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Bryan Benwitz Repeats

1st Bryan Benwitz followed up his victorious session last week with an even more dominating performance this week, going 4-0 +219. He flexed his bingo muscles early in his 396-297 win over Susan, wasting little time in playing the vowel-heavy Word of the Week, FILARIAE (n. FILARIA a parasitic worm). A close endgame in the second round resolved in his favor against Thomas, with him winning 411-406. His bingos of REPLETE and EPSILONS were helpful, but a late high-scoring J play sealed the deal. An abnormally low-scoring 345-333 over Aaron was aided by his dual phonies of CORDOBAN (an erroneous combination of CORDOBA (n.a monetary unit of Nicaragua) and CORDOVAN (n. a fine leather)) and SLOTHED. I figure that once one knows as many words as Bryan does, some are bound to get corrupted in the archives. Bryan's perfect night was on the line against Joe, but, showing supreme poise and confidence, he again came out the winner, 452-349. It is known amongst the club membership that losing to a Reinke constitutes getting "Reinked". Perhaps it is time to coin a new term, "Benwitzed"? Just something to think about.

2nd Thomas Reinke, after failing to place last week, returned to Attic Angels with vengeance on his mind, going 4-1 +673. His first-round matchup against Joe was marked by a 3-0 advantage in bingos, with him winning 440-342. (Joe had the same thing happen in his next game against Gail, but managed to win himself, so maybe bingos aren't everything? Nah, they're everything.) Enraged by his loss to Bryan, Thomas took out his frustrations on Lynda and Barb in the third round, winning the games of the two-on-one by a combined 504 points. On a night of prosaic bingos for Thomas, his play against Barb of ERRHINE (n. a substance that promotes nasal discharge, GROSS!!!!!) stands out. The traditional "fourth round brother battle" ended in his favor, 446-380. The most notable occurrence of that game was an early board configuration (apologies for formatting):

  A
AJEE
   I

I don't know, I thought it was neat. Or something.

3rd Charles Reinke followed up his 2rd place performance last week with a 3rd place performance this week, marking the start of a disturbing trend which clearly signals a deterioration of his game. Pulling double duty in the first game, he distributed his bingos unequally, playing 3 against Gail and none against Dave, resulting in a loss. Dave found the nice word APLOMBS to help ensure the win. A total of 6 bingos were played in his 519-370 win against Lynda, OUTRIDER (n. a mounted attendant who rides beside a carriage), STIMIED, ALIENATE, and MELTONS for Charles, BEPAINT and INTONING for Lynda. He then stimied David's chance at a perfect night, defeating him 488-268. Charles' play of ETIOLATE (v. to whiten) made a large difference; bingoing without having a "bingo rack" can swing games quickly.

No new bingos were played this week, but a whole bunch of old bingos were played, so no biggie.

Bryan Benwitz: "Fear the Beard"

1st Following in the proud tradition of great bearded sportsmen like Brian Wilson and James Harden, Bryan Benwitz used the power contained within his facial hair to go 3-1 +325 and seize first place. It was no coincidence that in his first game, matched up against a beardless Susan, that he came out on top, 454-327. Nor was it pure chance that, when faced with Thomas' inferior goatee, he was victorious again, 437-337, aided by a bingo-bango-bongo of ADVECTS, NUTTERS, and PALINODE. The pattern continued in the third game, where Charles' five o'clock shadow was overcome by Bryan, 454-348. Bryan's opener of HISTORY (not to be confused with HERSTORY) was, sadly, not extended to PREHISTORY, though both combatants had the opportunity. A chance for an undefeated night was foiled by Gail, 404-412, proving that playing with the spirit of the beard, as Gail did, is sometimes just as good as possessing the genuine article.

2nd Charles Reinke encountered a "murderer's row" of opponents and managed to cobble together a 3-1 +205 record, a result befitting the club's win-percentage and average score leader. A normally explosive matchup between him and Aaron ended in Charles' favor, 394-297, with only two bingos being played, UDOMETER (n. a rain gauge) and KAOLINES. The bingo count was more impressive in his next contest against Andy, with Charles playing 4 to Andy's 2 in a 467-376 win. As mentioned above, his game with Bryan did not end well for him, but he made up for it by defeating his doppelgänger Thomas in the final game, 482-358. His play of SQUIRREL in that game would win a hypothetical "cutest word of the week" prize, unless you think CANINES are cuter.

3rd Gail Salm calmly won her final 3 games to come in 3rd place, 3-1 +140. Her night got off to a bad (although how could any night be bad when it's spent playing Scrabble? Am I right?) start, with her losing to Sue 343-366 despite a nice find of UNTONED (adj. lacking muscular definition). Things picked up for her starting in the second game, a 428-340 win over Helen, a win that featured the double-Y word-of-the-week-winning ENTRYWAY. An impressive play for someone who, and I quote, "normally hates Y's!". In the third game of the night, victory was earned against Barb, 420-353, with her ENSUITE and TENNERS (n. a ten dollar bill, FIVER is also good) besting Barb's ROADIES (new anagram RADIOES). As previously stated, she managed to squeak by the then-undefeated Bryan, her play of SPINDLER (n. one who spindles, how helpful) drawing a challenge in a deciding moment of the game.

A bunch of new words were played this week: STINGES (Charles), UNTONED (Gail), ENSUITE (Gail), DUDETTES (Thomas), TOUPIES (Thomas).

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.