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A Lifetime of Word-Accumulation Culminates in 4-0 Night for Thomas Reinke

1st Thomas Reinke went 4-0 +613 using (roughly) the entirety of his acquired vocabulary, thus finishing a process started so many years ago when he uttered his first word, "geese". His first game against Andy ended narrowly in his favor, 471-371. We say "narrowly" because Andy had a chance to win at the end using the non-obvious hook for AECIA, AECIAL (adj. pertaining to aecia, duh). Thomas' second game, against Joe, was, despite only a 2-1 bingo advantage, a landslide victory, 539-254. Bingo counts can be misleading, especially when one can play SPAZ for 100+ points. For his next act, Thomas defeated longtime foe Charles, 475-382, playing SCIENCES, SHORTIE, and PARLEYS. Charles had the nice play of RINGETTE (n. a type of ice hockey for girls), another one of those Canadian-isms that got added in the latest dictionary update, but it was not enough to stop his brother's dominance. Perhaps Thomas' greatest achievement of the night was holding the bingo-prone Peter bingoless in his final win, 437-302. Timely finds of ISOLATE and ABIOSIS (n. absence of life) kept the board too closed for Peter to do his usual damange.

2nd Bryan Benwitz made the best out of an opening loss to go 3-1 +411, finding that sometimes getting put in the "loser's bracket" after the first round isn't so bad after all. His first game against Susan resulted in a 333-415 loss, with his TEARGAS no match for Susan's UNITERS and YONDERS (n. the far distance, but I don't see how it can be pluralizable?). He overcame this defeat to win his next two by almost 400 combined points, 495-279 against Mary and 439-265 against David. In his win against Mary, he played the high-scoring QUERIST (n. one who queries) for 94 points. He followed up these impressive wins with a third impressive win, this time against Charles, 485-382, aided by his acceptable-to-everybody-except-the-dictionary play of OFFROAD*. If the club starts a letter-writing campaign right now, I'm sure we can get it added to the next dictionary update.

3rd Peter Schmiedicke came in third, winning his first three and going 3-1 +132. A close win in the first round against Lynda, 415-388, was marked by his creative plays of BITMAPS (n. an array of binary data) and BONELESS (n. the kind of wing you get when you don't want to deal with bones). His second game was notable in that he bingoed with the dreaded "L-N" combo, playing the high-probability LORINER (n. a maker of implements for saddles and harnesses, also LORIMER) against Buffy. This gave way to a big 472-306 against Helen, exacting sweet, sweet revenge upon the player who had beaten him 4 times in a row prior. Peter will deny that revenge is what he sought, but we all saw the smile on his face after he won. A chance to go 4-0 and receive the highest honor of the night, the "first paragraph", was sadly stymied by Thomas, as detailed above.

Three new words (now over a year old!) were played this week: two by Charles, RINGETTE and SHEITEL, and one by Susan, YONDERS. Phony of the week goes to Dave, who played RESEXED. I can think of some funny definitions, but this is a family-friendly blog. He was probably thinking of DESEXED (v. to spay or neuter).

We welcomed three new players tonight, Paula, Basu, and Nancy. We hope that they had a good time; at the very least they all left with the nectary taste of Scrabble victory.

Andy Bohnsack Successfully Executes Plan to Score More Points than Opponents

1st Andy Bohnsack brutally trampled the winning aspirations of all four of his opponents to catapult himself solely in first place, 4-0 +305. A 390-353 victory against Charles Reinke (bingos: SOCAGER and UVEITIS) started things off well, and they only got better from there. Fast forward to the end of the fourth game, only to find that Andy had pulled off the coveted Anti-Reinke by knocking down Thomas Reinke by a score of 449-382, again with two bingos: AIGLETS and GORDITA. In between those two wins, Andy also felled Joe Horowitz, 450-337. However, that win was befouled by the shameful stench of a phony bingo, CHAIRER (CHARIER is perfectly acceptable and stenchless). Andy also played BEPAINTS and FINALES in that game, while Joe was limited to one bingo of RADIANS.

2nd Aaron Bader, coerced into playing a fourth game by dictatorial club directors, overcame his tiredness to finish 3-1 +165. Like Andy, Aaron opened the action with a solid win against strong opposition, upending Bryan Benwitz 436-353 despite being outbingoed 2-1: Bryan played THRONES and STEARIN, but Aaron's 93-point WEBSTER (n. an archaic term for a weaver) was enough to seal the deal. Aaron overcame more adversity in a 418-386 win against Charles Reinke, as Charles got down an early 149-point 3x3 of FLINGERS (the loss thus soothed by the healing salve of a five-dollar prize). Aaron's MERITING and OUTPLAYS turned out to be self-describing as Aaron fought out the win. Not all adversity is meant to be overcome, however, and Aaron was taught that lesson by Joe Horowitz in the form of a 431-379 defeat.

3rd Helen Flores crushed her yearly average by scoring 404 points per game as she finished in third place at 3-1 +37. After defeating one Reinke the previous week, she defeated the other Reinke this week, triumphing over Thomas 469-398. Thomas played LACTEAN, CYANOGEN, and ENABLERS, but Helen got down TOOTSIE as well as a punishing late-game REMIXERS for 126 points to secure victory for her own. Her 412-371 victory against Gail Salm was a little more subdued, but still a quality win, as Helen got down two more bingos, QUAKERS and DEVICES. The one blemish on her scorecard was delivered courtesy of Mr. 4-0 Andy Bohnsack, who won by a final of 466-378. Helen's ETESIAN and AITCHES did much in the way of damage prevention, but were unfortunately not quite enough to snag the win.

Aaron's SCROFULA, a type of tuberculosis, was awarded word-of-the-week honors. Both new bingos this week were played by Thomas: ARTSIES and SHITTER.

Are We Even Surprised that Thomas Reinke Went Undefeated?

1st Thomas Reinke easily toppled all opponents who dared to stand in his way, finishing with a dominant 5-0 +588 record. All of his games were successes, but the two greatest successes happened simultaneously as he defeated both Buffy Hogan and Dennis Lloyd in a two-on-one match that probably should have been expanded to four-on-one just to make things more fair. A 479-330 win over buffy saw Thomas get down MANDORLA, CRATONS, and SNAILED; that performance was echoed in a 496-274 victory against Dennis wherein Thomas played SCALENI, KERNITES, and WAGONER as his bingos. If one could find a flaw in Thomas' immaculate show of Scrabble supremacy, it would be that his eighteen-game streak of scoring over 400 was broken when he narrowly bested his brother Charles, 341-330. The unusually low-scoring game also broke Charles' streak of twelve such games. Each twin was allowed one and only one bingo: REJOICES for Charles, TONLETS for Thomas.

2nd Dave Kinzer enjoyed easily the best night of his currently short Scrabble career, playing three games without experiencing the disappointment of a loss and averaging 408 points per game while doing it. However, the entire night was almost derailed in the first round when Dave escaped with an uncomfortably close 387-386 victory versus Mary Becker. It was the only game where Dave went without a bingo, and Mary's GROWTHS for 85 points was almost too much to overcome. This close win was followed by a win with a significantly larger cushion, 423-295 against Sue Goldstein. Dave was aided by a high-scoring bingo of TALKERS for 83. To round out his night of perfection, Dave bested Susan Vergeront 415-328, thanks in part to a nice find of GENTEEL. Then, having nothing left to prove, Dave vanished into the night without giving another player a (probably futile) chance to disrupt his perfect record.

3rd Aaron Bader nudged up his roughly 66% winning percentage on the year with a 3-1 +270 record. He played the highest-scoring bingo of the night, a 116-point WASHUPS, in a 457-273 win against Gail Salm. When your bingos score that much, it's okay if that's the only one you get in the game. His most closely-fought contest (although it wasn't really all that close) came against Joe Horowitz, 451-386. Again, Aaron got only one bingo (ENCODES), but scored enough points in other ways to negate Joe's ARRESTER and GUITARS. Paradoxically, it was one of Aaron's two-bingo games that he lost: a matchup against Thomas Reinke ended unfavorably for Aaron, 486-349, despite his M-themed bingos of MORENESS and METRIST. Thomas had TADPOLE and REJOICED in response. The lifetime series between the two now stands at 13 wins for Thomas, 11 for Aaron.

Roughly a year after we started playing with the updated dictionary, three new bingos were played: TRANNIE (Charles), MANDORLA (Thomas), and RADIOES (Lynda). In the category of utterly pointless minutia, there were four bingos played containing a J after only three such bingos were played in the entire month of February.