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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.

With our leaders away competing at Nationals, fourteen of the rest of us played our favorite game at Barnes and Noble.  It was a bingo fest with 66 bingoes being played.

Peter took his turn playing two on one and handily won both.  He lost only to Richard in his 5 games.  He managed 9 bingoes in that game and got away with one phoney against Mary.

Andy lost his only game to Gail who had 9 bingoes for the evening,  Andy was still bingo king with his 11 rck clearing plays.

Richard and Lynda were also 3 and 1.  Richard lost only to Lynda and Lynda lost to Peter.

Three club members are competing in this week's National Scrabble Championship in Buffalo, New York:

Charles Reinke, #23 in Div. 1: http://event.scrabbleplayers.org/2014/nsc/build/player/1/23.html

Thomas Reinke, #33 in Div. 1: http://event.scrabbleplayers.org/2014/nsc/build/player/1/33.html

Mark Kenas, #15 in Collins Division: http://event.scrabbleplayers.org/2014/nsc/build/player/5/15.html