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1st Charles Reinke valiantly continued his efforts to four-peat as club champion, going 3-1 +504. He scored 553 against Helen in the first game, playing LAITIES, FAINTERS, and GAROTTES. If you think three bingos isn't very many for scoring 553 points, I'm pretty sure he also had a 70-point X play. As punishment (or as a reward) for winning by so much, he faced Thomas in the next match, depairing as his opponent opened with AVERAGE. Charles eventually played REWARMED (v. what you do with your leftover Chinese takeout [ed. note: why is Chinese food never as good the next day]), but Thomas also bingoed with RATIONS and NEITHER and ended up winning 477-376. Things improved for Charles in the next game, or maybe they just got way worse for his opponent, anyway, he won 459-254 against Bryan. The star play of that game was the word-of-the-week CYATHIUM (n. the flower head of certain plants, plural CYATHIA). In related news, the club has a new prize where the next person to name their daughter CYATHIA wins four dollars. In the final game, he got a rematch with Thomas and equalized things by winning 483-311. He played TETHERS, REBUILT, and the back-breaking SHADOOF (n. a device used in Egypt for raising water for irrigation, also SHADUF).

2nd Betty Hasselkus edged out Thomas for second place by three spread points, going 3-1 +109. In the first round, she fought her way through a tough board against Sue, eventually winning 320-307 with neither combatant playing a bingo. After that, she lost 314-411 versus Gail, with much of the margin being attributable to Gail's fancy KAIZENS for 101. For reference, that's the first bingo at our club with both a K and a Z since Thomas's KLUTZES four years ago. The next one will be when Betty plays KIBBITZ three weeks from now. In the the third round, Betty had another bingo-less game, this time beating Mary 364-329. Her scoring picked up a lot in the final game, as she won against Helen, 444-286. She played ASSURED and NEITHER early in the game, and must have done some other stuff too because 444 is a lot of points.

3rd Thomas Reinke failed to find three extra points over his four games, and thus came in third at 3-1 +106. He beat Bryan 493-367 in the first round by way of his 100-point double-double out-bingo CITADEL, which turned a close game into a blowout with the addition of Bryan's unplayed Z. Thomas' scoring went down in the next game (and it continued to go down the whole night), but he still beat Charles easily, 477-376. Against Gail, he won 440-389, bingoing with GALLEINS and THEREBY, outdoing Gail's double-blank HEREINTO. His streak of high-scoring wins came to an abrupt end in his rematch against Charles, but that's okay because the extra sympathy he elicited for scoring only 311 points made up for it. Just kidding. No one ever feels bad for Thomas no matter how few points he scores.

1st Thomas Reinke started off the new club season right with his 4-1 +420 record. He opened with a two-on-one versus Betty and Richard where he played three bingos in each game and also won each game (which is a secondary fact to the amount of bingos played). He also played three bingos against Bryan in the second round, in a game where he won 459-438. He got down ARROZES (ARROZ is the Spanish word for rice, don't ask me why it's in the dictionary because I don't know), CATTAIL, and ANDESITE, while Bryan played CRENELS and FRIGHTEN. In the next game he had a close match with Charles, and ended up losing 387-401 while staring at a second consecutive rack of AEGINST. There are 8 bingos in that rack, 7 of which have been played at club, and 0 of which fit on the board. Thomas' luck returned in the final round against Mary, where he scored 475 and played VAMOOSE and TORRENT.

2nd Bryan Benwitz's goal this year is to go 3-1 every night, so it's a good thing that he went 3-1 +342 to prevent his goal from being ruined on the very first week. He had his highest game of the night in the first round, beating Dave 491-341 and playing COURIER and GRODIEST (anagrams DIGESTOR and STODGIER). He came up short against Thomas, 438-459, but did put a scare in his opponent with a late FRIGHTEN. Get it? A late scare? FRIGHTEN? Hah. Continuing on, he played Betty in the third round and won 404-326, countering her bingo of FIRMNESS with IDOLISE. He similarly played only one bingo against Helen, STRAYED, but who needs bingos when you can score a bunch of points in other ways? Remember, the point of Scrabble is not to out-bingo your opponent,  the point is to outscore them. Bingos are pretty fun, though.

3rd Charles Reinke went 3-1 +127, stealing third place from Richard in the final game. He got his loss (presumably his only one of the season) out of the way quickly, losing to Mary 347-440 in the first game. She opened with a double-blank FAINTER, and he never recovered. Well, he did recover, but it took him until after that game was finished to begin doing so. He beat Helen 510-332 in the next round, playing the fancy double-double PLAYLAND (like at McDonald's) for 99 as well as UDOMETER (n. a rain gauge, how appropriate considering all the ones in the area have long since overflowed). Against Thomas, he played COASTING and a defensively-minded CUPELED and won 401-387, preventing his brother from bingoing with his last four bingo-ey racks. In the final match, versus Richard, things were looking grim for him as Richard played MIRAGES and BROADEST and began blocking the board. However, in typical Charles fashion, he pulled a miracle SOFTEST making a bunch of overlaps and won 389-361, seizing third place from Richard and earning this glowing paragraph.

Mark played the word-of-the-week, the incredible nine-letter AUTOCLAVE through an LA on the board. Has anyone told him that he could've played VACUOLATE instead? In other bingo news, the club has now played over 14,000 unique 7/8-letter bingos since we started keeping track 7 years ago. The 25 percent bingo coverage mark is within sight, with only 167 words to go.

1st Bryan Benwitz ended the Scrabble year on a high note with a flawless 4-0 +161 record. His undefeated evening will serve as practice for his next test, which is to win every game of the upcoming club season. He initiated his perfect night by taking down Mary Becker 409-364, playing LIGATES and MISRELY (not just a misspelling of MISERLY but a word in its own right) while Mary got down STUNNED. A very similar game score-wise was played against Charles Reinke, where Bryan won 400-364 to extend his winning streak against Charles to two games. Bryan's bingos were PARDONER and the clunky-looking URAEMIAS; Charles had LARRIGAN (also LARIGAN) and DOTTIER (also DOTIER, though it means something else). Brimming with confidence after one Reinke win, Bryan went toe-to-toe with the other one and was victorious again, defeating Thomas 455-437. EGOTIZE and RUTILANT were Thomas' bingos, but Bryan did him one better by getting down three bonus plays: COUNTIES, RELAPSE, and DISCERN. In the fourth and final game, Bryan was able to put a fourth winning checkmark on his unblemished scorecard as he triumphed over Helen Flores in another high-scoring game, 470-405. This time, Helen won the bingo battle (playing REFUNDER and DETAINS to Bryan's OCTUPLE), but Bryan found enough other ways to score to overcome the bingo deficit.

2nd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +200 to close out the club year, where he finished third in the club standings. His first game was not as closely-fought as his opponent probably wished it was; Dennis Lloyd was on the losing end of a 445-285 final score. Thomas had FASHION, TETRADIC, and COLLAPSE (anagram ESCALLOP), while Dennis eased the pain a bit with a bingo of EARLIEST. Helen Flores made things a bit closer, with Thomas "only" winning by a score of 422-368. Thomas had IRONMEN and SPINATE to Helen's METERING. Sitting at 2-0, Thomas had visions of a perfect night, but his third round loss to Bryan Benwitz (detailed in the previous paragraph) crushed those dreams like so many ants underneath a boot. Still, Thomas pressed on. His fourth game, a close 473-469 win, reversed a four-game losing streak he had been maintaining against his brother Charles. Thomas feasted on high-probability bingos, playing TREELINE, GROUTIER, and TAURINE. Charles similarly stuck to the more common range of the dictionary, playing IBOGAINE and DESTREAM.

3rd Aaron Bader played his customary four-game Collins series against Mark Kenas, going 3-1 +113. He overcame significant odds in his first game against Mark, winning by one point (378-377) despite getting outbingoed 0-to-3 (Mark had RAGTIMES, TOLANES, and MEUNIERE). A five-point penalty for a lost challenge ended up costing Mark the game. Aaron then regained his bingoing mojo and took the next one as well, 410-376. He played GERARDIA and PORRECT (which is an adjective in ours and a verb in theirs) while Mark had LANITALS. Mark took the first step towards an even 2-2 match by winning their third game 421-384 (getting RIPARIAN and LINGERS to Aaron's ZONULES), but was unable to close it out as Aaron dominated the fourth and final game, 491-376. Mark was held bingoless while Aaron had LOONIER, UNGREEDY, word-of-the-week NAGWARE, and a 114-point QUAINTER. All told, the two Collins experts played four games in that dictionary but didn't manage to play a Collins-only bingo, so I've got all these extra octothorps that I didn't get to use: ###########.

It was the last session of August, which means that next week brings with it a new club season. Charles Reinke was champion for the 2017-18 season, winning 71.3% of his games and averaging 434 points per game (a significantly lower average than past years, so there's still hope). Aaron Bader broke up the Reinke hegemony by coming in second on the yearly leaderboard, winning 69.5% of his games with a 425 per-game average. Thomas Reinke, in third place, had the highest average in the club at 437, and won 66% of his games.