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1st Thomas Reinke, with a 4-0 +235 record, finished in first place yet again, forcing a certain beleaguered writeup editor to come up with more adjectives to describe his tiresome feats of Scrabble dominance. His best game was a four-bingo outburst against Mark Kenas; bingos of FENLANDS, UNSEEMLY, REVIEWAL, and RIBWORT propelled him a 501-454 win. Thomas played just three more bingos in his other three games, but won them all anyway, proving that his unstoppable scoring attack is provided not just by bingos, but by strong all-around play. The closest of those wins was a 425-385 encounter with Dave Kinzer, where his bingo of TENORITE matched up evenly with Dave's find of GORILLA. Thomas' undefeated record was finally sealed with a solid 447-346 win over Bryan Benwitz.

2nd Charles Reinke enjoyed a lofty 469 per-game average en route to a 3-1 +364 final record. His single loss was to Mark Kenas in round two, 443-464, despite a nifty find of GAWMOGES (a gawmoge is apparently Newfoundland slang for a foolish person, but has very few attestations on the internet - this blog post will probably become the authoritative source of information for that particular word once it gets indexed by Google). That loss was avenged in round four, with Charles prevailing in a repeat match against Mark, 494-404. In that one, Charles bingoed thricely with NORMANDE, STUBBIES, and AIRHOLES, while Mark was limited to a 60-point TAUTENED. Another big victory was scored against Lynda Finn, 517-279, thanks to bingos of BRAKEMEN and SMIDGES (against Lynda's LEANNESS).

3rd Bryan Benwitz also went 3-1, but with a smaller +282 point spread. Interestingly, he played exactly two bingos in each of his four games, leading to a rather predictable per-game bingo average of...two. Bryan came out with all guns blazing as he downed Helen Flores in the first round, 450-282, playing UPSTAIR and EARSHOT along the way. He also made easy work of Richard Lauder, taking victory with a 439-320 final score, thanks to bingos of VANISHED and PERTAIN. Sadly, a loss to Thomas Reinke in the final round, 346-447 turned his promising 3-0 record into a not-quite-as-pristine 3-1 record. His two bingos there were RETAILER and EDITIONS, although at 60 and 59 points respectively, Bryan probably wishes they had been a bit more potent scoring-wise.

4th Sara McLaughlin gets a bonus mention for her 3-1 -3 finish. Her best game was a huge 453-369 win against Richard Lauder. Her triple-triple of TRAIPSED for 131 points was certainly key for her victory.

We welcomed new player Jessica Pasch, who managed to win a game (not an easy feat against our bunch) and also bingoed three times with COTTAGED, BUDGING, DEVIATE. Certainly a promising start and we hope to see her again!

1st Thomas Reinke repeated his thirteen-bingo performance from last week, unloading another thirteen bingos onto his shellshocked opponents while going 4-1 +423 and averaging 471 points per game. His highest-scoring win was a 571-257 triumph over Helen Flores where his bingo-finding abilities were at peak power, as evidenced by plays of TELERANS, OVERTIRE, RETIMING, and BEDAZZLE. However, at the same time he was winning that one, Thomas was enduring a game against Mark Kenas which ended 378-497 in Mark's favor despite Thomas' Collins-only find of EUOUAES# (also spelled, somewhat more pronouncably, as EVOVAES). Another game against Mark later in the evening went Thomas' way, 495-469, despite Mark playing four bingos (CULVERTS, RESIFTED, GRATINEE, OARIEST#) to Thomas' one (DIOXANES, albeit for 119 points).

2nd Charles Reinke fell short of first place by over a hundred spread points, but still had no complaints with his 4-1 +300 final record. He got his single loss out of the way early when Dave Kinzer beat him in a close one, 395-397 in round one. Dave had CREATION in his winning effort, while Charles had UPREACH. Dave is certainly placing the scoresheet from the game in a place of prominence in his house, given that this is Dave's first victory against Charles in 27 attempts. As that game progressed, Charles was making easy work of Mark Kenas, winning 534-410 thanks to find of DIAMINE, UPFLINGS, and SPONDEES, so round one for Charles ended in one win and one loss. More high-scoring Scrabble action was seen when Charles beat Bryan Benwitz 475-424, playing bingos of LINGERS, IRONWARE, and TAILLEUR against Bryan's singular GORSIEST.

3rd Helen Flores, clearly tired of the same few players getting written up week after week, decided to disrupt the paradigm with a 3-1 -75 record. That negative spread total was thanks to a loss to Thomas Reinke which is described above, but aside from that (rather substantial) setback, Helen faced litte hardship in her three victories. She convincingly defeated Sara McLaughlin in round three, 446-317. A bingo find of RAIMENT was helpful there. A fourth-round match against club veteran Richard Lauder was also successful, as Helen won that one too, 447-374. Her bingo of TWEETING didn't exactly go toe-to-toe with Richard's RASTERS, CARBIDES, and URBANIST, but an abundance of good scoring plays made sure that her win was a comfortable one.

4th Dave Kinzer went a perfect 2-0 +79 before ducking out early. In addition to his long-awaited victory over Charles Reinke in round one, he had a solid win over Dennis Lloyd in round two, 371-294, despite not recording a bingo. Dave looks forward to building on his winning streak in the near future, so everybody watch out!

1st Thomas Reinke dropped thirteen bingos upon his opponents en route to a 4-1 +301 record. Being that Thomas' primary motivation is regaining and keeping the top spot in the yearly standings, he defeated both of his closest competitors, Bryan Benwitz and Charles Reinke. His game against Bryan was quite lopsided at 488-379. The bingo situation was also quite lopsided with Bryan playing MOUSIER vs. Thomas' AMPERAGE, FUTURIST, and ONLIEST. His game against his brother was a bit closer, but still a convincing win, 500-456. In that one, both belligerents had three bingos: SURFIEST, CITATOR, and TENSIBLE for Thomas, READIEST, ANTIMERE, and the unlikely ANYBODY for Charles. Sadly, a 366-407 loss to Richard Lauder in the second round quickly snuffed out Thomas' dreams of a perfect record. And for the second straight week, Thomas' scorecard was marred by a phony; last week it was BOARLIKE* played against Lynda Finn, this week it was TANTRAL* played against...Lynda Finn. All would do well to be more suspicious of Thomas' bingos going forward.

2nd Richard Lauder rebounded from a tough outing last week to go 3-1 +178 this week. His 424 per-game average is over 100 points higher than his average from last week. His best game by far was a 508-339 drubbing of Dennis Lloyd, thanks to four bingos, of which only 50% were phony: BORACITE, FORECAST, PLENTUM*, and EXSPIRE*. EXSPIRE* may have just been a brain fart given the availability of EXPIRES, while PLENTUM may have been a creative re-imagining of PLENUM. Nevertheless, the phony words stayed on the board, and contributed significantly to Richard's impressive final score. His phonying tendencies were successfully kept in check when he defeated Sara Mclaughlin 399-365, playing two perfectly valid bingos, CANDIES and RATIONAL (Sara found LEGATOS). The only stumbling block Richard faced was the worrisome word knowledge of Charles Reinke: their game ended 448-382 in Charles' favor.

Dennis' PEMMICAN, played in a victory over Bryan Benwitz, was chosen as word of the week from many worthy candidates. Among the other bingos under consideration were Dennis' NONHARDY, Helen's VLOGGER, Thomas' QUORUMS and FUTURIST (both with multiple U's!), and Charles' ANYBODY (one wonders if he had a D available to play the even lower-probability BAYNODDY).