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1st Charles Reinke was top dog for the second straight week, finishing at 5-0 +396. He welcomed back the returning Mark Kenas with a pair of Collins-dictionary victories: the first one was relatively closely-contested at 441-407, but the second was a proper drubbing, 503-342. Charles had ATEMOYA, DOATING, ATTENDEE, and BETOILS# as his bingos across those two games, while Mark had MERONYM, POLICERS, and RATTEENS (fun note: MERONYM takes a Y for MERONYMY, as well as the S). In a game against Helen Flores, Charles was held well below his yearly average of 439, but nevertheless prevailed in a tightly-fought game, 399-363. Helen got a nice 103-point play of ENQUIRE (pairing nicely with a 101-point SQUIRTER in her previous game); Charles had ONBOARDS for a comparatively wimpy 72 points.

2nd Thomas Reinke went 4-1 +373, but despite that impressive-looking record, averaged a "lowly" 416 per game (comparing against his yearly average of 449). He started things off with a 410-357 win against Sara McLaughlin where both participants had one and exactly one bingo: FASTENED for Thomas, RUSTING for Sara. However, Thomas' hopes for an undefeated night were quashed early by Mark Kenas, who easily bested in him round two, 484-364. Thomas had the high-probability eight-letter words of TOENAILS and INSOLENT for his bingos, while Mark got a bit more creative with UNENVIED and XEROTIC (fun fact: Mark's XEROTIC is the fourth bingo played at our club since 2011 that starts with an X. The others are XEROXES, XEROSIS, and XEROSIS again). Revenge against Mark was achieved in the final round as Thomas came away with a 430-375 victory, thanks in part to crafty finds of ABOMASI and PHOSGENE.

3rd Richard Lauder went 3-2 -34, performing poorly against players with the last name "Reinke" but otherwise performing admirably against the rest of the field. In a two-on-one match in the second round, Richard overcame stacked odds to win both, 331-319 against Sara McLaughlin and 382-323 against Sue Goldstein. His bingos in those two games were PADRONE, ANNUALS, and PIRATED. After suffering a 305-439 loss against Thomas Reinke, Richard scored his third and final win against the latecoming Dennis Lloyd, 390-311, despite not having a bingo.

1st Charles Reinke reigned supreme with his 3-1 +484 record and his 492 per-game average. He put a major amount of hurt on Dennis Lloyd with a crushing 576-312 victory, unleashing four bingos (UNDERPAY, TRECENTO, GISARME, LISTENED) to achieve victory. LITHOED was the single bingo played by the losing side. However, while that 576 score was quite nice, Charles was not completely happy with it, so in the following round he pulled out all the stops to achieve a 609-399 win over his brother Thomas. This time, Charles drew upon the full power of his word knowledge to set forth five separate bingos in his quest to vanquish his brother: ENSEARS#, DEUTZIAS, THYMINE, TUTORAGE, and HISTOGEN. For his part, Thomas got down three bingos of his own: AMIRATES, WEAKSIDE, and TRIBADE. This win was vengeance for an early 365-414 loss against the same opponent.

2nd Thomas Reinke finished with an identical 3-1 record to the first-place finisher, but fell short in terms of spread with a +215. A first-round victory is always a good thing for establishing momentum and the proper frame of mind, and Thomas exemplified this perfectly with a 508-299 win against Richard Lauder. Richard did not manage to play a bingo, while Thomas got down INTERNET and SAVATES. Thomas enjoyed similar fortune against Sara McLaughlin, emerging triumphant in their encounter, 444-277, thanks to finds of VIDEOING and UTILISER. A perfect 4-0 record was thwarted, however, by Charles Reinke, who beat Thomas 609-399 in a display of Scrabbling so barbaric that the details of it can never be uttered.

Dennis' LIBELOUS was chosen as word of the week.

1st Thomas Reinke topped a field of six players with his 3-1 +391 final record. His journey to a first-place finish was made significantly less arduous when his first-round match against Bryan Benwitz ended with a 549-337 score in Thomas' favor. Bryan was uncharacteristically held to zero bingos while Thomas coolly plopped down bonus plays of CROSSED, PALAVERS, DONATIVE, and METAPHOR. Thomas had a similar amount of success against Francesca Lazio, winning 471-272 thanks to finds of AEROFOIL and SCREWING. Francesca did play a bingo of RETINAS to somewhat limit the damage. The sole loss on Thomas' scorescard was handed to him by none other than his own brother, and it was a high-scoring one too, 461-493 (although that is somewhat expected when using the more inclusive international lexicon). This time, it was Charles' turn to play four bingos: CHANTERS, UREDINIA, GRATUITY, and the nine-letter FRITTERED. Thomas had RANKLED, an apt word to describe his mood after being denied a perfect 4-0 outing.

2nd Bryan Benwitz also went 3-1 with a smaller, but still sizable, +290 spread total. That spread total would have been significantly more sizable were it not for the devastating round one loss against Thomas Reinke, detailed above. However, things improved signifcantly for Bryan after that initial setback. His 406-321 win over Charles Reinke, achieved via three bingos of CATTIES, ANEURINS, and SOPPIER, continued his run of strong play against that particular opponent: Bryan has now won six of his last seven against Charles. Bryan also made (relatively) easy work of grizzled Scrabble veteran Richard Lauder, emerging victorious in their encounter, 452-361. The combatants had two bingos apiece: EXTERNAL and INTRUDE for Richard, IRONIES and LEISTERS for Bryan.

On a more obscure note, Richard's bingo of INEDITA, played against Tara Kadium, marks the first time that particular word has been played at our club since modern record-keeping began in 2011. This is interesting because INEDITA is one of the most probable seven-letter words in the dictionary (that is, it is more likely than most to appear on your rack when you draw seven random tiles out of a full bag). To compare, the similarly-probable AIRLINE and DENARII have been played nine and five times, respectively. Thus concludes this week's utterly meaningless (but possibly slightly interesting to a select crowd of Scrabble nerds) bingo report.