Blog

1st Bryan Benwitz took over the top spot in the yearly club standings with his 4-0 +373 record, thanks to a 3-2 outing from his primary competitor, Thomas Reinke. Could the Reinke streak of dominance which has been ongoing since 2007 finally be at an end? We'll find out over the course of the next month. Bryan established his primacy in round one with a decisive 517-389 win over Charles Reinke, getting down four bingos: EROTIZES, LIFETIME, PALSIED, and LECTORS. Charles, meanwhile, was held bingoless. The bingo situation reversed for Bryan when he faced off against the other twin, but it was still a win for Bryan, 427-404. Thomas had BULIMIC and SALTERN while Bryan was forced to find high-scoring non-bingo plays (such as ZEINS for 91) to stay in the game. Bryan had another 500-point game against Lynda Finn, and as usually is the case when a player scores above 500, he cruised to victory, 503-311. Lynda did find the nice SPICATED, but was drowned (figuratively) by Bryan's FOAMIER, LEGALISE, and MARSHALS. The undefeated night was capped by a lower-scoring 399-369 win over Richard Lauder.

2nd Charles Reinke played six games (thanks to a combination of Thanksgiving-induced low turnout and an odd number of players), and while the stats algorithm had him in first place (given that he had more wins than Bryan), this writer is assigning him to second place with a 5-1 +373 record. After a loss to Bryan early in the night, Charles did not lose another game. In fact, at the same time he was losing big to Bryan, Charles was winning big against Mark Kenas, the final score being 572-377. Charles unleashed four bingos in that one: TOONIES, JIGGIEST, SHIFTER, and ACTURES#. Their rematch in round three was also a big score for Charles, 518-501, and again the bingos were plentiful as he found plays of PLENTIES, SEALERY, and word-of-the-week SYNANON. Synanon was a religious movement/cult for recovering drug addicts, popular in the 1960s, and why it's in the dictionary is anybody's guess. Charles finished his night with another two-on-one where he beat Lynda Finn by a comfortable margin, 447-393, but barely escaped against Ron Malzer, 366-359.

1st Lynda Finn (mostly) cruised through a tough field of competitors with a 3-1 +250 record and a nifty 422 per-game average. Things got off to a good start when she scored a comfortable win against Sara McLaughlin, 484-282, getting down bingos of HORSIER and CREATES while Sara was sadly held bingoless. Lynda followed that up with a pair of wins against the #1 and #2 players in the club, calmly beating Thomas Reinke 400-385 with not a trace of intimidation, and then taking down Bryan Benwitz 443-391 in a similar showing of steady Scrabble superiority. Lynda saw her bingo fortunes continue in those games as she played DIASTOLE, TEENIER, DETAILED, and BOOSTERS. Unfortunately, Lynda was not able to complete an undefeated record as she was defeated in the fourth round by Richard Lauder, 361-380.

2nd Bryan Benwitz fell a bit short of first place, but placed far ahead of third, with his 3-1 +200 record. He came away with a well-fought win in round one against Richard Lauder, where Richard's nine-letter FATTENING, supplemented by INTORTED, were equaled by Bryan's TONEARM and STOCKILY. A game against Dennis Lloyd saw Bryan deploy two more bingos (FAGGOTED and RETRIALS) to take the 422-340 win. Bryan's sole loss came in round three versus Lynda Finn, where an uncharacteristic zero-bingo game from the one known as "Bingowitz" resulted in a 391-443 loss. But the universe righted itself in the final game where Bryan prevailed in a lopsided match against Sara McLaughlin, 467-322. A small amount of good news for Sara did result from that game, as her find of COAXINGS, which drew a challenge, was chosen as word of the week.

1st Bryan Benwitz re-established his supremacy with a pristine 4-0 record and a +474 spread total that put him way ahead of all competition. He started with a nice 493-378 win against Dave Kinzer in the first round, but his scores kept getting smaller as the session progressed, so there is hope that the trend will continue and that, in roughly one month, Bryan will be scoring in the low 200s and it will be possible to beat him. Until then, however, the writeups will be filled with descriptions of Bryan's victories. In round two, Bryan got down three bingos (STEADIER, TRINKETS, VISUALS) while dispatching Dennis Lloyd 481-326, then played another three bingos to vanquish Thomas Reinke, 472-338. Perfection was secured when Bryan, yet again, played three bingos (VENUSES, RUGOLAS, and TRAILING) in a 433-363 win over Richard Lauder. All told, Bryan's opponents played just one bingo against him (Dave's TILAPIA), so maybe next week we should all try extra hard to find bingos when playing against Bryan.

2nd Richard Lauder turned his 1-3 record from last week into a 3-1 +185 record this week, good for second place. He started off with a comfortable 415-308 win against Sara McLaughlin, where the only bingo on the board was the phony HANSELD*. HANSELED and HANDSEL are probably the words Richard was thinking of there. Richard then got a win against Jane Wesson, 384-342, with his bingo of AROINTS matching Jane's OUTLINE. A third and final win was scored against Dennis Lloyd, 473-367, where Richard's bingo of TEMERITY was initially misspelled (and challenged off) before being redeployed on the board for a nice score. A bingoless 363-433 loss to Bryan Benwitz sadly dashed Richard's hopes of attaining the elusive 4-0 record.

3rd Thomas Reinke finished at 3-1 +67 record. He pummeled Lynda Finn in the first game by a score of 456-273. Lynda did get one bingo of ALIENERS, but Thomas had three: OCREATE, PODIATRY, and BIOPLASM. He then took on Mark Kenas in a Collins-lexicon game, utilizing the CSW-only SEARATS# (in addition to WISTERIA and ORPINES) to take a 437-426 victory. A later rematch was even closer, with Thomas eking out a 445-438 win thanks to AIRBOUND and LAITIES (Mark got OUTGIVE and SPENDER). However, Thomas' zero bingos against Bryan Benwitz doomed him in their encounter, and he lost 338-472.