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Cleanup in Aisle Four

1st Charles Reinke ran away with first place thanks to a perfect 4-0 +380 performance. The beginning of his perfection was a 433-325 win over Mary Becker, wherein he played REDUCES and ARTIEST. Mary later avenged that loss by taking down Thomas Reinke 353-342, but the checkmark in the "W" column of Charles' scoresheet was immutable. Charles followed up that win with his highest score of the night, a 514-347 win against Bryan Benwitz. Charles had four bingos in that contest: PAROLED, MONADES (plural of MONAS, so don't play MONADE), MAHONIAS, and the 122-point word-of-the-week QUOTABLY. A matchup against Lynda Finn was less successful in the "scoring points" department, but was equally successful in the "win the game" department, as Charles prevailed 389-308. Both bingos on the board were high-probability sevens: Charles' DOURINE and Lynda's ATONERS. Charles wrapped up his undefeated evening by duking it out with his brother Thomas in a high-scoring affair that ended 490-466 in Charles' favor. Thomas got down ATONERS (where have we seen that one before?), BANDIEST, and a 113-point PROVERS, but Charles outdid him with four bingos (AROUSED, RELINES, ELONGATE, and MATRIXES).

2nd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 +195, his one loss appropriately being given to him by the person in first place. However, no amount of later misfortune could dampen Bryan's good mood after he completely pummelled Thomas Reinke in the first round, scoring an astounding 652 (to Thomas' 424). Bryan's 652 is the fourth 600-point game this year, but it's the highest of those, and the players' combined score of 1076 is the second-highest ever since we started keeping track in 2011. Bryan's bingos in that game were BUNTERS, ETIOLATE, MARAUDS, and a 131-point triple-triple of ENTREPOT. Thomas contributed THAIRMS, GASALIER, and UNPILING to the bingo collection. Coincidentally, Gail Salm also had a triple-triple in the first round, playing a 122-point TROLLIES in a winning effort against Helen Flores. The rest of Bryan's night passed without further incident; after the loss to Charles, he defeated Gail Salm 462-331 despite getting outbingoed two to one (ENDORSEE and TAENIAS vs. CASERNES). He then finished up with an anxiety-inducing 380-377 win over Lynda Finn where he got down TANGIEST and RETIRING.

3rd Dave Gilligan averaged 408 per game, sixty higher than his season average, on his way to a 3-1 -26 finish. His nine bingos also tied his highest-ever bingo total in a session. He started off right with a close win over Thomas Reinke, 428-425, and proved the eons-old adage "two bingos are better than one" by getting down ELASTIC and OPEROSE to Thomas' singular REALEST. In the second round, he faced off against the man who would stick him with a negative spread that was never recovered from, Aaron Bader. Their game ended with a final score of 329-503, but Dave did find two bingos of TRITONS and DESALTED to ease the mild discomfort that losing tends to induce (Aaron had PRESONG, OCCURRED, and RAREFIED). Dave resumed his winning ways by holding Helen Flores bingoless in a 421-339 victory spurred by bingos of OUTAGES and STANDER (don't forget the new anagram, DARNEST!). The evening ended on a high note as he got his high game of the night against Gail Salm, 453-390. This time around, he played THREE bingos: INVADER, BUNGEES, and TALLIERS (after a failed attempt at STALLER [it's only STELLAR <nested parentheses are easy to get carried away with>]).

No Snow to Ruin Our Fun On This Night

1st Aaron Bader cruised through his allotted four games of Scrabble, winning them all and ending up with a 4-0 +306 record. He came out 37 points ahead in a high-scoring game with Lynda, the final being 453-416. He played RECORDS and ACADEMY in that one, but let Lynda get away with the not-even-good-in-Collins BRIDGERS* (n. one that bridges, not that unreasonable in my opinion). ABRIDGER is acceptable, which makes way less sense. In the second round, he upped his point total by 1 point, scoring 454 against Dave, with bingos were PROSIER, KETAMINE, and RELEASE. Remember that last one, because it's going to come up later. After beating Dave, he faced Thomas, and won a close one, 402-378, playing... RELEASE! Wow! Twice in a row! Hopefully he put an E on it for the odd-looking RELEASEE in at least one of the cases. To cap off his perfect night, he held Bryan bingoless in the final round, winning 439-341. The win marks 8 straight for him against that particular opponent; Bryan can probably look forward to better luck in other areas of his life given his unluckiness in this area. If you win the lottery, Bryan, don't forget to make a generous donation to the club!

2nd Gail Salm bingoed 11 times on the night, and was rewarded for her rack-clearing skills with a 3-1 +208 record. She outbingoed her first opponent, Charles, 2-to-1, but lost 358-412. What's the point of holding the reigning club champion to only one bingo if he's just going to win anyway? Things got better for her in the second game, as she beat Lynda 491-363. Lynda was facing two opponents in that round, but even her full attention wouldn't have stopped Gail from dropping four bingos on her: RANCOUR, LIONIZER, BLOATERS, and SALTIRE (n. a heraldic design, often called St. Andrew's Cross, also SALTIER, SAUTOIR, or SAUTOIRE). Against Betty, she bingoed three more times, with SOLVERS, PILSNER, and ROOMIES, to win 404-348. Betty herself didn't bingo, but she must have been doing some other things to keep the score that close. In the final round, she faced the similarly 2-1 Dave in a battle to see who would get the coveted "paragraph in the writeup" award. Gail's desire for the paragraph led her to a 428-350 victory, and now the award is being presented.

3rd Lynda Finn went 3-2 +139, her two losses coming to the first and second place finishers of the night. After her opening loss to Aaron, 416-453, she faced Helen and Gail in a two-on-one. One of the games was, I would guess, more enjoyable for her, and it was probably the one where she won by 150 points, while playing COGNIZE and NOONTIDE. In the third round, she faced the still-stunned-from-a-club-cancelling-amount-of-snow Richard, and won 441-376. She played LETTERER (RELETTER is also good), MARTINET, and SLEEVING in that game. All this led to a final-round game against Thomas, which she won decisively, 471-385. Thomas played ANNULOSE and TEASELS, while Lynda played BARMIEST and SLEAVED, the second of which drew a challenge from her doubtful/sad/confused/hurt opponent. Any reasonable person would know that SLEAVE means "to separate into filaments" and would definitely take the D. Lynda is now 5-5 in her last 10 against Thomas, slowly coming back from a rough start in their overall head-to-head matchup.

Helen played the word-of-the-week, SAVARIN. After much disagreement and deliberation, it was determined that it means "a yeast cake baked in a ring mold". Helen even claims that she made one, once upon a time. I'm looking at pictures of them right and they look pretty good now, to be honest.

Thomas Reinke Gloatingly Takes First, Won't Stop Telling People About It

1st Thomas Reinke was the only undefeated player in the room, and as such, was awarded first place with a 4-0 +297 finish. He started his run to perfection by defeating Aaron Bader, a player against whom he had a four-game losing streak. The score in that game was relatively low by their standards, 395-367; Aaron played DIGITATE to Thomas' REBURIES and TOADIED. Thomas picked up the scoring pace a little bit with a 439-368 win over Charles Reinke (no relation), but the game was marred by phonies from both sides. Thomas played the real-looking, very high-probability phony INTERLIE (to go with real bingos of LAMPASES and DILIGENT), while Charles' only bingo was a phony GEUMING. GEUM is a flower and is a totally different word from GAUM (which does take the -ING). GEUMING was played by Thomas a year and a half ago, which just goes to show what a disservice it can be to list the phonies that people play. This writer fully expects GEUMING to show up again in the next two years. The winning continued unabated when Thomas defeated Dennis Lloyd in a game that was close up until the very end (although the score doesn't quite bear that out), 412-358. Thomas had CLEANSED in that one, while Dennis found TALENTS. Thomas then cemented his undefeated record with his highest score yet, a 471-372 win against Dave Gilligan.

2nd Aaron Bader went 3-1 +412 (a way bigger spread than the first-place guy, but spread is not the sole determinator of placement in the standings) and had a club-leading eleven bingos. He showed considerable perseverance in getting those three wins after facing defeat in his first-round matchup against Thomas Reinke. He extended his current winning streak against Bryan Benwitz to seven by defeating him 493-371. Aaron bingoed early with SOFTEST, then got drown the dreaded bingo-bango-bongo with LANGUORS, TRIFORIA, and IDONEITY. Bryan had VENTRALS and IDEATING. Three more bingos were played against Charles Reinke in a 461-341 victory, but his extensive Collins knowledge again reared its head, and he played the Collins-only DAEDALIC in addition to the perfectly valid GREENIE and BEGONIA. DAEDAL, DAEDALIAN, and DAEDALEAN are all acceptable. Aaron finished off his comeback from a 0-1 record by defeating Helen Flores by nearly 200 points, 521-324. Helen got down REASONED, but Aaron again had a trio of bingos: ONSTAGE, GRACIOSO, and TAVERNAS. Hopefully Aaron was gracioso in victory.

3rd Mary Becker was the second-best of three players with 3-1 records (sorry Dave), finishing at 3-1 +99. Like Aaron above, Mary got her loss out of the way early, a devastating but not all-that-devastating defeat at the hand of Helen Flores, 481-311. Helen had two bingos (RENTING and UNALLIED), while Mary just had the one (REPUTES). Mary made up most of that lost spread in the very next round, taking out Sue Goldstein by a score of 433-276, aided by a bingo of ROUTERS. Her next two wins featured no bingos from either opponent, proving that a defensive style can pay off when executed correctly. The first such win was against Dave Kinzer, 354-270, putting her current streak against him at six wins. The second was against Dennis Lloyd, 339-311. Those two wins were the two lowest-scoring wins of the evening, but, last time I checked, players don't get extra wins just for scoring more points.

Dave Gilligan went 3-1 -10, and was undefeated going into the last round before he ran headlong into the brick wall that is Thomas Reinke. For his trouble he gets a small mention here.

Bryan's 98-point CHILIAST, played against the returning Richard Lauder as some kind of perverse "welcome back" gift, was chosen as word of the week.