Blog

1st Charles Reinke obliterated the competition (reduced in number, as we were unsuccessful in recruiting any Magic the Gathering players) by going 4-0 +461 and averaging 483 points per game. His first game, against Bryan Benwitz, was also his most closely-fought, as he came out ahead in a high-scoring bout, 476-432. The final board configuration was a stark testament to the power of high-probability bingos: Charles played FRAGILE, MORALISE, and IODATES, while Bryan played SARODES and GESTATE. Charles followed that up with his highest-scoring game of the year, a relentless 588-point flood of scoring in which his opponent, Thomas Reinke, could do nothing but drown (but not before scoring 373 of his own points). Charles played WONTONS and TAVERNA, both for a moderate amount of points, before unleashing a 167-point triple-triple of PRECHILL. Thomas had won six of the seven previous contests between these brothers, so the final result of this game was judged to be completely fair and just. Charles wouldn't again reach such dazzling scoring heights, but he did soundly beat Gail Salm 492-398 in the next round despite Gail's tri-pronged bingo assault of WAIVERS, TAENIAS, and STUDDIES. Before you complain about typos, a STUDDIE is an anvil, so STUDDIES is not just an ignorant misspelling of STUDIES. Charles had INCURVE and TRENDIER in his winning effort. The undefeated night was completed with a 377-269 victory over Dave Gilligan which saw the victor get down bingos of PASTRAMI and INFERIOR.

2nd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 +112, showing remarkable grit and perseverance in overcoming a first-round loss to come in second in the standings. He took down Gail Salm in the second round, 394-315, partially thanks to an opening bingo of FLOATER; Gail's SHIRKED later in the game proved to be too little, too late (reminder: to comfortably beat Bryan, aim for four or five bingos plus some 50-point power tile plays). In the next game, Helen Flores applied another piece of Bryan advice (don't let him bingo) by playing the only bingo in their game (AIRHEAD), but the advice proved to be shoddy in quality as she still lost the game, 305-360. Bryan then went into the last game eager to reverse his bingo fortunes, and somewhat succeeded, playing two of them (BALDIES and PROVERS) in a 432-410 win against Thomas Reinke, who played REMOTELY and TIMELINE. Bryan has now won four straight against Thomas and inches ever closer to him on the yearly standings, now just a percentage point behind.

1st Mary Becker came out on top of the closely-bunched field, going 3-1 +136. She earned a good chunk of her spread in the opening round, where she had a 399-268 win against Sue, playing SANDIER. As many have found out, the problem with winning big in the first round is that you often find yourself playing a twin in the second round, and so Mary fulfilled the prophecy by facing Charles. He got off to a slow start, but eventually won 410-339. Mary, for her part, did successfully play the correct spelling of WIENIES (WEINIES* is no good, but both WIENERS and WEINERS are). If you ever get confused about that particular word, remember that you can play EISWEIN (n. a wine made from frozen grapes, also ICEWINE) from that rack instead, which is maybe less confusing? In the next game, she defeated Dave 364-285, playing TESTIER and preventing her opponent from bingoing with his blank. Her closest game came in the final round, as she narrowly escaped the other David and his out-bingo of SUICIDE, winning 353-347. Her own bingo of KEELING likely made the difference in that game, and also meant that she bingoed at a tidy 1:1 rate over the night.

2nd Bryan Benwitz came in second at 3-1 +110, despite being held bingo-less in two games. The bingos in his first game came early, RADIATE for him and SYNTONE for his opponent, Thomas. Bryan used the free turns from Thomas' early exchanges to get a big lead, which he then watched dwindle into almost nothing before finally winning 398-390. He then had an incredibly low scoring (no offense) game with Dave, which he won 319-278. Defense can be fun, guys, but don't overdo it. Surprisingly, given the score, Dave did manage a bingo, STERNAL. Bryan unleashed his full fury against David, winning big with a score of 542. He played HEADWAYS for 104, as well as SANTERIA and EQUITES (n. a class of ancient Romans, singular EQUES, so don't play EQUITE*). As big of a hurting as he put on his opponent in that game, he received in kind against Charles, as he lost 303-512.

3rd Charles Reinke went 3-2 +262, a mark below his usual winning percentage, but still came in third because we don't believe in awarding paragraphs based on "best above expectations". He started off playing two, Gail and Dave. Against Gail he bingoed four times with VULPINE, FAVORERS, GLOSSIER, and SELADANG (n. a wild ox, also SALADANG) and won 505-399. He wasn't so lucky against Dave, as he lost 348-400 due to Dave's fancy out-bingo of PREMOLT (adj. preceding a molt). His rack of EMLOPT plus a blank only had that one bingo; talk about a clutch find! Charles recovered to beat Mary 419-339 in round two, with his bingo of PARRIDGE (an alternate spelling of PORRIDGE) making the difference. He took his second loss of the evening in the next game, losing to Thomas 377-458. He managed to get down OPEROSE, but Thomas' 9-letter LAMPOONED left him too stunned to do much else. His spread at this point of the night wasn't up to his standards, so he beat Bryan by 200 to make things look a little more respectable. Both his bingos were high-scoring, BETRAYS for 93 and SAINTDOM for (somehow) 104.

Dave got word-of-the-week with JAWBONED. JAWBONE is a noun which means, oddly, "a bone of the jaw", but is also a verb which means "to attempt to convince".

1st Thomas Reinke returned from a third-place finish at Lynda's weekend tournament to come in first place, with a 3-1 +511 record. He began his night with a big win against a sleep-deprived Helen, who could sit and blink blearily as he dropped a trio of bingos onto the board: ABETTOR, ILLITES (n. ILLITE, a group of minerals, not to be confused with TILLITE, which is just straight up a mineral), and METRIST. He faced longtime foe Charles in the second round and came out on top 432-343. He got three bingos in quick succession, then closed down the board and laughed as Charles failed to draw any blanks and only got one measly bingo. If attendees were wondering what the jeering laughter coming from the grocery store PA system was, well, now you know. Those systems are surprisingly easy to hack into! No jeering laughter was present in the next game as he lost to Bryan 358-371 (Bryan is not really the jeering type). Bryan's late bingo of EMERSION was the difference maker in that one. He then faced Charles again and won again, his 2-0 record against him offsetting somewhat his 0-2 record against him at the tournament. This one was even more of a blowout with Thomas scoring 523 and getting down NONDAIRY (as in creamer), EXCRETES for 118, GOOPIEST, and ANTIQUER (n. one that antiques (v. ANTIQUE to give an appearance of age to)).

2nd Bryan Benwitz returned from not playing in Lynda's weekend tournament to come in second place, with a 3-1 +269 record. His first game was against Charles, now known by his nickname "Punching Bag". Bryan dominated early, bingoing three times before Punching Bag could even get one down and ended up winning 478-365. After that, he scored 480 against Gail, helped greatly by his blank-containing non-bingo of BEZIQUE for 88 points. There are 27 other bingo-length words with both a Q and a Z, but none of them have been played at club (as a bingo) since we started keeping track. Get to work, people! No more playing QI for 11! Instead play QUINZHEE for way more! Bryan's closest game of the night was against Thomas, which was somewhat low-scoring, 371-358. Only two total bingos were played, which means two things: for one, that only two bingos were played, and for two, that that's not enough bingos. Bryan's hopes for an undefeated night were dashed by Dave, who came in and ruined everything by winning 415-343. Dave got down an early ARENOUS and latter added UNDOINGS, which Bryan's challenge of proving to be his undoing (note the noun form of the word I just used). Bryan did get down STERNLY, but as it used both blanks, his chances to come back were diminished.

Dave almost one word-of-the-week with MALAMIUT*, but erroneously combined the acceptable forms, MALAMUTE and MALEMIUT (n. an Alaskan sled dog). He gets the less prestigious phony-of-the-week prize instead.