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Peter Schmiedicke Steps Back into Scrabble Arena

1st Peter Schmiedicke returned from a month-long absence to absolutely dominate all who dared step in his path, going 4-0 +426 and averaging 479 per game. His total of fourteen bingos in four games ties a club record as far as anybody can remember. Any rust remaining on Peter's Scrabble skills was not made evident in his first-round contest against Dave Gilligan, a game which ended decidedly in Peter's favor, 512-355. Playing EMBARKED, EPIDOTE, ORALISTS, and NONPLUS, it was the first of Peter's four-bingo games. The second came against current club leader Charles Reinke, and again, it was Peter's win, 521-436. When the fists ceased their flying and the dust settled, seven bingos had been unleashed upon the board; Peter's were VIOLATE, BIRETTA, INSULAE, and word-of-the-week ZACATONS. As the evening drew to a close, Peter took part in the Ultimate Battle of Immortal Glory (i.e. a matchup between two undefeated players) along with Dennis Lloyd. It was a close-fought game, with Dennis getting down a nice UPSTREAM for 82, but Peter ended up bingoing out with MOLESTED and catching Dennis with the Q to cement the final score at 468-363. And so it was that Peter Schmiedicke attained glorious immortality by appearing in the first paragraph of the writeup.

2nd Charles Reinke went 4-1 +544, and while his per game average didn't quite match Peter's, it was close, at 473. Charles had racked up a hefty 389 spread points after the first round thanks to a two-on-one match against Gail Salm (479-305) and Mary Becker (536-321). A total of six bingos were played by Charles in those two games: EARSHOTS, PLANNING, REFUGES, DRAWINGS, TINKLIER, and the new word TEENDOM (DEMETON was previously the only word in those letters). A tough loss (described above) against Peter set Charles back a little bit, but he won his final two games to ensure that his winning percentage of 79.6% would see a slight uptick. Charles extended his winning streak against Aaron Bader to nine in a row with a 447-369 victory; Aaron only got down NITRIDS while Charles had a trio of bingos: RETURNED, ONBOARD, and MOJITOS.

3rd Thomas Reinke finished at 3-1 +271 despite playing "only" five bingos and being held entirely bingoless in two games. The first of those bingoless games was a 428-360 loss against Aaron Bader, who had three himself (TANUKIS, MOTIONAL, and VARMINTS). The second ended with a more favorable 331-288 result for Thomas, although Susan Vergeront would probably disagree with that assessment. For her part, Susan got down two bingos, SWEARING and COSTLIER. Thomas managed to get back on the rails when he was matched up against Mary Becker, playing three bingos (OILFIELD, DELATING, and SHOFARS [SHOFAR also being pluralizable as SHOFROTH]) and winning 483-259.

We had plenty of new bingos played this week: INSULAE (Peter), TEENDOM (Charles), MOJITOS (Charles again), PONCIER (Bryan), and OILFIELD (Thomas).

Charles Reinke Loses Game, Still Lands in First

1st Charles Reinke regained some of the mojo he had misplaced the previous week and, thanks to the absence of any undefeated player, came in first place with a 4-1 +724 record. After triumphing in inter-twin contests five times in a row, he was handed a loss by his brother Thomas, 457-413. In typical twin fashion, both players had two bingos: RECOPIED and DARLING for Thomas, FORESTS and ENOLASE for Charles. This loss awakened in Charles a terrible wrath, and in a subsequent two-on-one match, he won both games by a combined 540 points. A 432-251 win over Betty Hasselkus saw just one bingo played between both players (Charles' ADAPTION), but that win seemed somewhat restrained compared to the fury unleashed on the adjacent board, where Charles unleashed a crushing total of 602 upon Barb Besadny. That final score is the second-highest of the current club season, behind Aaron Bader's 627 back in September. Four bingos of URINOSE, ASYNDETA, SERRANID, and CHLORITE were instrumental in allowing Charles to climb to such dizzying scoring heights.

2nd Andy Bohnsack also finished at 4-1 with a lesser, but still quite impressive, +452 cumulative. He got his one loss out of the way quickly, falling to Helen Flores 386-348 while Helen held him bingoless, a tough feat for any opponent of Andy's to accomplish. Helen got down GLACIERS herself for an ice-cold 74 points. The pain of zero bingos would not again be inflicted upon Andy's battle-scarred flesh, although a closely-fought 442-426 win over Susan Vergeront saw his only bingo (ABELINS) turn out to be phony. LESBIAN is the real word in those letters; Andy may have been thinking of AIBLINS or ABLINGS (both sticky S's) when he made his attempt. That victory would end up being by far Andy's closest win, and Thomas would do little to challenge his offensive firepower in the course of a 352-508 loss. In this case, the bingo counts clearly do not tell the whole story; Andy had his SMOOTHIE and CITADELS countered by Thomas' DIABASE and TURNSOLE.

3rd Aaron Bader went 3-1 +156 while lamenting the pedestrian-ness of his bingos. A low-scoring 368-344 win over Gail Salm had a decent amount of combined bingos (3), but was notable in that all of them (NEUROSIS, TENURIAL, REGRANTS) scored 59 points. Given that sub-60-point bingos account for just 1.4% of bingos played at our club, that is probably some kind of record. And not a record that you would especially want to be remembered for. Thankfully, not every bingo was so impotent; in a 406-332 victory against newcomer Joe Horowitz, Aaron got down LISENTE and AUNTLIER (anagram of Gail's earlier TENURIAL) for a whopping 68 points apiece! Sadly, Thomas Reinke spoiled a second player's undefeated night when he took Aaron down by a score of 421-380 which was notable only for some well-placed jokes over the word "GONADIAL".

We had two new players join us tonight, the largest torrent of newbies we've had in a while. Both of them quickly cast off the "newbie" shackles; Joe Horowitz went 2-2 +134 and Dave Kinzer (hailing from a distant land known as "Baraboo") went 2-1 +150. Joe deserves a "best start to Scrabble career" award for downing veteran tile-pusher Sue Goldstein 500-314 in his first game.

Charles' nine-letter FAYALITES, played against Bryan Benwitz was chosen as word of the week. Fayalite is helpfully defined as "a mineral". Further research resulted in glazed eyes for the editor, so no more insight into the elusive nature of fayalite can be provided at this time. However, it can be noted that FAYALITES is a nine-letter word made up entirely of two-letter words (FA, AY, YA, AL, LI, IT, TE, ES). ADENOSINE is a higher-probability word which shares this characteristic.

Charles Reinke Excels at Board Game

1st Charles Reinke uncorked a business-as-usual 3-1 +260 record to achieve the coveted "first paragraph in writeup" award. The lowest scoring of his wins also saw him get his largest winning margin in a 453-325 win over Lynda Finn. Lynda had HEISTER for 85 but Charles' SIGHLESS and NONACTOR were a plenty powerful counterpunch. The bingos truly began to flow during a game between Charles and his brother; an out-bingo of PROTOZOA resulted in a 534-448 win for the C-Twin, but Charles had three other bingos in addition to the three that Thomas contributed. Among Charles' list of bingos was the oddly high-probability phony BOTTIES. Fourth-place finisher and paragraph non-receiver Bryan Benwitz handed Charles his only loss, 457-404. Bryan's high-scoring QUARRIES, the only Q-bingo of the evening, was the third nail in the coffin for Charles: the other two nails were DIALECTS and BRAUNITE.

2nd Aaron Bader finished at 3-1 with a somewhat lesser spread of +239, a number that would undoubtedly be higher if he were allowed to use all of the fancy Collins words that inhabit his brain. Aaron's evening started off with a whimper when Charles Reinke took him down 388-487 thanks in part to a 110-point double-double of SLEAZIER. Fortune then decided to smile on Aaron, and he pummeled Gail Salm with four bingos (EPITAXY, ELUSION, LEGONGS, and DEPOSERS) en route to a massive 556-374 victory. Simultaneous to that game, Aaron was a little more restrained in his win over Andy Bohnsack, a game which ended with a subdued 414-357 final score. A 102-point BROACHED for Aaron was apparently enough points to make up for the fact that he failed to get an additional bingo.

3rd Thomas Reinke faced a murderer's row of opponents and emerged from the struggle with an impressive 3-1 +157 record, not to mention eleven bingos. Three of those eleven (PECORINO, AREOLATE, and RESITING) were unleashed in a 447-410 opening-round win against Andy Bohnsack, but at that point, nobody had any idea that Thomas' bingo output would pretty much stay constant throughout the night. Even a loss against Charles saw Thomas get down OUTSAIL, LINEAGE, and PARAMENT (sadly never hooked to make PARAMENTA). Thomas finished up his strong performance by easily cruising past Lynda Finn, 497-361. NETTIEST, NIELLOED, and HOOPSTER comprised a trio of bingos from which a victory could not be snatched away.

Charles' PROTOZOA was selected as word of the week. No bingos from the new dictionary were played, but there was a confirmed sighting of PO, so the new words aren't totally useless.