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1st Thomas Reinke shook off the ice accumulated over a multi-week absence from Scrabble, and came in first place with a 3-1 +277 record. His first play of the night was a 106-point double-double RAMPANCY, and he used that early advantage to escape with a 475-449 win against Bryan. Bryan managed that many points despite only one bingo, LOUDEST, while Thomas added SERRANO and GAIETIES (the fourth time he's played that word). Against Charles in the second round, he won decisively, 467-336. A seemingly great accomplishment, until you look at the standings for the night and see Charles' name at the very bottom. Thomas bingoed with AVERAGED, PANFRIES, and SNIFTER in that one. After that, he faced the scorching-hot Dennis, and succumbed 380-418. Dennis' early power-tile plays and bingo of GLANCED were enough to outrun Thomas' TENORINO (n. a high tenor, plural TENORINI) and ASSENTER. In the final round, he cruised to a 451-293 win against Helen, who would've put up more of a fight if the blank she drew wasn't the last tile in the bag.

2nd James Frankki came in second with a 3-1 +54 record. He started his night off right with a 413-345 win against Helen. Helen had a nice find of APERTURE, but two is more than one, and James bingoed twice, with VETOERS and EARNEST. Bingoes were hard to come by in the next round as he faced Bryan. Neither player got down all their letters at once, although James did try a phony with both blanks on an extremely closed board. The final in that one was 262-356, and now that I've typed that out, everyone can forget that that game ever happened. Things went better for him in the third match as he beat Charles (who, I might add, is the reigning club champion) 405-385. He played the always-useful AILERON to help him along the way. To complete his evening, he beat Dennis 418-358, with bingos of PANELING and CURTALS (n. an animal with a clipped tail). Dennis did have a high-scoring SITUATE, but it was too little, too late.

3rd Bryan Benwitz earned third despite playing only three bingoes, ending up at 2-2 +232. He scored well even with a single bingo against Thomas, thanks to a steady stream of high-scoring plays. After his 356-262 win against James which I said we could all forget about (I lied), he faced Helen and lost 351-372. Helen played an unusual 3-U bingo, UNUSUAL. There are only six other seven-letters words with that many U's, including MUUMUUS which has 4 of the cursed tile. Bryan didn't end up bingoing that game (probably because he couldn't draw three U's at the same time because Helen was hogging them all), but any complaints ceased when he beat Charles 566-381. Such a high score was made possible by his triple-triple SEAWANTS (n. a form of currency in the form of polished shells, more commonly known as WAMPUM). The 185 points he scored for that are the most he's scored for a bingo since the club started keeping track.

Belated congratulations to Dennis Lloyd for winning the second division of the tournament he played in New York City. He was the bottom seed, rated far below everyone else, but showed his Midwestern mettle and went 6-2 +296 to win. In addition to some cold hard cash, he gained a bunch of rating points that will be redistrubted to the needy.

1st Charles Reinke finished with a 4-0-1 +411 record, which technically counts as "undefeated" but does not qualify for the designation of a "perfect night". Coming into the session with nine straight wins, Charles was looking to get a quick win to extend the streak to ten, but James Frankki had other plans: their match ended in a deadlocked 365-365 tie. After unconvincingly (and unsuccessfully) pleading club leadership to allow the winning streak to continue on grounds of a technicality, Charles went on to win his next four anyway. He defeated Bryan Benwitz 490-405 thanks to bingos of NOPALES, BORACES, and SWEETLIP (Bryan got down SORDINI and the nice find of REPANDLY). The next round saw Charles tasked with playing two at once, but this extra measure of challenge was surmounted; he beat Michael David 450-385 (playing ADENINES and LOCKETS) and Dave Gilligan 530-289 (playing the useful high-probability eights of NEOTERIC and DATELINE). The establishment of a new winning streak was completed with a 431-411 win against Thomas Reinke. Thomas displayed an unfortunate lack of awareness as to which varieties of cheese have made it into the dictionary, phonying with STILTONS in addition to his valid play of OBDURATE. Charles had LEPROTIC, ROBINIAS, and OBEDIENT as his bingos.

2nd Aaron Bader did his part in helping to bankrupt the club by playing two triple-triples during his customary four-game series against Mark, which Aaron comfortably won, going 3-1 +105. The first game saw Aaron take a relatively low-scoring (in the Collins context) win, 414-353. Mark got in his one victory in round two, 439-401, but the bingos played were all unspectacular seven-letter words, so no bytes will be wasted in this writeup to list them (instead we'll waste bytes by writing frivolous parentheticals). Round three was a high-scoring 485-455 win for Aaron, who did most of his damage by playing PEARMAIN for 185. Mark played MAUVEIN#, ANKUSES, and word of the week GALABIYA (which has roughly two thousand valid spellings and six thousand invalid spellings). If you thought their round three game was embarrassingly high-scoring, you'll turn beet red at the score of their fourth-round game. The final tally was 432-480 in Aaron's favor. It was in this game that Aaron played his second triple-triple of the night, OUTSERVE for 158.

3rd Lynda Finn only played three games, but made the most of them by finishing 2-0-1 +128. She also disordered the orderly statskeeping of the club by introducting another tie game into the system. Against Mary Becker in the first round, Lynda won by a healthy margin, 448-336. She played two different bingos out of almost the same rack, COOLERS (CELOORS) and ORIOLES (EILOORS). Her normally strong scoring instincts seemed to disappear in round two, but her winning instincts did not, as she took down Dave Gilligan 346-330. Lynda played LENTOID; Dave played RETIREES. In what would end up being her final game, Lynda faced off against the fearsome Thomas Reinke, and came away with an acceptable outcome, which was a 432-432 tie. Both players got three bingos: DECRIES, HUNKIEST, and PATZERS for Lynda, URINATES, NEGATES, and AURICLED for Thomas.

1st Charles Reinke obliterated the field by going 5-0 +810. His first game was actually two games against Helen Flores and Gail Salm; both of them were lopsided wins in favor of Charles that served to give him a large amount of momentum that could not be stopped. His game against Helen saw him play four bingos (INDICTER, ROULETTE, GRUESOME, and ALIENORS) on his way to a 519-323 victory. The game against Gail was even better, as he scored 555 thanks to three bingos of DEPLETES, AEROLITH, and TAENIAS. In the second round, Dave Kinzer proved to be his most formidable opponent; he led for a significant amount of the game, but in the end fell short, 350-377. Dave's bingo of URINATED was countered by Charles' BONITOES (the anagram of EOBIONTS). Up next was none other than Thomas Reinke, but his first-place position in the club standings did nothing to deter Charles, who won 425-378 and got one game closer to equalizing the lifetime series in which Thomas had taken a sizable lead. A closing game against Dennis Lloyd hearkened back to Charles' first two games; it was a runaway 542-326 win for Charles, who played EXISTED, ELUTION, AERATED, and NATTERS and once again proved the utility of high-probability seven-letter words.

2nd Thomas Reinke enjoyed a 3-1 +220 performance, but he might not have enjoyed it so much if he had realized that it would actually lower his yearly winning percentage, which was at 80% before the night's games. He started off with a tough game against Mary Becker; his out-bingo of VESTURE made the game look uncontested, but the 476-389 final score was deceptive. The second round saw more success for Thomas as he defeated eventual third-place finisher Dennis Lloyd 428-315. Thomas' strong start was quickly extinguished by his brother Charles, who beat his brother 425-378, playing TINKLIER and ANODISE to Thomas' FOREWORD (in playing FOREWORD, Thomas passed up making the blank a V for OVERWORD, an appropriate word to play while in the midst of a cut-throat Scrabble contest). Second place was locked up by a strong 483-359 win over Bryan Benwitz, who had won their last four encounters. Out for vengeance, Thomas played PEDIGREE, STIGMAS, and ARCUATE, while Bryan played INTERMAT.

3rd Dennis Lloyd got in one last Scrabble session before his trip to New York for a tournament, and he certainly ensured good luck at that tournament with a third-place finish, going 3-2 +225. Dennis' first game, against Bryan Benwitz, was an especially triumphant victory given that he had not beaten Bryan once in the calendar year 2018. The final score pushed the result into "drubbing" territory, as Dennis scored 444 to Bryan's 285. Dennis had all three of the board's bingos: HEELERS, TOWELING, and ATTAINS. A 315-428 loss to Thomas Reinke (where Dennis played BRUNCHES to Thomas' SLOTTERS and STAUMREL) left Dennis at an inauspicious 1-1 record, but he was given the chance to quickly vault up the standings by playing as the "one" in a two-on-one for the next round. Making the most of the opportunity, he won both games by large amounts. He beat Dave Gilligan 382-263, getting down DEBITING, but his 514-263, three-bingo victory against Betty Hasselkus was even more convincing. His three bingos were SIGNORE, STONIER, and UNGENTLE. At this point, his spread was +411, but much of it was wiped out in the final game, which was a tough 326-542 loss to Charles Reinke. Regardless, news of Dennis' strong showing should be sent to all the New York players so they can be properly intimidated when they see Dennis sitting across the board from them.