Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): Please don't be fooled. In the headline picture shown above, the Snowman (aka Blitzkrieg) looks a little undernourished when standing next to his beloved Falcon. But, hey, the cold weather is just now arriving, albeit ever so slowly. To put it another way, in a typical season, Blitzkrieg normally starts out slow, then about midway through the season, Blitzkrieg slowly turns into an abominable snow beast--one that hits 6-point parlays and a PERFECTA or two without giving them a second thought. Case in point, this year is Blitzkrieg's ninth season handicapping the Bookie Challenge competition, and as result, he is the longest-tenured participant before the start of this year's competition to have at least hit one 6-point parlay combo and to have at least knocked down one PERFECTA outing in each of his previous eight years. This year, he has already hit two 6-point parlays, and only lacks a PERFECTA weekend to keep his extraordinary streak alive. Unfortunately, even though the Snowman missed both of his respective best bets on both of the weekends he hit his 6-point parlay combinations, going 0-for-4 after misfiring on all four of his best bets, he still kept his main reputation in the Bookie Challenge alive and well--of how he is always in the thick of contention for an overall Bookie Challenge championship. This past weekend, after having hit his parlay combination for just a 6-pont outing, he ended the weekend in the most enviable position in the point standings that everybody in the competition wants to be at--IN FIRST PLACE AND WITH THE NUMBER-ONE TOP SEED IN TOW. Not for nothing, but this past weekend was the toughest weekend to win of all this year's six weekends.

The past weekend was as nasty as it could get for the veterans of the competition, for it was an all-out handicapping battle of attrition for most of the vets in the contest, and Blitzkrieg, the Snowman, kept every challenger at bay after landing his league -leading second 6-point parlay winner this season to accrue 17 total points on the year and end his outing with sole possession of first place. But overall, the weekend was plenty rife with some brilliant handicapping by some of the league's superstars. Leading the pack of other winners besides Blitzkrieg were DawgPound, 7mick7, and Driveline. Of the four overall handicappers just mentioned, which includes Blitzkrieg, each handicapper landed a 6-point parlay winner and three of those handicappers--DawgPound, 7mick7, and Driveline each complemented his respective parlay hit with two best-bet winners each and thus terminated their respective weekends with PERFECTA outings. In the cases of DawgPound and 7mick7, they had a separate battle on the side to see who between them would win the credit for having gained a week-won, of which is the league's third-best tiebreaker of the regular season. Amazingly, the Dog-Day-Afternoon Handicapper--DawgPound--seized the weekend after adding a one-point exact-score winner for both the Thursday night game and the Monday night game to finish his overall outing with 10 total points. It was the first time ever that a handicapper finished a regular-season weekend with 10 points won, other than a Thanksgiving Day outing, in which a lot of propostional points are up for grabs. As it pertains to 7mick7, this year's defending champion, his weekend ended with a crooked number, nine total points, after he added to his PERFECTA outing a 1-point exact-score hit on the Monday night game between the Bills and the Jets and concluded his weekend in second place in the point standings, just one point behind the league leader Blitzkrieg (17pts vs 16pts). Finishing in third place was DawgPound, whose 15 total points on the season was one better than the weekend's other hot veteran--Driveline, who collected his 14th point of the season and finished in fourth place after landing his PERFECTA outing. For the rookies out there who are not that familiar with the history of the competition, both 7mick7 and Driveline are former Bookie Challenge champions, with 7mick7 having won his first BC title in last year's competition and Driveline having won his two championships in Challenge year #12 and in Challenge year #9.

In all fairness to this year's five rookies--Kr@tos, Jets69, CAP_ATTACK, Nelbarada, and Realtalkrob, they have all been trying their best to keep up with the cagey veterans of the competition, and because most of the veterans haven't had spectacular starts to this season for the first-five weeks, with only Blitzkrieg and the Nihilist having hit 6-point parlays on the year through week #5. In the meantime, as it concerns this year's rookies and their combined stats in this year's competition, only rookie Jets69 had scratched out a 6-point parlay winner and had even taken the overall lead of the Bookie Challenge point standings after week #4. However, his time atop the point standings was short-lived, as he followed his 6-point parlay hit in week #4 with a goose-egg outing in week #5 and just a one-point outing over the previous weekend (wk #6). Unfortunately for this year's crop of rookies. the handicapping action of week #6 turned out to be a bitch-slap at the hands of the competition's veterans. For example, CAP_ATTACK became the second rookie in as many weekends over the last two weerks that did not post his weekly selections of picks. As consequence, last week's rookie participants--K@tros, Jets69, Nelbarada, and Reaktalkrob each finished with one-point showings apiece for a combined total of just four points. It had to be stunning for the rookies to witness the scoring explosion by the veterans of the Bookie Challenge competition, so much so that the four greenhorns who did participate in week #6's handicapping weekend probably needed defibrillators to kick start their stopped heart beats (FYI, the Biased Nihilist would never need a defibrillator). Seriously, though, any combination of scoring from any two veterans over the past weekend would all match the rookie's combined total of four points and most of the veteran pairings would easily exceed four total points, that's how much of a pounding the vets unleashed upon the newcomers.

Much to their chagrin, the competition's five rookies have little time to waste before this year's all-important divisional seeding takes place (immediately at the end of week #8). so any attempts to snatch the overall number-one seed at this year's divisional seeding must be made swiftly, as only two weeks remain to be handicapped before this year's big divisional seeding. Interestingly, in the present point standings, none of the first six veterans atop the standings--Blitzkrieg (17pts/#1 seed), 7mick7 (16pts/#2 seed), DawgPound (15pts/#3 seed), Driveline (14pts/#4 seed), B. Nihilist (13pts/5th place). and Vikings17 (13pts/ 6th place)--have never won a top seed in their respective Bookie Challenge careers, which is going to make it extra hard for a rookie to shock the Challenge and pull out the number-one overall top seed when knowing how badly the veterans in the top tier of the point standings wan to win a number-one top seed for the first time ever. Also, as everybody in the competition should already know, this year's number-one top seed after this year's divisional seeding (end of week #8) will be awarded their membership fee and will then handicap the rest of the competition with the house's money--or cha-ching!

• HANDFUL OF VETERAN HANDICAPPERS SHOW THEIR TRUE GRIT AFTER HANDICAPPING WEEK #6: Previous to week #6 of this year's competition, only three overall 6-point parlay combinations were hit during the first-five weekends of the season, one each by veterans the Biased Nihilist and Blitzkrieg and one by rookie Jets69. Accordingly and obviously, the league's top veteran handicappers had yet to make any major headway during the first-five weekends, but in week #6--the veteran handicappers exploded with a flurry of 6-point parlay hits and PERFECTA outings. Leading the way was Blitzkrieg, who became the first handicapper this year to hit two 6-point parlay winners, of which raised his all-time tally of regular-season 6-point parlay hits to a total of 24 overall. As it concerns the regular season ONLY, the Snowman ranks 3rd overall all-time behind the Biased Nihilist (#1 all time with 34 6-pt parlay hits) and moemonie (#2 all time with 27). Driveline would fall next in line after his 6-point parlay winner in week #6, of which would raise him to rank 4th overall with 19 lifetime regular-season parlay hits. Other handicappers adding to their all-time regular-season parlay winners were DawgPound, who notched his 12th all-time regular-season parlay winner and 7mick7 who collected his 24th all-time regular-season 6-point parlay hit, which ties him with Blitzkrieg all-time for 3rd place on the all-time list. The Mick was able to position himself up the all-time rankings in large part after he landed a league-leading five 6-point parlay winners in last year's regular season. The five 6-point parlay winners in last year's regular season by the Irish Hustler (aka 7mick7), was a career high, of which now has him seemingly hitting 6-point parlay winners as if they were going out of style.


• WEEKLY TICKER ..................The four 6-point parlay hits over the previous weekend by some of the competition's toughest handicappers also led to three PERFECTA outings. But what hasn't been touched upon so far in this weekly review is how dramatically the overall point standings changed in the wake of the previous weekend's scoring outburst. To be more specific, out of the 16 total slots in the standings, 13 overall slots changed hands. The only three handicappers who emerged after the previous weekend in the same slots within the point standings were rookies Nelbarada and CAP_ATTACK and veteran dbucc. Nelbarada finished in 15th place and Cap_ATTACK ended the weekend in 16th place after he failed to post any of his weekly selections. As to dbucc, he remained in the 13th overall slot in the standings. The handicapper who made the biggest change in the point standings was DawgPound, who won the weekend outright after winning 10 total points and charged up the standings from 14th place up to 4th place overall, which was a change of 10 total slots..................The Biased Nihilist's son, jcvike28, kept pace to become this year's Swami award winner (honor given to the participant who has top best-bet record for the regular season and postseason combined). "El Duque" (aka jcvike28) won two more best-bets last weekend to go 2-0-0 for the third consecutive weekend and improved his overall best-bet tally to an amazing 10-2-0 mark, which factors out to a league-leading .833 winning percentage of his best bets so far this season. Incredibly, jcvike28 cannot afford a let up anytime soon, seeing as the Hall-of-Fame City Kid, now in his sophomore year handicapping the Bookie Challenge, is right on jcvike's heels and owns a best-bet mark of 9-3-0 (win% .750)......................Veteran handicapper moemonie is having his worst start ever to a Bookie Challenge season. Now handicapping his 12th Bookie Challenge season, moemonie has only eight points accrued on the season and is in the lower middle tier of the point standings. This past weekend, moemonie was on the verge of having his second scoreless weekend in a row, and was about to lay his first golden goose egg of this season. However, he was spared the scoreless outing after notching a 2-point exact-score hit on Monday night after he rightly predicted a 23-20 final in the Bills/Jets game, but didn't get the five points because he did not predict the winning team of the 23-20 score (Buffalo). Also hitting the exact-score of the Bills/Jets game of 23-20 was Vikings17. But he, too, didn't predict the correct winning team of the 23-20 final. Therefore, in an odd scoring weekend, Vikings17 tallied a total of four points for week #6 of this year's competition. two points for winning both of his best bets and two points for the exact-score hit on Monday night..........