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Charles Reinke Finds 1st Place Throne Very Comfortable

1st Charles Reinke went undefeated for the first time since early November, finishing at 4-0 +599. Most of his spread total came from a pair of 200-point victories. The first came against the always-amiable Dave Gilligan, with a final score of 469-263. Dave played STRIDERS, one of the four bingos he got on the night, but was outgunned by Charles' OCTANES and SIDERITE (n. a mineral, not related at all to SYBARITE). Then, in the final game of the evening, Charles crushed Andy Bohnsack 533-315. This was payback for Andy's similarly-ruthless drubbing of Thomas Reinke in the previous round. Against Charles, Andy found APPRAISE, but Charles responded with a bingo triad of his own making: ESOTERIC, RIDGELS, and ROTATES. His other two wins came against the players following him in the standings; in other words, he was responsible for the ruining of two players' perfect evenings.

2nd Bryan Benwitz again finds himself in a coveted top-3 position after a 3-1 +488 showing, his beardly presence an increasingly frightening sight for those above him in the standings. In his opening victory against Andy Bohnsack, Bryan played two seasonally-appropriate words, MITTENS and SAUNAED. For his efforts, he gets to play his next club game in a sauna while wearing a pair of mittens. A game against Charles Reinke did not end so favorably, despite a good omen in the form of CONQUERS, with Bryan losing 397-479. A final game against Betty Hasselkus saw a trio of bingos for Bryan, AEOLIAN, which sounds like something you'd play on a guitar, BIOTRON, which sounds like the name of a video game, and OUTKILL, which, well, you know.

3rd Mary Becker, going 3-1 +20, found herself in third place as a large clump of players became stranded at the 2-2 mark. She fell to Charles Reinke in her only bingoless game of the night, 337-430. Charles had the odd-looking but pleasant-tasting GUAIACOL, which is a flavorful chemical. Against Susan Vergeront, Mary sent her opponent packing with a 402-358 victory highlighted by a 90-point DEWIEST. Susan scored just a fraction of that with her play oF FRACTION for 71. However, the real highlight came against Thomas Reinke, who Mary beat for the first time since 2013. It was a true nail-biter, with both players' fingernails gnawed to bloody tatters as Mary squeaked by, 406-403. Her bingo of RUMORED is rumored to have been the cause of her triumph.

We welcomed newbie Michael Siebers to our ranks last night. Hopefully he comes back to throw around more words with us. Andy Bohnsack got word of the week with the nine-letter ABASHEDLY, played through disconnected letters. According to second-hand reports muddled by interminable layers of hearsay, the two letters were the first A and the S. Also, in other bingo-related news, Aaron played the triple-triple GORAMIES# (only a word in the British dictionary, although we do have GOURAMIS and GOURAMIES in ours). It was decided among the inner circle of club elite to give him the four dollars anyway.

Bryan "Opponents Cryin' " Benwitz Blows By Opposition

1st Bryan Benwitz averaged 456 points per game while going a perfect 4-0 +363. He scored above the 400 mark in all of his games while simultaneously holding all his opponents under that same mark. His closest game was also the only one where got three bingos, a 429-374 win against Mary Becker. Bryan held a monopoly on the bingos that game, playing MAFTIRS, CRAFTER, and the phony VINELIKE (VEINLIKE is good). The big score was saved for the final, deciding game against Andy Bohnsack, where Bryan prevailed 543-399. Andy fought hard with his triple-triple of GYNOECIA for 158 points, a strong candidate for word of the week, but Bryan had his own 158-point triple-triple, SWATTERS, to negate Andy's big play. Bryan also played GENITIVE and later drew a challenge by hooking an S onto it. Both players earned four dollars for the triple-tripling skills.

2nd Charles Reinke averaged a healthy 476 points per game, with his titanic +628 spread making him the top 3-1 player by a large margin. He offered his clock-cleaning services to Lynda Finn in the first game of the evening, triumphing in a lopsided 578-244 contest. The C-Twin had four bingos of GENITORS, CERASTES (a creature of Greek legend, CERASTES is the singular, so CERASTE is no good), DETOXIFY, and MINGLED. Charles also broke a seven-game losing streak against his brother in violent fashion, cruising to a 483-328 win. The bingos were somewhat pedestrian, but bingos are bingos: Thomas played DOOMIER, Charles played INANEST, STUNNED, and STIRRER. Andy Bohnsack was the player responsible for the unsightly mark in the "L" column, taking down the otherwise high-scoring Charles 381-327.

3rd Helen Flores continued her recent run of improved play with an impressive 3-1 +99 outing, beating Aaron Bader for third place by just six spread points. Her big win came against Sue Goldstein, 396-281, thanks in part to her bingo of SULLENER. One bingo not being enough, Helen then got two of them, AIRIEST and OUTFACE, in a game against Betty Hasselkus which she won 410-360. Betty had SENIORS to counteract Helen's own bingoing efforts. Helen's performance is even more impressive when you consider that she started the evening 121 points in the hole after a 279-400 drubbing at the experienced hands of Barb Besadny.

Aaron Bader and Andy Bohnsack also went 3-1. Aaron snapped a seven-game losing streak against Mark Kenas by winning his last three games of the night. Gail Salm played the excellent BULLDOZE against Thomas Reinke, earning her word of the week.

Mark Kenas Beats Up Aaron Bader for Lunch Money

1st Mark Kenas played three games of Collins against Aaron Bader and was victorious in all of them. He has now won eight of the last nine against Aaron. They fought to a high-scoring finish in the second game, with Mark winning 471-458, thus perpetuating the stereotype that all Collins games feature obscenely high point totals. Mark played DIMPLIER, DANCERS, and the collins-only ROTTENS# (anagram for us plebs: STENTOR); Aaron had SLOTTER, GASTRAEA, and METAIRIE#. Their final matchup somehow ended with nobody reaching the 400-point mark, a feat which should be impossible when you can play words like ZO, JA, and ETAERIO. A disappointing final score of 397-371 was due to only one bingo for each player: TEMSING# for Mark and AUCTION (now there's a normal word) for Aaron.

2nd Charles Reinke finished at 3-1 +330. He got off to a blazing-hot start, with his record after two games being 2-0 +377, but was unable to finish the job. In the first game, he took down Chris Vergeront 475-304. Chris had EGESTION, but Charles had a trio of bingos that trumped Chris': OCTROIS, INLAYERS, and UPDRAFTS. An even larger win was in store for Charles in the next round, when he faced birthday girl Helen Flores. Again, the bingo count was 3-1, and again, Charles was on the higher side of that equation. Helen played TEARIEST; Charles found ATTAINER, BEDPANS, and OVERTIME.

3rd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 +260 and averaged a cool 457 points per game in the process. He had two valid bingos in all of his games, but one phony marred the perfect symmetry of the evening. Not for the first time, he achieved the rare anti-Reinke by beating both Reinke twins, this time back-to-back. First, he took down Thomas Reinke 474-361 on the back of his bingos RETIRES and TENSILE (Thomas had EARINGS and DRAGONET). Then, amped up from that victory, he went into his game against Charles with all guns blazing and came out with a huge 545-414 win. That was the game where he phonied, playing OVERRIGS to go with the valid ASTHENIA and TONIEST. Charles let OVERRIGS go because it gave him a spot for his triple-triple LOCUSTAL (n. LOCUSTA, a type of flower cluster) for 149 points. Charles also had SECTILE in that game for far fewer points. Lynda Finn was the one who stepped up to the challenge of preventing a perfect night for Bryan, with Lynda getting a 412-369 win.

Peter Schmiedicke played the word of the week, PLANKTER (the singular of PLANKTON, although PLANKTONS is still a word).