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Charles Reinke Excels on Small Stage Before (Hopefully) Excelling on Slightly Larger Stage

1st Charles Reinke assembled a dominant 4-0 +717 performance, a good omen for possible success at the National Scrabble Championship in Fort Wayne, IN, which starts on Saturday. Charles averaged a splendid 478 points per game (to his opponents 298!) and played three bingos in each of his four games. His highest-scoring game was a 505-283 drubbing of Bryan Benwitz, who, like all of Charles' opponents, got significantly out-bingoed, 3-1. Charles' three bingos were AIRGLOWS, EROTIZES, and DESTINE. That margin of 222 was Charles' best; his second best margin was also the game in which he scored the least, 455-260 against Dave Gilligan. Charles played SHEITEL (new anagram of SHELTIE), SENOPIA, and EMOCORE. EMOCORE (a type of rock music) would have been word of the week except for Dave's later triple-triple of INVEIGHS for 194 points, played against Andy Bohnsack.

2nd Gail Salm continued her recent trend of strong play with a 3-1 +341 record, averaging 434 points per game. Her scores in her wins were 441, 448, and 465. The 465 was unkindly unleashed against Betty Hasselkus, who scored 259. Gail's bingos were HAIRIEST and ATONIES, the latter of which is now tied with AIRIEST for most-played bingo at the club with 24 occurrences each. Gail's sole loss came against Bryan Benwitz, whose 102-point FIERCER was able to withstand Gail's TERTIANS and HINTERS.

3rd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +232, which, while not exactly being a "good" omen for Nationals, is still a "pretty good" omen. The real good omen was getting five, count-em-five bingos against Andy Bohnsack (TEASELED, SQUIRTED, BANISHES, AUTOMAN, and POTENCES) while cruising to a 521-393 victory. The one black mark on his scorecard was supplied by none other than second-place finisher Gail Salm, who took Thomas down by a score of 448-400 thanks to an out-bingo of WHITENED. Thomas did get to play CONTROLS, LEISURE, and ELEMENT, so he had his fun despite the loss.

Good luck to Thomas, Charles, and Buffy, who will be playing at Nationals. Live coverage can be found here starting Saturday: http://event.scrabbleplayers.org/2016/nasc/build/index.html . Congratulations to Helen Flores and Lynda Finn for their performances at the Word Cup in Phoenix!

As Thomas Stared Into the Scrabble Board, the Scrabble Board Stared Back At Him

1st A furibund Thomas Reinke rebounded from an opening defeat with furious fury, ending up at 3-1 +618. After losing 392-398 to Bryan, he retreated into the darkest corner of his mind. What demented things he saw there, no one will ever know; all we know is that he returned, stony faced, to unleash bingo fury on his next two opponents, winning those games by a combined 500 points. First, against Darcy, he played SURFERS, ANTIROCK (adj. opposed to rock music), DIORITE, BURIALS, and SEAPLANE (anagram SPELAEAN) while scoring 611. Then, against Dennis, he played four more rack-clearers: DOZIEST, SONSIEST, ACCENTED, and PRONATED. This torrent of bingos must have had a calming affect on him; he only bingoed once against Charles, but still managed to win comfortably, 441-349.

2nd Charles Reinke came in second at 3-1 +174, failing to narrow the already narrow gap between him and his brother in the yearly standings. He started off with a 453-372 win against Gail, playing GAYNESS and the word-of-the-week, MOVIEOLA (n. a device for viewing and editing film, more commonly MOVIOLA). Gail, for her part, played two nice bingos added in the last dictionary update, DEMENTI and LORNEST. In the second round against Dennis, Charles got out-bingoed 3-1, NAUSEATE, SPLURGER, and INDICTER thrown down on the board in front of him while all he could manage was NACELLE, but still earned a close win, 398-391. Against Bryan, in the process of winning 524-346, he played the "why-the-hecking-heck-is-that-a-word" of-the-week, GOADLIKE (adj. resembling a goad, seriously, what the heck?).

3rd Bryan Benwitz, in typical Bryan fashion, went 3-1, but in non-typical Bryan fashion, only played 4 bingos while doing so, far beneath his average. His feat of toppling two formidable opponents with only a bingo per was impressive: He beat Thomas with only BORNITES for 60, and then beat Andy with only LODESTAR for 59. After losing to Charles, he beat Helen 473-332, playing OAKIEST and GREENER. In the end, he proved a known Scrabble truism: the only thing that matters is scoring more points than your opponent, and there is more than one path to doing so.

Good luck to Helen and Lynda as they venture to Phoenix (great time of year for it, am I right?) for the Word Cup, which starts on Saturday. Live coverage will be available here: http://director.victoriascrabble.org

Scrabble Tiles Desire Nothing More Than To Be Arranged Into Words; Charles Obliges

1st Charles Reinke followed up a successful weekend performance with a successful-er performance on Wednesday night, going 4-0 +460. He scored 476 in both of his opening two games, the first against Joe, the second against Lynda. Against Lynda, he got down two nice bingos, CABOTAGE and NITINOL (n. a nickel-titanium alloy). His third game versus Thomas was the usual bingo-fest: Charles got GUSHIER, MALARIAN, and JETBEADS (n. an ornamental shrub), while Thomas got LINNIES and ACARIDAN. Fun fact: MALARIAN and ACARIDAN have exactly the same probability of being drawn out of the bag! Fine, maybe that wasn't a very fun fact. Whatever. I thought it was cool. Anyway. In the final game, for the second week in a row, Charles faced Gail to determine who would earn first place. Last week it was Gail who came out on top; this week, Charles won decisively, 451-328.

2nd Thomas Reinke went 4-and-Charles +296, managing to maintain a slim lead on his brother in the yearly club standings. Pulling double duty in the first round, he beat Helen and Mary, despite getting out-bingoed 3-2 against Mary. Thomas played ERMINES (bonus multimedia section: if you search "Ermine in a tree" on YouTube, you will find a very cute video) and VEDALIAS (not to be confused with VIDALIAS), while Mary played PAROLING, TWISTERS, and FRUITIER. In the second game, Andy's early EQUATES used up all of his luck, while Thomas drew a bunch of bingos for a 472-329 win. After losing to Charles, he beat Richard in a low-scoring 361-302 contest. Only two bingos were played in that sad, horrible excuse for a Scrabble game: Richard played the ever-useful ANISOLE and Thomas got down PARKIEST (adj. chilly).

3rd Joe Horowitz went out (nearly) on top, going 3-1 +160 in his final night as a regular attendee at our club. He bingoed twice against Charles in the first game, with TURDINE (adj. of, relating to, or characteristic of thrushes) and WINTLES, and lost 377-476. Then, going against all preconceived notions about Scrabble, he bingoed only once in each of his next three games, but won them all! I can feel the paradigms shifting as I type. We all wish the best of luck to Joe at med school, but urge him to remember that Scrabble is to be made the first priority, always and forever, no matter what.

Mark played the word of the week, DUNGHEAP (n. self-explanatory). In other news, congratulations to Charles for winning division one at this weekend's tournament, Lynda for coming in second, and double congratulations to Darcy for dominating division three in undefeated fashion.