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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.

The Bryaniac Returns to Winning Ways

1st Bryan Benwitz slashed and burned his way through 4 unworthy opponents, going 4-0 +386, ending a 7-week streak of Reinke domination. He made quick work of Dennis Lloyd in his first game, helped in large part by his play of LIBRATES (rhymes with VIBRATES). He then overcame having unplayable bingos on his first rack of DEIRSTV (there are two; can you find them?) against Andy Bohnsack to win 380-373. That game featured the nice extension of STOMATE (a type of pore) to OSTOMATE (one who has had an colostomy, or any other type of OSTOMY). After soundly defeating Gail Salm in his third game on the back of three bingos, he faced Thomas Reinke, against whom he had lost 15 of the last 16, and crushed him underneath his beard, 419-360.

2nd Thomas Reinke found out that even if he is lucky enough to avoid his brother over the Scrabble board, he still remains cursed to come in second place for all eternity, going 4-1 +417. He pulled double duty in the first round, facing Dave and Adrienne, winning each contest by 62 points. Dave, in the manner of a true sportsman, kindly opened the perfect letters for Thomas' bingos: first an O for PARERGON, and then a C for LINGUICA (a type of Portuguese sausage, normally spelled LINGUIÇA, but the Ç tile was mysteriously absent from that game). He then served as a Redeye warmup for Helen Flores, who put up a good fight, losing 373-402. The game might have been different for her had Thomas not played TRUSTEED, a word that she had just played the round before and had the challenge adjudicated by none other than Thomas himself! A four-bingo contest came next, with him winning 585-262, featuring SILIQUAE for 66 points, a score which would have been 60 points higher had the Q not been a blank.

3rd Dennis Lloyd won three games, going 3-1 +51, good enough for third place. Coincidence? I think not. After losing his first game to Bryan, he resolved to never lose again for the rest of his life; I'd say he's off to a good start. The first victim in this new "Pax Dennisa" was Sue Goldstein, where he played POSTURE and STATION in a 412-288 win. He then faced the current club leader, Charles Reinke, and won, of course, because what else is he going to do, 437-428, helped by a timely bingo of INVADING. Not content with dethroning the tyrant, he decided to test his luck by phonying against the ever-skeptical Andy Bohnsack, with SELENOID* (which could mean 'a metal similar to selenium', but has the actual definition of 'N/A') in his low-scoring 354-340 win.

A bunch of new bingos were played this week: LUNATES, LORNEST, DERACINE, PIANOLA (how was that not good before?), and the extremely fancy 95-point PROPYNES by Charles, which was chosen as word of the week, and also as "Definition of the week", with the helpful "a gaseous methyl acetylene". What does that even mean?