They are the final two of the 128 man handicapping contest!



After weeks of intense handicapping action, the field of 128 has been trimmed down to the final two! The championship round is upon us! Major props to SBR forum posters rjt721 and blittydeuce, the last men standing in what proved to be an all out war among the most respected and feared handicappers in the forum world.

It was a tournament of upsets with high profile handles biting the dust early, both these men have proved their grit and determination in staving off elimination several times and proving that they do indeed deserve to be here. It wasn’t always easy, but these two posters have earned their name under the bright lights and with that let’s take a few moments to recap their road to the Final!

Blittydeuce squared off against SBR forum poster dwaechte in their Final Four showdown. He started off nailing his first 2 out of 3 picks, while his opponent struggled out of the gate early unable to find his footing. Blittydeuce has shown an uncanny ability to cap Major League Baseball, trying his hand at some soccer throughout the tournament as well. It was the football weekend however which allowed blittydeuce to drive the nail in the coffin, as dwaechte simply had no answer for the overwhelming display of variety and skill he faced.

Dwaechte caught some bad breaks, but ultimately it was just blittydeuces day as there was no let up in what was a fairly straight forward victory to the tune of 4-4-2 -1.21 units compared to 2-7 -6.22 units. Dwaechte had enough class to avoid taking a shot on a huge moneyline underdog with his final play, and conceded defeat. An excellent showing and in-the-money finish for the up and coming handicapper out of Ontario. Blittydeuce comes off this match feeling in form, he hasn’t struggled throughout this tournament and has sort of relished being the underdog in many peoples minds. The talk of the tournament was LT Profits, Donjuan, Durito, guys that were the sizable chalk going in, but it was handicappers like blittydeuce who saw an opportunity to make a name for themselves, and capitalized on it. An excellent showing in the final four advances blittydeuce to the championship round!

As exciting as that match was, it almost takes a backseat to what went down in the other corner of the draw, in the match up between SBR forum posters rjt721 and EaglesPhan36. “Wow” probably wouldn’t sum the match up accurately, but it’d give you a good idea as to the kind of match it was. There were thrills, spills, and just moments that made you wince watching this epic handicapping dual. We’ve seen a lot of high flying and exciting matches thus far in our 128 Man Handicapping Contest, but never have the stakes been this high. Rjt721 and Eaglesphan36 both started out in a collective rut, so although both were in the negative early things were on somewhat of an even keel. We’ve been so used to seeing one poster start off cold, another just steamroll all tournament long, never have we seen two individuals both start off stuck in the mud quite this bad. Needless to say, after a few picks the standings were rjt721 0-2 -2.08, EaglesPhan36 0-2 -2.00. It quickly became apparent this was going to be a defensive struggle, it was like watching the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers clash on a Monday Night Football game in December. The offensive firepower in this match was anything but existent and that’s what made it all the more exciting as for the most part it was anybody’s ballgame.

As the picks progressed we started to see EaglesPhan36 pull away, winning a few picks and getting his record up to 3-6 -3.10, while there was no end to rjt721’s struggles as he had amassed a 2-6-1 -4.55 unit record. Both men had one play left to make to reach their total number of ten for the Final Four round, and it seemed pretty probable that EaglesPhan36 would seal the deal. What happened, you ask? Well, EaglesPhan36’s next pick was Juan Carlos Ferrero +115, a tennis selection, which EaglesPhan36 has made many of throughout the tournament. I know, you’re thinking EaglesPhan36 lost that pick, well actually he didn’t. That pick won taking EaglesPhan36 to 4-6 -1.95 for the round.Rjt721 was staring elimination right in its face, and was a mere matter of hours from flat-lining out of this tournament. Rjt721 had made public well before the tournament began that he invested a wager on himself at +6500 at Bet Jamaica, you might remember from previous articles that Bet Jamaica was kind enough to hang lines on SBR’s handicapping challenge, giving various odds to different posters. Rjt721 decided to make things a little more fun and made a wager of $50 at +6500, looking at a $3250 payday should he win the tournament, aside from the $3K+ prize pool SBR has setup. So needless to say, it was literally all riding on rjt721’s final pick.

He chose Histon +270, a soccer team many of us North American sports enthusiasts had never heard of. A team that figured to have too much to overcome, symbolic in a way to the notion that rjt721 was about to bow quietly out of the Final Four, never putting up much of a fight. Think again. If you think like that, you just don’t know rjt721. I’m personally not convinced he didn’t have this game circled on his calendar all along, estimating he’d be in a tight match that things would literally come down to the wire in. Histon scored to end the first half and take the lead 1-0 and rjt721’s heart palpitations went up from there. At any minute, the game could have tied and rjt721 would have his bags packed and be headed home. Histon held on, and with that, rjt721 delivered a stunning knockout to EaglesPhan36, edging him out narrowly at 3-6-1 -1.84 units, to 4-6 -1.95 units. Congratulations are in order to EaglesPhan36 for a great showing, one has to wonder if it were not karma rearing it’s ugly head as EaglesPhan36 had advanced the last round by hitting a +600 soccer pick with his final selection.

With that, we have rjt721 and blittydeuce set to take off Wednesday morning! Be sure to stop on by the SBR forum handicapping contests forum to follow all the action, and check by my mySBR blog for the latest updates and nuggets on the Championship Round!