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1st Charles Reinke came in first with a 4-1 +502 record. He got an early start on Indepence Day with some fireworks of his own in the first game, as he played five bingos against James in a 567-302 win. Those bingos: OSCULAR, OUTLEARN, IDOCRASE (a mineral also known as VESUVIANITE), WEIGHTS, and UNPLOWED. He then faced two players at once, but this wasn't a usual two-on-one pairing: he was facing Thomas and Bryan, two very tough players. He won against Bryan 463-352, outdoing Bryan's KITTENS with his own ALANINE and CLAVIER. He wasn't so lucky against Thomas, though a late bingo of REGINAS for 94 prevented the game from being a total blowout, with the final being 489-434 in favor of Thomas. In round three, he faced Betty and won 441-297, with bingos of OPULENT and SALINITY. Unforunately for Bryan, he was forced to play Charles a second time in the final round, and the result was again not in his favor, 473-436. Bryan played DOMINATE, INERRANT, and REALISES, while Charles had bingos of VERBENAS and AVERTER.

2nd Thomas Reinke put together a solid-but-not-solid-enough-for-first-place 4-1 +414 night, good for second place. He started off playing in a two-on-one, against Helen and Betty. He exited the round with 389 points of spread, an impressive feat marred slightly by his phony QUOTINGS* for 107 against Helen. In the next game he was the beneficiary of his opponent's divided attention, as he beat Charles 489-434 with bingos of BOTTLING, DREAREST, and ENTERIC. He walso the beneficiary of his opponents's divided attention in the third round, but even with that advantage, he couldn't beat Aaron in a Collins dictionary battle, losing 382-461. He played another game of Collins in the final round, this time against Mark. Things worked out better for him in this one, as he found out that if you just draw a bunch of bingos that are already good in the American dictionary, you can win despite a large vocabulary deficit. The final was 492-443, with his bingos being MELODIA, CORDAGE, and INFLATOR. Mark played two Collins-only bingos, PETERMEN* and ENCARPUS* (n. a frieze decoration of festooned fruit, and here all my frieze decorations of fruit were blatantly unfestooned like I'm some sort of cultureless heathen).

3rd Aaron Bader went 3-1 +215 in his weekly Collins match with Mark (rudely interrupted by an interloper), finishing in third. He won the opener 480-318, with bingos of ADUSTING* (ADUST is good in our dictionary but is only an adjective), KERNELS, and EMBOWELS. For reference BOWEL, EMBOWEL, DISBOWEL, and DISEMBOWEL all mean the same thing, and it's not a good thing either. His second game with Mark was marked (get it?!?!?!?) by his triple-triple of HONOREES through the N in Mark's just-played NOTICERS. That play was 158 points by itself, which directly led to a 500-404 win. He played two in the third round, a tough task when the opponents are Thomas and Mark, but club leadership maintains that the task could have been made much tougher with the addition of a blindfold, the temporary removal from the dictionary of all words containing an "E", and intermittent proddings with sharp implements. In any case, he beat Thomas 461-382 with normal bingos of RAIDERS, COEDITED, and SERENATA. Against Mark, he lost 399-521, his bingos of BHEESTIE and PICANTE losing out to Mark's INCHTAPE*, LARDOONS, FASTINGS, and GROUTIER.

1st Charles Reinke averaged a nifty 505 points per game as he strolled to a perfect 4-0 record. Creepily, his point spread of +505 was the same as his per-game average (cue X-Files music). By far his closest game, and also his only game below 500, was in round one against Gail Salm. She stayed even with him for most of the way and equalled his bingo output, playing AERIEST and TINDERS against Charles' SURGEON and SAVORING. It was then that the carnage truly began; Charles had three 500-point games in a row and played at least three bingos in all of them. He felled expert-level nemesises Bryan Benwitz (500-390) and Thomas Reinke (554-407) in rapid succession, although the latter game was spoiled by a phony AMMONIAL* on Charles' end. The perfect record was sealed with a 549-319 victory over Dennis Lloyd, whose early bingo of DUALISTS was no match for Charles' torrent of bingos (PENTANOL, IRONIZED, GAUNTER, and the new word HANGRIER).

2nd Aaron Bader played his customary four rounds of Collins-fueled Scrabble against Mark Kenas and performed well enough to snag second place with a 3-1 +219 record. His first game, a 446-364 win, was the only one in which he got to play a Collins-only bingo, REMEDIAT# (players of the American dictionary should note that DIAMETER and DIATREME are available in those letters). Mark answered back with a 442-385 victory where both players stuck with high-probability American words (BLEATER and TENNIST for Mark, SOARERS and REARGUED for Aaron). That was where Mark's good fortunes ran out, as he dropped the next two to Aaron by scores of 377-485 and 373-459. In that last game, Mark got away with the phony-in-every-dictionary FELDGANZ* (GANZFELD is good), but justice was served as he met defeat in the end (thanks to Aaron's bingos of URINATES, GRUELER, and UNIVERSE).

3rd Richard Lauder beat out Thomas Reinke for third place by just 40 spread points, finishing at 3-1 +53. He started the night with a 387-365 victory against Helen Flores, who at least got to play the strange-looking ERRATICS (while Richard got GRANTEES). The nascent dreams of a perfect night were dashed, however, in round two, as Richard lost to Thomas Reinke 312-411. Richard did achieve some sort of victory in that one as he outbingoed Thomas two to one, getting down COLORISE and INSNARE to Thomas' singular UNADOPTED. In the next round, Richard notched his first victory against Bryan Benwitz since September of last year, 434-407. HAYWIRES and STORMING were Richard's bingos. Seeing a spot in the writeup close at hand, Richard clinched a top-three performance by taking down Gail Salm in the final round by a score of 424-321. Being mentioned in the writeup confers a level of celebrity that few mortals can ever hope to reach, so Richard's probably feeling pretty good about himself right now.

Also of note is the fact that three nine-letter words were played during the course of the session: Thomas Reinke's UNADOPTED, Aaron Bader's TINCTURES, and Dave Gilligan's REFIGURES. Nine-letter (and longer) bingos only comprise 0.64% of the bingos played at our club, so 3/70 (or 4.29%) is way above average!

1st Thomas Reinke bingoed 15 times on his way to a first-place-earning 4-1 +706 record. He got the losing out of the way early, falling to James 412-456. He did bingo three times, with DAMSELS, AIRDATE, and AUTISTS, but James had two bingos of his own, DECIARE and NOTABLES, as well as a bevy of other high-scoring plays. Concurrently, he faced Helen and won 451-300, playing STEARIC and RESHOES (passing up the more stylish SHEROES (n. SHERO, a woman regarded as a hero)). He faced Barb in the second round, and was delighted to see that bingos kept magically appearing on his rack. He ended up playing five of them, FIGTREES, LISTERIA, COTHURNI, TALLIES, and AIRSOME on his way to 572 points. His good fortune continued against Lynda as he got an opening bingo of TENFOLD. For reference, only TWOFOLD and TENFOLD take an S; all the other number-FOLD words do not. For more reference, ELEVENFOLD, TWELVEFOLD, TWENTYFOLD, and THIRTYFOLD were just added to the dictionary in the last update. FORTYFOLD, FIFTYFOLD, and SIXTYFOLD were already good. But back to Scrabble: Thomas won that game 505-289, once again preventing his opponent from bingoing. In the final round, he faced a distracted Charles (who was also playing Lynda at the same time), and used his opponent's distractednesses to his advantage, winning 457-342. He played two lame bingos in that game; so lame that they will not be typed out here so as to not infect this writeup with their lameness.

2nd Charles Reinke also went 4-1, but his +67 spread was way, WAY lower than his brother's, so he came in second. In the first round, he was paired up against Bryan and won 463-412. Bryan bingoed with CRAFTER, while Charles got down SEALING, GUNITES, and GONIDIA. In the next game, he beat James 371-293. He only got one bingo, ENSUITE, but also challenged off James' phony bingo attempt. That was a strategically sound move, because James never ended up bingoing. He then went up against Helen, who put up a valiant fight but lost 384-427. She played SCAMMER and PRESORTS, and Charles played HOLYTIDE (n. a time of religious observance) and TAILRACE. In the final game, he played two, Thomas and Lynda. He wasn't able to take down Thomas, receiving his only defeat of the night, and was only barely able to squeak by Lynda, 440-430. Lynda had bingos of INERTIA and DOORMAT, while Charles had TRESSEL and a tight-fitting late-game LEUCONS that scored just enough to earn him the victory.

3rd Mary Becker went 3-2 -8, beating out Lynda by 80 spread points to capture the coveted third paragraph. She started off with a 355-390 loss to Lynda, but the game was not without excitement: she played the word-of-the-week 9-letter double-double DIAPERING through an IN already on the board for 102 points. If she could do that every turn, she'd score 1000 in no time! That 35-point margin would be her largest of the night, win or lose. In the next round, she lost 344-368 to Bryan, her bingo of BARMIER not being enough to counter Bryan's INVADERS and CONDUITS. Knowing that her place in the writeup was on the line, she then won her next three games. It helps when you can play two at the same time, and that's what she did in the third round, facing Dave and Barb. Barb got out to an early lead in their game, opening with RELINED and later playing JUNKIEST, but Mary played a high-scoring OUTDATE for 99 and won 425-398. In her close 385-376 win against Dave, she challenged his valid TINSELED (to be fair, TINSELLED does look a little better), but bingoed with BEAUTIES and SHIRTED for 101. Club veterans will remember the dark times before the fifth dictionary update when SHIRTED was phony and if you had those letters you had to play DITHERS instead. Her third win came against James, 372-357. James bingoed first with FROWNING, but that gave her a perfect place to play OPTIONS, and she was able to squeak out the win.