Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): If anything, this year's 15th Annual Bookie Challenge competition is off to its most chaotic start ever. After the first-six weeks of this year's competition only one thing is certain so far, and it is that this season has been inundated with a litany of bizarre handicapping shortcomings by many of the Challenge field's handicappers. It's as if the posting guidelines have been tossed out of a window and many a handicapper from the competition have failed to adhere to the official rules of the Bookie Challenge, whether written rules or unwritten rules. As an example of the handicapping pandemonium that has stricken this year's competition, just read the following: For starters, there have been a slew of disqualified weekly selections, the likes of which have never been seen before. Participants such as one-year veteran Kr@tos and rookies Kennypie86 and Matty_Ice have already lost invaluable scoring opportunities because of disqualified picks or for having missed posting weekly picks. Secondly, too many seasoned veterans have also committed the league's Cardinal Sin and have missed posting weekly selections, such as Theopholis, dbucc, and DawgPound. They too have missed out on invaluable scoring opportunities. But overall, the worst offender so far in this year's competition has been rookie Kennypie86. However, we'll get to the shaky rookie soon enough, but first let's take the temperature of this year's competition.

After this past weekend, after the Biased Nihilist was the only handicapper to connect on both of his respective best bets, he gained a crucial point over second-place Vikings17 and now leads the competition by six points over this year's defending champion (Nihilist 22pts vs Vikings17 16pts). With the Nihilist presently holding down the top seed in the standings and Vikings17 occupying the second seed, the last two important seeds, meaning the third and the fourth seeds, are being possessed by Driveline (3rd seed/10 pts) and Kr@tos (4th seed/10pts). In the case of Kr@tos, who opened up this season with a rare 3-point parlay hit, he was able to rebound from his posting gaffe from week #5 in which his parlay combination got disqualified, and this past weekend he nailed his first-ever exact-score pick, of which he was the only participant in the league who entered this past weekend without registering an exact-score point in his Challenge career. It was a big point too and one that couldn't have come at a better time. So after Kr@tos won one of his best bets and collected his first exact-score point, his two points for the week was good enough to jump over dbucc and Blitzkrieg in the point standings to secure--for the time being--the fourth top seed. Kr@tos actually tied Driveline with 10 total points on the season, but Driveline won the tiebreaker over Kr@tos for the official third-seed slot because of one more best bet winner (7 vs 6). But Kr@tos, nor Driveline for that matter, can rest on his laurels because immediately below them in the standings are Blitzkrieg (9pts) and dbucc (also 9pts). What's more, the rest of the handicappers below Blitzkrieg and dbucc are tightly knit in the standings and all are within a PERFECTA's outing from acquiring either the third or fourth top seed.

However, the reality of the situation is not a good one for the handicappers who trail the Nihilist (22pts) and second-place Vikings17 (16pts) in the standings, especially when considering that this year's all-important divisional seeding is just two more outings from taking place. In other words, for all the handicappers who trail the Nihilist and Vikings17 in the standings, it would take some serious handicapping miracles for any of them to pull out the number-one or number-two top seeds at this year's divisional seeding. To be more specific, all the handicappers not named the Biased Nihilist or Vikings17 would need to hit back-to-back 6-point parlay hits in the next two weeks in order to snag one of the top two seeds at this year's divisional seeding. Speaking of which, hitting 6-point parlay winners in this year's competition are at a premium, seeing as the Biased Nihilist has hit the ONLY two 6-point parlay winners after the first-six weeks of this year's contest. Keeping the aforementioned in mind, the Biased Nihilist is presently the prohibitive favorite to capture his first-ever number-one top seed when given that he owns all of the top tiebreakers, that is, should he even need them.

During the next two weeks, or the last two weeks before this year's divisional seeding rolls around, a couple of handicappers have serious shots at displacing either Driveline or Kr@tos in the point standings for the third seed and fourth seed, respectively, and they are Blitzkrieg and dbucc. Remember that Blitzkrieg is the handicapper who is always "in the thick of things" and that he is one of the league's better handicappers when it comes to landing 6-point parlay winners. Also keep in mind that Blitzkrieg presently owns the top best-bet record in the league, of which his best-bet tally sits at 8-4-0 on the season and factors out to a league-high .667 winning percentage. Meanwhile, despite that dbucc didn't post any weekly selections last weekend, he's still right there in the immediate periphery from getting one of the top seeds in the standings.

And now it's time to dissect this year's most recalcitrant handicapper of this season's competition. of whom is the rookie who hails by the username of Kennypie86. To begin with, the competition's main administrator, the Biased Nihilist, can't recall a rookie who has screwed up more times to start off his rookie debut than has the "Ken Doll" (aka Kennypie86). He got smashed while tailgating at the Buccaneers' season opener in Atlanta this season and then failed to post his weekly set of selections, including his preseason Super Bowl picks. In hindsight, after the first FIVE weeks of this year's competition, after having missed posting his initial set of picks back in week #1, it turned out that it didn't matter that Kennypie missed posting his season-opening picks because his handicapping has sucked so bad. Case in point, if not for connecting on his first career exact-score point back in week #4, he would have goose egged that particular weekend, which meant that he would have goose egged four of his first five weeks of the season. Additionally, in week #4 he didn't beat the posting deadline for the game played in Ireland, and a consequence he had his parlay combination disqualified. One would think he would have learned his lesson, would have found out what missing a posting deadline entailed, but no! As insane as it sounds, the Ken Doll made the same posting mistake in week #5 and so had his parlay combination disqualified for a second week in a row. The Nihilist put it best, "I've never seen a more incorrigible participant in all my years of running the Bookie Challenge."

Then came last weekend, and with it came some more controversy overshadowing Kennypie86's outing. To start off, in what has to be deemed as the shocker of the year, the Ken Doll tallied three points for the weekend and WON THE WEEK OUTRIGHT! The Nihilist achieved the same feat back in week #2, meaning he won week #2 outright after scoring just three total points. But when it came to Kennypie's three-point outing, he miraculously connected on both ends of this past weekend's exact-score games and thus he picked up two lucky points. However, the third point that the Ken Doll won this past weekend came about only because he copied and pasted the entire weekly selections that Driveline posted, and the evidence is irrefutable. Eventually, Driveline only scored one pointthis past weekend after he won one of his best bets, and so by extension, after copying Driveline's picks to the letter, Kennypie also won a best bet. The point was a major difference maker for Kennypie despite him not "making" the selection. Now granted, it's not against the rules to purposely copy someone else's picks, with the exception being that no picks can be copied in the last week of the regular season, but what the Ken Doll pulled off this past weekend was against the spirit of the competition, not to mention that it was a rogue manuever that also went against the spirit of fair play. To say the least, in the headlines of this weekly review is a picture of kennypie donning a Buccaneers' outfit. But what is most fitting about the picture is that he painted two black circles around his eyes, and after executing the unconscionable this past weekend--one can say that he earned two black eyes because of his underhanded behavior. All things considered, it should be needless to say to stay tuned, because something says that we haven't seen the last of the ken Doll's shenanigans in this year's competition.

• WEEK #6'S NEAR-MISSES OF 6-POINT PARLAY HITS: In a Bookie Challenge season that has been mainly bereft of 6-point parlay winners, this past weekend was more of the same, as in not a single 6-point parlay combination came to fruition for the Bookie Challenge field. This past weekend's handful of handicappers who felt the excruciating heartbreak of near-misses of their respective parlay combinations because of only one losing parlay pick were 7mick7, TCU, Theopholis, and rookie Matty_Ice. To break down the heartbreak, 7mick7's parlay combo was derailed after the LA Chargers (-4) lost to the spread versus Miami, while over.under parlay picks brought down the respective parlay combinations of TCU (lost over pick of Det/KC game--KC won 30-17), Theopholis (lost the under of the Dall/Car game--Car won 30-27). and Matty_Ice (lost the over of the Buff/Atl game--Atl won 24-14).



• WEEKLY TICKER.................Two-year veteran Jets69 was spared a golden goose egg outing this past weekend after he connected on his third 1-point exact-score winner of the season...........Over/under selections by the Challenge field are still underwater so far for this season. After this past weekend's handicapping action ran its course, the Challenge field's combined over/under record for the season is a combined 24-34-0 (win% .413).................