Blog

New Season, Same Game

1st Thomas Reinke started the new club season off right, but not as right as he could have, going 3-1 +292. He opened with a big 525-299 win against Gail, where he played VOTARESS, SHINOLA, and RECANED (dumbest RE- word ever?). A smart person would have stopped playing right then and there to maintain a 525 average on the year, but Thomas, greedy as ever, desired wins over statistical feats. To that end, he beat Charles 470-406 with his bingos of IDEALISM, UNFORGED, and TENTERS. Charles was held bingoless until the very last play, when he played VIOLATES. As they say, if you can't bingo early, bingo late, and if you can't bingo late, bingo early. In the third game, Aaron attemped to put that adage to use against Thomas, seeing a blank as his first tile, but was stymied by his remaining draw of IIRRUU. Aaron did end up striking first, with the fancy DEIFORM, but lost 387-430. Thomas' dreams of an undefeated season ended when he faced Bryan in the final game, where he lost 393-434. He played SOOTIER and RETINULA versus Bryan's ADAPTION and CONFUSED, but Bryan's late flurry of non-bingo scoring put the game away.

2nd Charles Reinke bingoed only 5 times in 4 his games, a low total for him, but still went 3-1 +228, good for second place. In the first round, he overcame an early 100-point deficit against Mary to win 414-325. His find of TAPIOCA (n. a disgusting "food" concoction) for 84 points seemed to make the difference. After falling to his brother in the second game, he faced Bryan, who he dispatched without the aid of any bingos, 373-335. Details are scarce, but it seems safe to assume that he scored points in other ways. Perhaps power tiles? Let's go with power tiles on this one. Things picked up a bit for him against Gail, where he won 487-322. He played the oddly-spelled COLISEUM as well as PROVISO in that contest.

3rd Bryan Benwitz also went 3-1, his spread of +144 putting him in third place. I haven't looked at the full standings yet, but I'm just going to assume that everyone went 3-1. Anyway, Bryan got the best of of Helen in the first game, 393-352, playing BRAINED (adj. what Bryan is) and TIPTOED against Helen's BOOGIED. Following that, he won the "most reasonable nonword of the week" prize (0 dollars) with LATCHERS* in his 444-344 win versus Mary. If you are ever tempted to play that almost-word, play TRACHLE instead. In the interest of full disclosure, Bryan also played INDIGOS and MULATTOS in that game. Just so you don't think he plays nothing but phonies. As stated in the previous paragraph, Bryan outbingoed Charles 2-0 in their third-round matchup, with NITROUS and word-of-the-week PANORAMA, but somehow lost. Luckily, he got some measure of revenge against Thomas.

Aaron "Gimpy" Bader Gimps His Way to First Place...Gimpily*

1st Aaron Bader accumulated a perfect record, winning all four of his games and ending the night with a point spread of +280. He started off strong by defeating Mary Becker 457-371, but his phony UNERECT marred an otherwise well-played game. One of his other bingos, EONISMS, was made notable by the fact that Bryan Benwitz, sitting at a faraway table, played the EXACT SAME WORD just a minute later. Spoooooooky. This temporal and proximal concomitance can only be explained by supernatural means. Aaron continued his winning ways with a dominant 515-373 win over Charles Reinke, smothering him with five bingos (MUTINEER, GRASSING, word-of-the-week ARCHAEAN, CHARNEL, DISTANT). Charles got GNARLED to avert total and complete emasculation. An encounter with Richard Lauder saw the bingo tables get flipped on Aaron, but he overcame the 1-to-3 bingo deficit to take the victory, 419-385. The losing party got down TALLAGE, RETINENE, and SHEARING, but was somehow overcome by the winner's single bingo of HORNETS. Aaron sealed his perfect record in the final game by besting Bryan Benwitz, 396-378. Some quick arithmetic reveals that Bryan's score of 378 is significantly fewer points than he scored the last time he played Aaron (cough645cough).

2nd Charles Reinke averaged 473 points per game while going 3-1 +424. Excluding the anomalous loss to Aaron in the second round, he won each of his games by over 100 points. His first play in his first game was the portentous ZANINESS for 104, played against Gail Salm; he would later add PROSSIES and ANTEDATE to his list of bingos, and take the game 486-339. Another lopsided game was played against Thomas Reinke (are they related?); the final score was 474-308. Of note was Charles' 97-point YARROWS and 80-point GRANULAR; of lesser note was Thomas' LIBELANT for 61. By this point, having blocked out the memory of his loss to Aaron, Charles was drunk on the notion of his presupposed Scrabble superiority, and won his final game against Helen Flores by a score of 560-307. His bingos were plentiful: KRATERS (n. KRATER, an ancient greek vase), DOGEARS, ENHANCES, and REFLECT.

3rd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 +233, but perhaps wished that the session ended early, as he was 3-0 +251 after three games were played. After taking out Sue Goldstein 449-256 (playing the ultra-spooky EONISMS to contribute to the win), he moved on to Thomas Reinke and coolly defeated the twin 400-365. Thomas played two bingos of OUTRANKS and SCOREPAD (both being able to be loosely tied to the Scrabble theme), while Bryan played just ISATINE (a word that cannot really be tied to the Scrabble theme since it's probably a chemical compound or something). Bryan fared similarly well against Helen Flores, winning a close game 435-412 despite challenging her 92-point WANGLED early on in the match. His own RENTIERS near the end sealed the deal. In the "FINAL ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN OF THE UNDEFEATEDS" in round four, Bryan faced off against Aaron Bader, but could not fell His Gimpiness*, despite playing two bingos (ARTISANS and the odd-looking TIRRIVEE) to Aaron's one (QUASHER).

With the ending of August and the arrival of September, the club season comes to a close. This year's club champion, with a winning percentage of 75.7% and a per-game average of 449, is none other than Charles Reinke! Rounding out the top three were Thomas Reinke (72.7% win rate, 441 average) and Aaron Bader (70.3% win rate, 424 average).

*don't play GIMPILY, it's not a word. Don't play GIMPINESS either.

What is Beauty?

1st Thomas Reinke took the top spot with his 3-1 +241 record, leaving no doubt as to who was the most attractive and charismatic person in the room. He beat Lynda 445-339 in the first round, probably because Lynda's first rack was IIRRUUW. I mean, how can someone ever recover from such a poor opening draw? It's just not possible. A close game followed against Aaron, with Thomas eventually losing 376-466. At least, it was close until Aaron bingoed out with TARTARIC. Thomas did plop down the nine-letter DITTANIES, but style points count for exactly zero real points. Against Richard, he got down three early bingoes in a row, BURNOUS (n. burnoose, a hooded cloak), OVERLAY, and EPIGENE (adj. occurring near the surface of the earth), allowing him to cruise to a 482-350 win. In the final game against Charles, Charles struck first with CITREOUS for 93 big points, Undaunted, Thomas bided his time until responding with some bingoes of his own: ORACHES, APERTURE, and a bag-emptying FRAILER. Charles had one more chance to bingo out and win, but was stymied by the J on his final two-tile draw.

2nd Aaron Bader went 3-1 +146 good for second place, but came in dead last in the club's secondary competition, "having two fully functioning arms". He got his night off to a good start against Dennis with an opening rack bingo of LECYTHI (n. LECYTHUS, an oil jar, also LEKYTHOS and LEKYTHUS). He later got down PENSILE, overcoming Dennis' bingoes of SEVERING and AIRIEST to win 467-371. You already know about his win against Thomas in the second round, but what you don't know is that in that game Aaron somehow bingoed with both a U and a W on his rack, with OUTWAIT. He also somewhat replicated that feat with a V instead of a W, bingoing with VIGOROUS. Who needs E's to bingo? Not him. Things went south for Aaron in the third game against Charles, where he  lost despite totally making up a word that's not even good in Collins. Charles didn't have the heart to challenge AVERRERS, preferring instead to bingo a bunch of times, with BOOGIES, TRIHEDRA, and FARINOSE. Aaron later tried MESQUINE*, which is good in Collins, but which Charles did have the heart to challenge off. Against Lynda in the last game, he squeaked out a 425-410 win, with both players playing two bingoes. If the bonus points you got for bingoing where the ONLY points in the game, I feel fairly confident in saying that this game would have ended in a tie.

3rd Charles Reinke went 3-0 +212 over the first three games and 0-1 -93 over the final one game, the end result being that he came in third. His demonstrated skill in finding nines paid off in his first-round match against Bryan, where he played CARAGEENS and won by 13 points, 410-397. Versus Helen, he won 461-317 while playing MATIEST and DAILIES. In addition to those bingos, he had two bingo-esque power-tile plays on triple word scores, ROQUES and TROOZ. Don't let his success with the Q trick you into thinking it's a good tile; it remains and will almost surely always remain one of the worst tiles in the game. After dispatching Helen, he beat Aaron as detailed above, and then lost to Thomas, also as detailed above. But let's just remember how unfair it was that he drew the J to go with his AENRST rack.