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1st Bryan Benwitz wandered over to the west side to check out the flooding (none to be seen in our particular basement abode) and also happened to play some Scrabble. The Scrabble part went really well, as he went 3-1 +212 and came in first place. He started off with a 394-344 win against Thomas, featuring ARMORERS and a game-winning out-bingo of THIOUREA. Those five-vowel eights sure do come in handy! He had a much higher-scoring game against the other Reinke in roudn two, coming out ahead again 478-409. He played DRILLING, ADENITIS, and LEGATOR. Charles struggled with a final rack containing a blank, but couldn't find a bingo (probably because there weren't any) and had to take the loss. Versus Richard, he played SEEDLIKE (adj. resembling a seed, I'm assuming) and RECITES, but lost by one measly point, 386-387. Richard's final two-tile draw of a Q and a blank, while a mixed bag, probably had something to do with things. In the final game, Bryan faced Helen and won 404-310. He won a second time, in a way, by deftly avoiding getting called "a dirty rat" by Helen, which seemed to be her favorite expression for the night.

2nd Thomas Reinke went 3-2 +135, a middling record that was somehow good for second place. He lost to Bryan 344-394 in the first game, and was rewarded with an opportunity to play two in the next round. His 396-279 game against Lynda was marked by the nine-letter double-blank RECOVERER, while his game against Helen was won with his out-bingo of RATAFEES (n. RATAFIA, an almond-flavored liqueur) for 92 points. That would've been enough to win by itself, but to add insult to injury he caught Helen with the Q, making the final 426-388. No miracle wins were happening for him against Charles, as he lost 414-542, playing PANFORTE (n. a sweet cake) and SCANTIER. He let Charles bingo four times, with BOATLESS* (strangely plausible but also pretty stupid-looking), STRATEGY, GREASIER, and NOTARIAL. Thomas avoided another under .500 performance by beating Richard 491-333 in the final game. His best (in the opinion of this writer) bingo was PULICENE (adj. pertaining to fleas) but he also played SNIDELY and GLITTERS.

3rd Dave Gilligan went 2-0 +202, coming in third place as the night's sole undefeated player. He beat Lynda 406-338 in the first round, playing ROWBOAT and going out with BARNIEST for 70. Those 70 points were nearly matched by the Q and J and other unplayed goodies on Lynda's rack, as he turned a big deficit into a big win. In the second game, he beat Sue 371-273, but I can't really say any more because no bingos were played and I know no details. Let's just assume that Sue drew some bad stuff and Dave drew some good stuff. And then that was it for his night! There's something to be said for preserving a perfect record.

Helen played the word of the week, NARWALS, which is a non-standard spelling of NARWHAL or NARWHALE. A NARWHAL is an aquatic mammal that is basically a sea unicorn.

1st Charles Reinke, carrying with him the lingering stench of buffalo wings mixed with vague disappointment and cheap cologne, returned to club play with a 3-1 +302 record and secured first place. He opened with a big 461-309 win against the bingoless Bryan, while he himself played ENTREAT and SNIDEST. Following that, he upped his scoring by 10 points as he beat Thomas 471-350. In a stunning repeat of their Nationals matchup, Charles controlled the game and bingoed four times: BOINKED (v. BOINK this is a family friendly writeup, no definition), GENERALS, CREATION, and INAPTER. He had a third decisive win against Gail, scoring 489 and playing UNDERACT and FREESIAS. Things were looking good for an undefeated night, but Mary forcefully put an end to those illusions in the final match, as she crushed Charles 468-327, playing MANAGES (anagram SAGAMEN), UNSWEPT, and a killer FOLDERS for 98 late in the game. For contrast Here's the full unredacted list of bingos that Charles played: .

2nd Bryan Benwitz also went 3-1, but his spread of +54 meant that he was relegated to second place. He gave himself a big hole to work out of in the first game, as his negative 150 point margin against Charles meant he could make no more mistakes if he wanted a paragraph the next day. No one knows if he made any more mistakes or not, but he at least played well enough to beat his next three opponents. First up was Lynda, where he won on a tight board, 410-362. He then started off strong in the next game against Thomas, playing three bingos early en route to a 446-335 win. Those bingos were an opening-rack ETESIAN, DAIRYMEN, and SEALANT. He fanciest wordplay came against Gail, with the final being 410-343 in his favor, and the star of the show being his word-of-the-week find of BEEFCAKE (n. pictures of male physiques, or a male depicted in said pictures. The female analogue is CHEESECAKE).

Thomas played the relevant-to-current-events triple-triple HELITACK (n. the use of helicopters to fight forest fires) for 167 and was looking forward to winning word-of-the-week until Bryan came in and ruined everything with his BEEFCAKE.

1st Bryan Benwitz romped in the absence of a certain pair of high-scoring experts, going 4-0 +320. His first game was also his lowest-scoring, a 389-308 win against Gail Salm where he played the nice find of NITCHIE (its anagram, ICHNITE, also would have been a nice find). Gail had LIMNERS to even up the bingo count despite the loss. Bryan moved on to win a tough game against Dave Gilligan 436-394, again persevering through a game where his opponent got the same amount of bingos as he did (FISTULAE and DEXTERS for Bryan, AROINTS and STRIVED for Dave). Those skills of perseverence were put to the ultimate test in the next game against Betty Hasselkus, where Bryan was out-bingoed two (ORANGES, DEVOTION) to one (UNFRAMED) yet prevailed 413-385. This hardly shatters the conventional "bingoing is good" wisdom, but it does make one think, doesn't it? Bryan put a cap on his undefeated club session with a much larger margin of victory than his previous three games, beating Helen Flores 438-309 and playing DIPTERON and ENFORCE in the process.

2nd Aaron Bader went 3-1 +92 and scored above 400 in all his games, bringing his streak of consecutive 400-point games to...seven. He started off with a tight 441-436 victory over Mark Kenas. The fact that the played in the Collins dictionary was not apparent from their bingo lists, which contained only "conventional" words: ENIGMAS and WOORALI for Aaron vs. LENTOID and STOWAGE for Mark. Aaron then went up against Mark Kenas in round two, defeating him 487-375 thanks to bingos of ENTRANT and STOCCATI (which is not good in any dictionary except for "the dictionary of phonies that Aaron has played"). After that big win, Aaron squared off against Mark Kenas and again scored in the upper 400's, winning 477-452. However, this game was again marred by a total phony of FORECAT, to go with LOURIEST# (LOURY doesn't compare in our dictionary) and SQUALENE. Aaron went into the last round looking for the perfect 4-0, but was turned away from this goal by a rust-free Mark Kenas, 416-466. All this despite getting three bingos (NEUTRAL, RESPRANG, and TATSOIS) to Mark's single BEWHORING#.

Betty's TUTORAGE was picked as word of the week.