Blog

1st Gail Salm braved the threat of snow and journeyed to the west side to play some Scrabble. It was worth her while, as she came in first with a 3-1 +298 record. In the first round, she went up against Helen. Helen, occupied with another game at the same time, failed to bingo, while Gail bingoed twice with VASELINE (replace the V with a B for a fun surprise!) and STIRRED, winning 402-348. The second round saw her again bingo twice, POUTIER and DENIERS. This time, it was not enough to get the win, as she lost to Dave K. in a close one, 394-400. Dave, fittingly, played OUTLAST as his sole bingo. She then faced Dennis, and saw her bingo count drop to one. It didn't end up making much of a difference, as she won handily, 433-258. She saved her best for last in the final round, beating Bryan 448-373. Bryan bingoed with COLINEAR (anagrams to ACROLEIN and LONICERA), but that's never going to be enough when Gail plays three of her own: LEARIER, OUTRIDE, and BEAUTIES.

2nd Charles Reinke missed out on first place by about 40 spread points (if you simply gave yourself an extra point on every turn over all four games you could make up that amount, just saying...), finishing at 3-1 +257. His big game came in the opener, as he scored 530 against Dennis with bingoes of BEASTIE, OVARIES, and DETRITAL (adj. pertaining to detritus). Not content with a mere three bingoes, he bingoed four times in the next round against Bryan: SUNRISE to open, and then REGIMENS, TAENIAE, and PLICATE. Bryan did have the nice find of REGICIDE, but nice finds only count for nice points if you hit two triples at the same time with them. In the third round, he played Helen and won 393-313. Helen bingoed with NURSING, while Charles, well, he did stuff that game, apparently, because he scored 393, but whatever it was, it wasn't bingoes. Charles saved his worst for last, losing to Thomas in the final game 372-423. Not the highest scoring game ever between those two, especially with five combined bingoes, but not every game can end 500-501.

3rd Aaron Bader went 3-1 +42 in his Collins matchup with Mark, good for third place. He took a big loss in the first round, with the final score being 534-342 in Mark's favor. Mark's triple-triple of LAIRIEST (formerly Collins-only, but now happily included in the humble American dictionary) for 122 was the difference maker. He won the next game 470-393, playing as one of his bingoes NARTJIES*. NARTJIE* would be a convenient word for the RETINA stem, as J is one of the few tiles that does not go with the letters in RETINA to form a bingo. In the third game, he won again, this one a little closer, 440-421. Mark bingoed with CHIDERS for 106 as well as TENSITY, while Aaron played SEROTINE and DANELAW* (which in the humble opinion of this editor should be capitalized). Having sped far ahead of the rest of the group (it's easy to go quick when you don't have to wait for pairings), Aaron won 504-366 in the last game. He bingoed with normal stuff this time: DELICTS, RAPINES, and ABORTIVE. And now for his quiz: what word is in the letters of ABORTIVE plus an A and an R?

1st Charles Reinke played a nearly unprecedent 6 games thanks to a pair of two-on-ones, and finished 5-1 +384. In the first round, he faced off against Dave and Andy. Against Dave, Charles recorded his only loss of the night, 376-412. Dave played READIES and LOANERS, and was aided by Charles challenging his valid FRIGS (FRIG is both a verb and a noun, the noun form pluralizes as FRIGES). In his other game, Andy struck first with ASTHENY, and later added TONSURE, but Charles played MONGEESE and EMPORIA and won 447-420. His game against Bryan went a lot smoother, with him winning handily 447-305 while playing ESPANOL (Bryan later put an S on that, but ESPANOLES is the only plural) and CORTINS. In the third round, he was part of the "two" in the two-on-one, facing Thomas. He had his best bingoing performance, playing PUNDITS, SOILAGES, and the nine-letter EMBODIERS. Thomas got a nine-letter bingo of his own, ITERATION, but it was still Charles' win 492-362. He once again played two in the final round, this time Helen and Andy (again). He beat Helen 398-295 with a sole bingo of DOGTAILS (DOGSTAIL is also acceptable). In his rematch with Andy, he again came out on top in a close one, 406-388. Andy bingoed with DETAINEE one short of a triple word score, allowing Charles to play WEBS for 75, which helped him earn the win.

2nd Thomas Reinke came in second at 3-2 +136, the only other player with a winning record. He played Mark in all four rounds, starting off with a loss, 378-495. Mark played HOLSTERS, PLAINED, and DRAFTIER while Thomas only bingoed with the Collins-only LITEROSE*. Things swung wildly in Thomas' direction in the next game, as he held Mark bingo-less and played four of his own: INTIMAE, LETHALS (n. LETHAL, a death-causing genetic defect), BANGERS, and STURDIER in a 499-287 win. In the third round, he attempted to play in two dictionaries at once, British with Mark and Good Old Normal American English against Charles. He was reasonably successful; despite his 362-492 loss against Charles, he didn't play any British-only words. He won against Mark 495-418, with Mark playing AMATIVE (adj. amorous) and TREPANS, and Thomas playing VIZIERS, REACTORS, and BROILED. Freed from the shackles of dictionary-confusion in the last round, he won once again, 474-380. His best play that games was CATFACES for 95, which also won word-of-the-week. A CATFACE is a deformity of some fruit, which is a lot less cute than I was imagining.

1st Bryan Benwitz celebrated the new year not by winning all his games, but by winning all but one of them, which seems like the better strategy. How boring would it be to win all your games for the whole year? He finished 3-1 +270, coming in first place. He got his yearly loss out of the way quickly, losing to Thomas 448-463 in the first round. He bingoed with REASONED, and almost came back from a large deficit with a flurry of high-scoring non-bingos. One or two more turns would've done it, but the tile bag emptied before he could complete the comeback. No such heroics were needed against Dave in the second round, where he won 438-317, with bingoes of ASTONIES (v. ASTONY, to astonish) and GAROTTES. Remember, GAROTTE can also be spelled GAROTE, GARROTE, and GARROTTE. Bryan's biggest game of the night came against Charles, a high scoring affair for both players, and he won 515-470. Both players bingoed thrice, Charles with TETANAL, CRAMPIER, and MAINTAIN, while Bryan had TORCHED, GRADUATE, and TOTALISE. He also played SEIZE for 78, proving once again that you don't need to play bingo-like amounts of tiles to score bingo-like amounts of points. In the final round, he faced Michael and won 393-274. He managed to bingo twice on a closed board, with BAGGIEST and BROADEST.

2nd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +184, coming in second just behind Bryan. He won a close won against Bryan in the first round, 463-448. He bingoed four times early, with INTONED, ORBITERS, TRITEST, and REIMAGED, but his luck dried up and he barely held on for the win. Against Dennis in the second round, he won 489-309. Dennis bingoed with SORTING, and Thomas played VAPOURED, SEALERS, and a double-double BEEFIEST for nearly 100 points. In the next game, he faced Michael, who struck first with a fancy double-double of FAMILIAL. He also played the always-reliable STONIER. Thomas bingoed with only BANSHIE (an alternate spelling of BANSHEE), but despite being out-bingoed, won 439-388. After that, Thomas' hopes for a perfect night were ruined by Charles, who beat him 442-380. Thomas bingoed with WINTERER (n. one who winters), which prompted Charles to grouchily mumble "that shouldn't be a word". Thomas, for his part, didn't mumble anything at all while Charles played his bingos of ELLIPTIC and VETOING.

3rd Dave Kinzer enjoyed a successful night after a club-mandated Scrabble break (sometimes called a "Scrabbatical"), going 2-1 +91 and coming in third place. He beat Gail 395-295 in the first round, without playing a bingo. Gail got down OUTLAST, but Dave decided that scoring a bunch of points most turns was the way to go with his particular tiles. Cruelly, he did get down a bingo against Bryan in the next game, CURRANTS, but lost anyway, 317-438. In his the third round, his final round, he beat Helen handily, 401-289. Dave got down the fancy REFINERY, and stymied Helen at every turn. She did eventually play the phony VENNATES*, which stayed on the board. VENENATES would be the closest real word to that play.

Helen won word-of-the-week for her triple-triple AGGRIEVE, which scored 167 points and won her 9 total dollars, probably a better prize than the word-of-the-week award. She used that play (among others), to beat Charles 519-416.