Blog

"TILES FOR THE TILE GOD"

1st Thomas Reinke unloaded an impressive fourteen bingos in five games, with the plethora of bonus plays leading him to a 4-1 +627 record. His low game of 446 is a good indicator of how well his night went. That 446 came against Helen Flores as part of a two-on-one match; the other half of that two-on-one was a 495-280 victory against Barb Besadny where Thomas got down four bingos: LAVATERA, DETRITAL, ATTACKED, and PENSION. Somehow this winning margin was improved upon in the following game versus Bryan Benwitz, a game which was being played for all the marbles (not just some of them or even a majority of them). Thomas squelched the hopes of the usually high-scoring Bryan, forcing him to score a lowly 280 (sound familiar?) compared to Thomas' lofty 498 (reached with the aid of BOGARTS, COEDITOR, and EUGENIAS). Even Thomas' loss was high-scoring; so high-scoring, in fact, that it tied with two other games for highest loss of the year at 481. Aaron Bader, the winning party, scored 497. Both players had three bingos: DEMONIST, TOWERING, and IDEATIVE for Aaron, INWARDS, PLUMULE, and the triple-triple AUSPICES for Thomas.

2nd Lynda Finn also had a successful night in regards to bingos, filling up her scorecard with twelve such plays on her way to a 4-1 +372 record. Like Thomas, she was involved in a barn-burner with Aaron Bader, but, unlike Thomas, she prevailed, 497-436. The tiny little box in which to write her bingos was barely large enough to fit them all, but in the end they were all recorded: LIBRATED, NAIVETE, SECTION, and FOAMERS. Aaron contributed MARLIEST, HANSELED, and ANDROGEN to the bingo party. Lynda then cooled down slightly, playing only three bingos (TIERCEL, DIASTOLE, and RETUNES) and scoring only 483 points in a win against Peter Schmiedicke. Her 311-409 loss against Charles Reinke was the only game in which she didn't score 400 or higher, as well as the only game where she failed to bingo multiple times (PEERIES was her lone bingo in that game).

3rd Bryan Benwitz continued his recent run of strong play (no finish less than 3-1 in over a month), going, you guessed it, 3-1 with a spread of +40. His spread after three games was a more-impressive +268, but the previously-described loss to Thomas undid much of that good work. A 477-288 win over Betty Hasselkus was Bryan's high score of the evening. Bryan had a double-double DISLIKES and a nine-letter INSTARRED (v. INSTAR, to adorn with stars) as his bingos in that one, but those two bingos disappointingly accounted for half of his bingo output for the night. In a matchup against newcomer John Wedgewood, Bryan had a slightly tougher time, but came out of the fray with a 413-376 victory firmly in hand. Each combatant had just one bingo: John's POISONER and Bryan's VERSION. John honed his Scrabble chops at the club in Winnipeg and even played a few tourneys, so his final record of 2-2 -119 should come as no surprise!

Aaron Demonstrates That Knowing All the Nine-Letter Words Can Be Useful

1st Aaron Bader put together a dominant evening despite the swirl of British-dictionary words clouding his mind, going 4-0 with a huge 760 spread. After gaining 361 points of that spread in one fell swoop against Barb, he faced the tough trio of Thomas, Bryan, and Charles, easily beating each in turn. In his 433-372 victory against Thomas, he played the beautiful word-of-the-week 9-letter double-double CREPITANT (adj. having or making a crackling sound) for 104 points. In his next game, a 467-294 win against Bryan, he played another (though slightly more prosaic) nine, TOLLGATES, as well as another double-double, ONCOGENE (n. a gene that causes a cell to become cancerous). For his final act, he dominated club-leader Charles 513-348, playing the nice ACARIDAN (anagram ARCADIAN).

2nd Bryan Benwitz, after coming in first the last two weeks, had to settle for second, going 3-1 +291. Like Aaron, he opened with a huge win, 537-236 against Helen, playing INTERNED, AORISTS, SEPALOID, and the excellent HEMPSEED (n. the seed of hemp, what, you were expecting something else?). All that bingoing must have tired him out, as he only bingoed three more times the whole evening: twice against Mary, and once in a final-round 387-370 win over Andy. Reminder to club members: when you bingo four times in a game, it is expected that you bingo AT LEAST 6 times in your next game.

3rd Peter Schmiedicke went 3-1 +232, successfully keeping either twin from the top three for the third consecutive week. A bingo-sparse 370-414 to the T-Twin gave way to three straight wins, the first against Andy, 466-420. Unlike his game with Thomas, this one was satisfactory to bingo-lovers everywhere: Peter played ADROITLY, TRENCHER, SOUPIEST, and LATRINES, while Andy played OILCANS and the phony VEXATES* (only VEXATION is good). He followed this up with a win against Richard 451-316, and a win against Gail, 434-339. Hopefully this streak of good play follows him to Elmhurst, Illinois, where he and a few other club members are playing the Arden Cup this weekend.

The bingo-king/queen title was hotly contested with Aaron, Andy, and Gail all notching 10 bingos. If only we had a three-sided coin to settle this dispute.

The King is Dead, Long Live The King

1st Bryan Benwitz seized the first place crown for the second week in a row, going 4-0 +255. His first game against David was low-scoring, 361-342, with his finds of PEAVIES and TREASON barely getting the job done against his opponent's bingoless assault. (In dorky bingo news, the word TREASON has now been played a measly four times, compared to 13 for its anagram, ATONERS. This proves what we already all knew: -ERS bingos are the best!) An incorrect challenge of Charles' ETHINYL in the next round, while a grievous and wholly inexcusable error, ended up mattering little as he won that game against the club leader, 435-418, playing the bingos RERAISES, PULLEYS, and INTAKES for 101 big points. His string of close-ish wins continued against Dennis, 424-389, despite being outbingoed 3 to 1. His string of close-ish wins then ended with a total shellacking of Thomas, 513-300, featuring  EDIFICES, SPARRING, and a somewhat embarrassing phony of ENSTATE*. The only consolation for Thomas is that this is not his worst defeat ever at the hands of a Madison club member.

2nd Richard Lauder's 3-1 +321 record earned him a place on the podium for the first time in a few weeks. His first-round loss to Andy gave way to three consecutive wins, the first against Susan, 401-348. He followed that up with a solid victory over Dave, 460-279, his power-tile bingo of EXPORTS for 122 overcoming Dave's power-tile bingo of QUINTES (n. the fifth of eight fencing positions. The other seven are also acceptable in Scrabble: PRIME, SECONDE, TIERCE, QUARTE, SIXTE, SEPTIME, and OCTAVE). His bloodlust, however, was not sated by this big win, and so he decided to tally another one, this time 476-305 against Lynda. Lynda's crude drawing of a sad face in her bingo column on the scorecard told the whole, tragic, story.

3rd Andy Bohnsack came in third with a 3-1 +245 record. His first game against Richard proved, ultimately, to be his downfall: if he had won by only 40 more points, he would have come in second instead of third! Keep that in mind next time you lazily play the end of an already won game! Despite only a 2-1 bingo edge, he soundly defeated Barb in his second game, 477-273, playing TOURNEYS and ANTIARS (n. an arrow poison). In the third game, his bingos of HERNIAS and FINGERS were not nearly enough against Thomas' V-bingo assault of THRIVEN, INACTIVE, and INVOICE. He did manage to win against Dennis 435-325, but, again, because of his unneeded compassion against his first opponent, has to settle for third on the night.

David played the word of the week, TEETOTAL. In other bingo news, everyone who came to club had at least two bingos, likely a first for the club! Good work everyone!