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1st Charles Reinke brought his winning streak to nine straight thanks to a flawless 4-0 +547 performance. His first-round victory against Mark Kenas, 463-399, was actually his lowest score of the evening. In that one, his triple-triple ASTERIDS# for 131 points was able to overcome Mark's FLITTERN#, RAPTURES, and CAMELIAS. A rematch against Mark also ended in Charles' favor, 501-352, thanks in part to another high-scoring bingo, ADJURERS for 116. In the final round, a true "clash of the titans" took place as Charles, sitting at 3-0, matched up against the one other remaining 3-0 player, Bryan Benwitz. Despite the impressive pedigree of the two combatants, the clash was somewhat lopsided, as Charles won 493-354. Bryan found LIPREADS and VENETIAN, while Charles' bingo list consisted of NONOBESE, BEADSMAN, and GREENLIT.

2nd Thomas Reinke had the same win total as his brother, but the addition of a single loss to his scorecard dropped him to second place at 4-1 +486. He saved the majority of his wrath for his two Collins-lexicon games against Mark Kenas; playing a combined NINE bingos, Thomas won the games 512-329 and 539-359. His bingos were ANGELICA, FLIPSIDE#, UNROTTEN#, LENTORS#, URALITE, MANPOWER, FERRELS, DUNITES, and ASCITES. A more closely-fought victory was gained over John Bialek, 406-368. John found the gross bingo of BOOGERS, but Thomas outdid him with finds of INTONER, TENSEST, and word-of-the-week GUAIACOL. Thomas' only loss was to Bryan Benwitz, 405-433.

3rd Ron Malzer marked his third visit to our club with his first appearance in the weekly writeup, finishing at 3-1 +214 with a hefty 408 per-game average. His best game was a 462-349 smackdown of Dennis Lloyd where the bingo battle (POSTURE for Ron, LISTERS for Dennis) clearly doesn't tell the whole story. Ron followed that up with another large win, this one against Sara McLaughlin, 439-329. That one also saw each player get exactly one bingo: Ron's LANCETS and Sara's MOTIONED. Like Thomas above, Ron's only defeat was at the hand of Bryan Benwitz, 338-452.

1st Charles Reinke flourished with an unblemished 4-0 +478 record. Things almost went wrong for him in a round-one matchup against Dennis Lloyd, but in the end he squeaked out victory, 396-384. A more comfortable winning margin was established against Richard Lauder as Charles won that one easily, 488-328, thanks to finds of ARTISTRY, FRIVOLED, and INDICANS (Richard had COUNTRY as his sole bingo). Charles' other two victories were a pair of 500-point games against Mark Kenas, 500-369 and 521-346. The bingo-finding part of Charles' brain proved to be in good working order as he found a combined seven bingos in those two games: SNIDIER#, INTINES, REPOSALS, SOGGIEST, LANNERET, CALIBRED, and TRENCHER.

2nd Thomas Reinke made yet another top-three appearance with his 4-1 +400 final record. Fifteen total bingos in his five games feels like it could be some sort of personal record for Thomas, but this writer does not have the inclination to find out for sure. Thomas dropped a whopping five bingos when defeating Richard Lauder 560-397: MISRATED, TOGGLED, AUBRIETA, VOCATIVE, and ENVISION. No word on whether VOCATIVE was ever hooked to make EVOCATIVE. Slightly less impressive (but still very impressive) was his 496-378 over Bryan Benwitz where he got four bonus plays: RETAKES, BONNIER, OXIDASE, and PLEONASM. It wasn't all good news for Thomas as he did suffer one loss, that being 395-459 to Mark Kenas.

3rd Lynda Finn continued her recent streak of strong performances (and writeup appearances!) with a 3-1 +273 finish. Her best game came against Wendy Bialek, 476-336, thanks to finds of ANGULOSE and INCHERS. She also did quite well against Helen Flores, holding her opponent to no bingos in a 460-305 win. Lynda's bingos there were PLANETS, REROUTE, and INDUCTS, all for exactly 70 points (cue spooky music). Her single loss was against John Bialek, 322-352. She played the game's only bingo, ESTATES, but John proved that bingos are strictly optional when attempting to win a game of Scrabble.

4th John Bialek went 3-1 but his smaller spread of +21 kept him out of the top three. Still, a strong performance from one of our newest members!

1st Thomas Reinke prevailed over the field with a 4-1 +175 record. He couldn't have asked for a better start when he notched two victories in round one, 444-263 against Wendy Bialek (playing bingos of FREAKOUT and CELOSIA) and 455-375 against Bryan Benwitz (AURICLE, SLEIGHED, and REGRANT to Bryan's BENZINES and RETAILS). Things proceeded well after that with a pair of well-earned wins over the always-tough Mark Kenas, 445-384 and 484-434. It all fell apart in the final round, however, as Thomas was flattened by his brother Charles, 315-512. Thomas played a single bingo of CESAREAN, while Charles played SDAINES#, RETIREE, and the illogical-but-still-quite-valid UNTHAWS.

2nd Bryan Benwitz didn't quite reach the levels of over-the-board dominance that he displayed the previous week, but still acquitted himself well with a 3-1 +380 record and a club-leading 463 per-game average. He got his loss out of the way early when he was defeated by Thomas Reinke 375-455, but Bryan easily bounced back by taking the win off John Bialek, 437-293. The pattern of escalating scores continued when he handily defeated charles Reinke by a score of 451 to 364, playing SYRETTE and OVERING in his winning effort. But the real fireworks were lit in the final game when Bryan scored an astronomical 589 against Richard Lauder, who had a respectable but not-nearly-enough total of 360 points. Bryan might need a bingo-related nickname after that game ("Bryan Bingowitz" was considered and discarded), as Bryan had five such plays: BETAINE, CLEAVING, SPAVIET, DUNKERS, and DETAINED.

3rd Sara McLaughlin put on a strong showing with a 3-1 record, although her -17 spread total left her far behind Bryan in the quest for second place. She played her first-ever nine-letter bingo at our club when she deployed RENAILING in a convincing 431-320 win over Richard Lauder. SAVIORS was her other bingo in that one, while Richard had ROOTLIKE. Sara got down another two bingos, FOISTED and ENROLLED, while defeating newcomer Ron Malzer 398-351. Ron, a resent transplant from La Crosse, proved to be no slouch as he found BINDERS and SMARTER in that one. Sadly, Sara's tragic 302-508 loss to Charles Reinke doomed her dreams of an undefeated club session.