Blog

1st Thomas Reinke went undefeated for the third week in a row, this time ending up with a 4-0 +511 record. His first game was a big win against a late-arriving, harried-looking Helen, where he scored 505 and played LEADENS, SOBBERS (an appropriate term describing the usual state of one of his Scrabble victims), and HUMANITY. He faced Charles in the second round, and won 438-382. Charles started off with a big SHIELDED for 94, but that was his only bingo, and Thomas' sole SETBACKS along with some other stuff (exact nature of the stuff is unknown) was enough to take the win. Thomas' next match was against Gail, where he won 443-365. He got two bingos, SPOILER and ACULEATE (n. a stinging insect), early, then proceeded to play so much defense that Gail couldn't bingo at all. There was a definite lack of places to play by the end, but they managed to squeeze all 100 letters onto the board when all was said and done, achieving the customary 44.44444 percent tile coverage. In the final game, there was a rematch of the classic twin matchup, and Thomas again came out on top, 500-382. He played ZENAIDAS, STUNNERS, and DICENTRA in that game, while Charles' two bingos meant that Thomas had only three played against him the whole night. Easy to win games when your opponents aren't getting 50-point bonuses all the time, I guess.

2nd Gail Salm came in second place with a 3-1 +46 final tally. She won a close one against Dave in the opener, 395-371, countering his word-of-the-week CHOLERIC (adj. bad-tempered) with SCORIAE and playing enough defense to keep her opponent from bingoing at the end. Her scoring output dipped in the second game, by one point, but she still beat Bryan 394-349 by playing TENSIVE and PINIEST. That makes two wins in a row for her against that particular opponent, and the trend doesn't show any signs of stopping, as Bryan will continue to not win any games against her for at least the next week. In the third game, she faced the unstoppable defensive juggernaut of Thomas and lost 365-443, but she recovered in the final game, beating Helen 436-381.

1st Thomas Reinke ran away with the top spot, going 4-0 +363 and averaging 479 points per game. Thanks to last week's cancellation due to the 4th of July, Thomas approached the game with renewed vigor, and was not seriously threatened by any of his four opponents. In fact, his scores went up with each game played, a fact which does not bode well for anybody hoping to beat Thomas in the future. His first game was against brother and lifelong nemesis Charles Reinke, and it was his only game where the winning margin was less than 100; he won 435-353, getting down bingos of PITIABLE, DOURINES, and ATTENDEE (vs. EQUALITY and ROUPIEST). He then rattled off two more sizable victories, 465-290 against Betty Hasselkus (playing GOOFIER, WIENERS, and TAURINES) and 476-323 (playing ANTIMALE). Sitting at a comfortable 3-0 record, Thomas then was afforded the chance to play the other 3-0 player, Dave Kinzer. This matchup was even more contentious than usual given that Dave had beaten Thomas a month prior, evening up the lifetime series at 2-2. This time around, Thomas showed no mercy, winning 541-315. Dave had one bingo of INSANER, but Thomas had three of them: GERMIER, ROUTINE, and the 131-point triple-triple LISTENED.

2nd Charles Reinke went 3-1 +271, a distant second to his brother but second place nonetheless. He recovered well after an unwanted loss in the first round, winning his next three in a display of incredible resilience (getting loaded up on buttery, salty goodness in the form of Ritz crackers didn't hurt either). His largest win came against Aaron Bader, a 515-301 drubbing where Aaron's 90-point AZURITE only lessened the bleeding against Charles' UNSOAKED, MONOCLED, and COENURES. A game against Bryan Benwitz was substantially closer in terms of score, but exactly the same in outcome, as Charles won 388-342. Bryan's sole bingo was SEINERS (bypassing SEREINS and SERINES, both of which are severely underrepresented in the club's bingo database), while Charles had ABUSIVE and TERSELY. The comeback tour was completed with a 461-368 victory over Dennis Lloyd. Dennis played SLEETING, while Charles got down TERNIONS, COLLIES, and ADAPTOR.

3rd Dave Kinzer also finished at 3-1, but, by the unbreakable rules of mathematics, his +154 spread left him in third place. He won his first three games, and in none of those games did he allow his opponents to break the 300-point threshold. A first-round bout against Sue Goldstein ended decisively in Dave's favor, 352-257, thanks to a 75-point bingo of DENOTES. The following game against Dennis Lloyd was even more decisive than that, as Dave got his second-highest winning margin ever (167 points) by winning 419-252. Again, he played just one bingo, FLOURED. The pattern of decisive victories continued with a win over Carl Skalitzky, 347-229, although no bingos were played in that one. After debating the merits of going home with an undefeated record, Dave decided to tough out one more game, but this decision didn't work out as planned, as he was steamrolled by Thomas Reinke 315-541, reducing his +380 spread after three games to a more sedate +154.

In addition to Thomas' triple-triple of LISTENED, two other triple-triples were played: Gail Salm's OUTLEAPS (122 points) and Bryan Benwitz's SOUNDING (140).

1st Thomas Reinke recovered from two straight weeks below .500 and went 4-0 +224. He opened the night with a game against the returning Aaron, who hadn't played Scrabble for a month. That rust manifested itself as a 4-point loss, as Thomas won 440-436. He played TEENAGE (takes a D and an R, but no S), and REFUTING, while Aaron's late BEGRIMED wasn't quite enough to get the win. Thomas had another close game in the second round, beating Bryan 425-407. He had bingos of FOLIATED, TEENIEST, and ENERGIDS, but his game-winning play was PLOTZ for a whole bunch of points. Against Dennis, he won 417-328 despite playing only one bingo, ENRAGED. His big win was against Charles in the final round, 458-345. He bingoed early and often with SPALLED, COLUMNEA (n. a bushy tropical plant, note the "bushy" part of the definition which is very important), and UPROUSE. Thomas is pulling ahead in the lifetime series against Charles, which is now at 112-104 in his favor.

2nd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 +292, his fifth straight 3-1 performance. He kicked Charles' behind in the first game, 473-390, with the score only being as close as it was because of a late surge by Charles. Bryan's big play was the word-of-the-week-quality QUADRICS for 113; he also played BOODLES and OVERMAN (no word on whether they put a Y on the end of that one). He had bingos of ATOMICS and SARCENET (n. a silk fabric, also SARSENET and SARSNET) against Thomas, but lost 407-425. After that, there were no more Reinkes to play, so he faced Betty and won big, scoring 430 and playing COOLIES and DETENTE. His final-round match against Dennis was close throughout, but he managed to eke out a win by bingoing with DEPORTED to finish the game.

3rd Dennis Lloyd returned from an extended hiatus to come in 3rd with a 3-2 +42 record. He started off with a two-on-one, and set himself up for a good night by winning both games. He beat Dave 409-364 despite Dave's high-scoring TOPAZES, and he beat Gail 438-350 while playing CAROUSED and RULINGS. In the next game, he beat Helen despite her challenging off his phony of (not going to put it here so as not to sully the malleable minds of our youth with easily rememberable phonies). He eventually did get down LENGTHS to win 360-314. Now sitting at 3-0, he faced tougher competition the rest of the night, facing what ended up being the two players who finished ahead of him in the standings.

As everyone noticed already, next week's session falls on July 4th. An email will be sent out soon to figure out if we are going to meet. If we don't, don't forget to eat lots of hotdogs! Or even if we do, actually. There's no club bylaw that says you can't eat lots of hotdogs while playing your games.