed in the Bookie Challenge competition. In other words, Jets69 will have his hands full staving off two of the league's toughest handicappers, of which a two-point edge for the overall lead in the point standings by the upstart rookie means nothing to the Nihilist anf Blitzkrieg.


• WEEKLY TICKER ...............7mick7 finally snapped his losing parlay streak within his combined parlay combinations over the course of the first-three weeks of this season. He was 0-for-9 with his parlay picks through week #3, but this past weekend--the Mick mercifully won two of his three parlay selections. However, with just two parlay wins this season, "Mick Balls" still has the worst record for parlay wins wihin his combined parlays for the season (2 wins out of 12 overall parlay picks). So, who is the new handicapper with an odd parlay streak? DawgPound! Yep, he has won exactly one parlay pick within each of his four parlay combinations this season...............After Vikings17 recruited his son, Kr@tos, to join this year's competition, the father-and-son tandem became only the second father-and-son duo to ever participate in the Bookie Challenge besides the Biased Nihilist and his son jcvike28..................Rookie Jets69 is the only greenhorn out of the total of five newcomers this season, with CAP_ATTACK, Nelbarada, Kr@tos, Realtalkrob being the other four rookies, who has yet to lay a goose egg or have a scoreless outing..............