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Undefeated is Undefeated, Even If You Only Play Three Games

1st Andy Bohnsack showed up late, but his lateness did not faze him, as he finished 3-0 +238.  There was no shortage of bingos for Andy, with nine of them finding their way from his rack to the board.  Against Leslie Seltzer,  he bent the will of the tiles to match his own will, and as a result of this sorcery, won 466-369 with four bingos: NOTICER, SABRING, RELATES, and UNWASTED.  Leslie, not having such control of the tiles, only got to play REDOING.  A streaking Peter Schmiedicke was Andy's next target, with Peter's nine wins in a row proving not to be the intimidating force that he had hoped.  Their match ended 457-418 in Andy's favor despite a 2-3 bingo disadvantage: Andy had DRAGNETS and VARIATE; Peter, SEMOLINA, ENROOTS, and EVENTFUL.  Andy finishes the year with a strong 428 per-game average, his highest yearly average yet.

2nd Charles Reinke went 3-1 +418, a 75% winning percentage that is suspiciously close to his yearly mark of 75.6%.  He had a four-bingo game of his own when he turned away the grizzled Richard Lauder, 480-376.  Richard put up a good fight considering that he was unable to procure bingo-friendly tiles for the entire game; such tiles were monopolized by Charles, who used them to play RADICES, TOLANES, TOWNWEAR (n. apparel that is suitable for wearing in the city), and CRAYONER.  Charles achieved his seventh-highest score at club when he totaled a jaw-dropping 585 points against Bryan Benwitz, who was limited to 283.  Bryan had the nice find of GEOTAXIS (n. the movement of an organism in response to gravity, plural GEOTAXES), but it was simply not enough to counteract Charles' RISTRAS and his huge triple-triple of DIRIMENT (adj. nullifying) for 176 points.  Bryan would later get a twisted sort of revenge when he played his own 3x3 of COMMONER against Betty Hasselkus.  Predictably, Thomas Reinke was the player who was able to disrupt Charles' winning ways, with their bout ending 375-419.

Charles' total win-loss record of 160-51 easily snagged the club championship for the second year running, and his average of 447 looks to be the highest in club history.  Next week begins a new chapter in the Madison Scrabble Club's illustrious record book.

3rd Lynda Finn had a 3-1 +221 record, beating out Peter Schmiedicke for third place by a mere 15 points of spread.  She scored exactly 442 points in two separate games, once against Barb Besadny (who scored 326) and Mary Becker (who scored 322).  With that many points, she also had plenty of bingos, with ECTASIS (n. the lengthening of a usually short syllable), UNWOOED, AVERTED, TISSUES, and TRIENES coming down.  The normally high-scoring Thomas Reinke was held to a lowly 322 points by Lynda's strict defensive principles; she scored 407 herself, with the aid of her bingo, IDEALIZE.  The undefeated Andy Bohnsack ended Lynda's mini-streak at just three wins,  375-475.

Sue Goldstein Also Goes For Hat Trick

1st Sue Goldstein averaged 348 points per game on her way to a perfect 3-0 +157 performance.  A 345-286 win over Aki Miura proved to be a good way to start the evening, and a 324-281 victory against June Scott proved to be a good way to end it.  Sue finishes the year first in the Intermediate division, having needed to win all three of her games to overtake Harwinder Dowd by just two-tenths of a percent, 54.4% to 54.2%.

2nd Sharlie Miura split her two games but bingoed in each, finishing 1-1 +40.  She scored her second-highest score this year when she took down June Scott 378-283, using her bingo of LAUDING to take an insurmountable lead.  Sharlie then played SEATING against Sue Goldstein's DENTING, but lost the match 319-374.

Barb Besadny had the great find of UPTOWNS (with a blank U) for word of the week.  It's the opposite of a DOWNTOWN and somewhat removed from a MIDTOWN.

Peter goes 5-0 +460, and plays the word of the day, VOMITORY. A web search on VOMITORY reveals it to be a Sweedish Death Metal Band. Lynda misses the triple-triple DOLCETTO and Peter misses the triple-triple UNGARBED.

Bryan Benwitz on Prisoners: "I Don't Take Any"

1st Bryan Benwitz's 4-0 +567 performance easily bested all others' feeble attempts at playing the game of Scrabble.  He averaged a hefty 457 points per game while allowing only 315 for his opponents.  In alignment with the old adage, Bryan saved his best for last, defeating Andy Bohnsack 523-309 in the final round to lock up his perfect record.  Andy was unable to get down a bingo, but Bryan got three of them to make up for it: GROANERS, CONNIVES, LAZURITE.  Thomas Reinke came nearest to defeating the Unstoppable One, fighting to a 385-407 finish that saw an abundance of bingos: SUBEDIT and BENZOATE for Thomas, LANDINGS, SEROTINE, and SCIENCE for Bryan.  For those keeping score at home, that's two three-bingo games for Bryan, but that's not all!  A third three-bingo game came against Barb Besadny: LITOTES, SUDSIER, and CANNIEST.

2nd Jordan Parker achieved his first undefeated night at club since his debut back in April, going 3-0 +185.  Ignoring the old adage, Jordan had his best performance in the first game, beating Betty Hasselkus 403-327.  His bingos were TRITONE and the nice find of AEROLITH.  Jordan then maintained his "undefeated" status against Andy Bohnsack, scoring a close-ish 378-358 win.  Andy was forced to phony with BARITIC (BARITE is good, but has no adjective form) while Jordan got down DESIGNS and REPROOF.  Finally, Jordan pulled out all the defensive stops against Helen Flores: no bingos were played by either party, but Jordan prevailed 377-288.

3rd Thomas Reinke averaged an obscene 473 while going 3-1 +479.  His loss against Bryan Benwitz is detailed above, but Thomas made sure there would be no such peformances in the remainder of his games.  He brought down the hammer against Mary Becker, smashing and pulverizing his way to a convincing 553-340 victory (bingos: DOWAGERS, AQUATIC, BUSTLER).  Similar levels of destruction were found in the aftermath of Thomas' game against Susan Vergeront; Susan played the phony LILTIEST, but was overcome by her opposition's bingos of TELESIS, COUGHERS (anagrams GROUCHES and CHOREGUS), and SLAVING.  Even with this good performance, Thomas remains several percentage points behind leader Charles Reinke in the yearly standings.

Barb Besadny Breezes Through Intermediates

1st Barb Besadny finished at 2-1 -46.  She had the same score of 386 in both her wins, although the scores of her opponents varied wildly in those games: Sue Goldstein scored 316, while June Scott scored 254.  Against Sue, Barb played the bingo SIGHING; against June, the bingo was SLITHER.

Charles Reinke played the word of the week, GYNIATRY, a rare "double-Y" bingo.