Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): The mostly mundane start to this season continued to haunt the Challenge field this past weekend. In short, the Challenge's fifth weekend of the season this past weekend was a big, fat disappointment. No 6-point parlay hits were nailed down, nobody won the weekend outright, and as a consequence, no major changes took place in the competition's point standings, or none that resulted in any large separations of points within the standings. As a matter of fact, the Challenge field's outing of this past weekend was so off-kilter that not a single exact-score point was recorded, which obviously meant that dbucc's streak of four weeks in a row with an exact-score winner came to a screeching halt. Overall, only three handicappers--Vikings17, Driveline, and Blitzkrieg--were able to register two-point outings after each handicapper won both of their respective best bets. As it concerned Driveline, his 2-point outing enabled him to crack into the one of the top-four seeds in thr standings. More specifically, the "Fisher of Winners" (aka Driveline) was able to launch himself into the third top seed in the standings, of which Driveline's rise into the top-four seeds slightly dropped dbucc from the third top seed to the fourth top seed. After the weekend ran its course, the top-four seeds in the standings belonged to the Biased Nihilist (20pts/#1 seed), Vikings17 (15pts/#2 seed), Driveline (9pts/#3 seed), and dbucc (also 9pts/but #4 seed after losing best-bet tiebreaker to Driveline.

Entering this past weekend, the rookie Matty_Ice was easily outshining this season's other rookie, Kennypie86, for the early nod to be honored with this year's Rookie-of-the-Year award. In fact, to his credit, Matty_Ice had correctly posted every one of his selections throughout the first-four weeks of this year's handicapping contest. And because of his fine effort to grasp the correct procedures of the competition, he was rewarded--so to speak--by ending week #4 in the 4th slot of the point standings, albeit by tiebreakers over both Driveline and Kr@tos (all three had 7 pts apiece). But what the hell got into Matty_Ice this past weekend won't be known unless he comes out and tells the rest of the participants why he failed to post any picks whatsoever on this past weekend, with the exception of his exact-score pick for the Thursday night game. Just so everybody will know, the Nihilist saw Matty_Ice log in on the message board for over 30 minutes this past Sunday morning, but he then logged out without posting any selections, which happens a lot on Sunday mornings, to mean that some handicappers log in and out a few times before finally logging in and posting weekly selections. However, after Matty_Ice logged out of the message board, he never logged back in to make his weekly picks. His posting snafu was costly too, because his failure to post any picks resulted in him falling four slots in the point standings. from the number-four slot in the standings and down to eight place overall.

At the present moment, nobody within the point standings should start to panic just yet, especially when it comes to qualifying as a third or fourth top seed in the standings. Right now, the standings are so closely knit that even Kennypie86 has time to turn things around and qualify as either a third seed or fourth seed at this year's divisional seeding. On the flip side, time is starting to run out, and those handicappers who are presently occupying the top-four seeds in the standings are some of the league's toughest handicappers, meaning the Biased Nihilist (20pts), Vikings17 (15pts), Driveline (9pts), and dbucc (9pts). All four handicappers possess the moxie to maintain their respective top seeded slots. More importantly, all four handicappers are well aware what it means to start a divisional race at the helm of one of the four divisions. So the rat race that is taking place over the course of the next three weekends to see who snares one of the top four seeds is a highly critical one.

Better yet, winning the overall number-one top seed at a divisional seeding is a really big deal. To begin with, the eventual number-one top seed will pocket $50, or this season's first cash prize. In addition, the number-one top seed will be seeded with two of the lowest seeded handicappers in the league. Also, let's not forget that winning the number-one top seed will include one less participant in the division to worry about. Yes sir, there are only three weeks left until this year's divisional seeding takes place. In other words, stay tuned!

• NEAR-MISSES OF 6-POINT PARLAY HITS DEPRIVES FIVE PARTICIPANTS FROM MAKING SEASON-CHANGING PERFORMANCES IN WEEK #5: Sometimes, to be successful in the Bookie Challenge competition, one game in a parlay combination can make a big difference--especially when only one game in one's parlay combination ruins the entire parlay combo. This past weekend, five handicappers--Vikings17, TCU, dbucc, DawgPound, and HOF City Kid--felt the agony of losing a crucial 6-point parlay winner because of just one game. In the case of Vikings17, who missed his parlay pick of NE/Buffalo to go over 50 points cost him PERFECTA outing and also the overall lead of the Bookie Challenge standings. Two participants, DawgPound and HOF City Kid--both ended up goose egging their respective weekends after Cleveland (+3) loss versus Minnesota derailed his parlay winner and the Hall-of-Fame City Kid saw the LA Chargers (-3) versus Washington foil his 6-point parlay hit. The remaining two handicappers, TCU and dbucc, each avoided goose egg outings after each handicapper connected on one respective best bet apiece, but they both still felt the pain after losing their respective 6-point parlay combination because of one parlay pick. Too Tall Tommy lost his parlay winner after the game between the Raiders and Colts failed to go over 48 points (Indy won 40-6), and dbucc saw his 6-point parlay winner bite the dust after Arizona (-7) got bitch-slapped by Tennessee.



• WEEKLY TICKER.................If it were not for a couple of Blitzkrieg's near misses of 6-point parlay combinations, he could possibly be leading the overall competition instead of the Biased Nihilist. As it stands right now, Blitzkrieg owns the top best-bet record in the league, which is a 7-3-0 best-bet tally that factors out to a highly impressive .700 win percentage. What's more, after winning both of his best bets this past weekend, the Snowman and the Falcon (aka Blitzkrieg) is one point behind both Driveline and dbucc for occupying top seed in the standings .....................The Challenge field has yet to record a PERFECTA outing after the first five weeks of this year's competition, but their PERFECTA futility comes with a precedent. In Challenge year #3, the field did not register a PERFECTA outing until week #14 of that season ......................This past weekend saw a flurry of bone-headed posting blunders ruin several handicappers' outings: As already mentioned, Matty_Ice mysteriously failed to post his weekly picks, Kr@tos failed to beat Sunday's posting deadline and had his parlay combo and exact-score pick for Monday night disqualified, and Kennypie86 only posted one best bet and had his entire parlay combo disqualified after he chose Cleveland (+3 vs Minny) but the game had already started because it was an early London game.