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1st Charles Reinke put in another dominating performance, going 5-0 +592 and coming in first place. He won his opener against Richard 449-311, though the sweet taste of victory was cut with the cloying flavors of a phony bingo, as he played OCHREOID*. OCHEROID is good, as well as OCHREOUS and OCHEROUS. In the second round, he opened with BOINKED against Bryan and never looked back, winning 517-390. These two wins earned him the privilege of playing two games at once in the third round. Against Mary, he repeated his performance from the previous round by scoring 517, with bingos of WEEDIER, TACRINE, and TIPSIER. Despite that high score, he had brain power left over to use on the other game, beating James in a close one 386-383. That game came down to the wire, and in the end James couldn't get enough with his Q to pull it out. In the last game, he faced Thomas and won 453-362. Thomas played the appropriate WORDIES (n. WORDIE, a word lover), one of the words just added to the dictionary, but Charles had AETATIS (adj. of the age of), STRAYING, and QUIETENS.

2nd Bryan Benwitz averaged a cool 449 on his way to a second-place-earning, 3-1 +357 record. In the first game, he not-so-warmly welcomed Gail back to the club, winning 484-328 with bingos of TORSADE (n. a twisted cord) and TRIMMED. He came up short against Charles, but he did score a minor victory (that wasn't reflected in his final win total) by blocking Charles' potential fourth bingo with his DOMINOS. In the third game, he won a low-scoring game against Helen 376-315. Helen bingoed with ABLUTION (anagram: ABUTILON), while Bryan played INHUMES (n. the opposite of EXHUMES). He must have been saving his bingo cannon (you know, the one he brings to club every week with BRYAN stamped on the side in big letters) for the final game, because in that one, he fired it off four times, resulting in a 546-279 win against James. His bingos in that game: STANING, SMILEYS, REWARDS, and EMULATOR.

3rd Thomas Reinke notched yet another 3-and-Charles night, going 3-1 +252. Dave struck first in their first-round match, bingoing with TINDERS, but Thomas fired back with OVERGILT, INFINITE, and ABLEIST and won 496-328. In the second game, he bingoed four times against Mary: MINNEOLA (n. a reddish tangelo (n. a citrus fruit (n. an edible reproductive body of a seed plant))), VAINEST, SWATTER, and ETIOLATE (which takes a P in front for PETIOLATE). The bingoing abruptly stopped for him in the next game against Richard, but he still came out on top, 435-399 despite getting outbingoed 3-1. As usual, he faced Charles in the last round with a perfect record, and also as usual, said perfect record was ruined. Has anyone ever seen the movie "Groundhog Day"? Just curious.

1st Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +378, edging out his brother for first place. His first win came in a relatively unexciting game against James, 396-367. He only bingoed one time, with OUTSAIL. He then faced Charles and received his only whupping of the evening, with the final score being 419-488. He bingoed with SCARVES and TUTORIAL, while Charles played LIMONENE, SPADEFUL (n. as much as a spade can hold), and RUBEOLAS. Maybe he would've won had he not foolishly challenged ARIGHT (adj. rightly; correctly). It was at this point in the session that he pounded his fist on the table and shouted "enough's enough!", and he followed that proclamation up with a 501-274 win against Helen. His best play that game was SCATHED for 102. In the finale, Bryan struck first with VELIGERS, which was quickly countered by Thomas' double-double MOTORIZE for 126. He later added SALINITY and SOUDANS (n. SOUDAN a Muslim ruler, also SOLDAN) and won 509-317.

2nd Charles Reinke added another item to the extremely long and ever-growing "Things I am worse than Thomas at" list by coming in 2nd with a 3-1 +313 record. He beat Bryan 450-402 in the opener, with the dreaded Q tile making an appearance just in time to cost Bryan a chance at victory. Charles bingoed three times, with NUTTIER, LEADENED, and BALAFONS (n. BALAFON a musical instrument of Africa, sort of like a xylophone). He also let Bryan get away with the phony ODORISE*. If you are ever tempted by that word, play OROIDES instead. After beating Thomas 488-419 in the second round, he turned his sights to the similarly undefeated Betty. He scored 513 in that game, changing her descriptor from "undefeated" to "defeated once". Despite the high score, he only bingoed twice, with ROOSTER and NONSKID. If you've been paying close attention to this paragraph, you'll've noticed that Charles had 3 wins at this point, but ended at 3-1. Thus, the result of the final game is spoiled for you, and it's true; he lost against James 314-367.

3rd Aaron Bader went 3-1 +189 in his weekly British battle with Mark, averaging 464 points which is good for the normal dictionary but not even (NOT EVEN) impressive for Collins, where players regularly score 900 points (okay I'm exaggerating now). He won a close won in the first match, 499-477, playing the word-of-the-week TORCHLIT as well as ENCLOSE and UNBROWNED (referring to ground beef, I presume). Mark also had three bingos, FLEXORS, AMORTISE, and NAILHEAD. Aaron had his highest score of the night in the next game, winning 514-363 while playing DARLING and GUTROTS*. For the rest of us, play ROTGUTS. His only loss came in the third round, and it was was a close one, 431-441, despite his bingo trifecta of SUPEREGO, TINKERER, and DERATING. In the last game he won 413-387. Mark played SMITHERS in that game, but don't take the S off of the end (you can take it off the front, though, for MITHERS). It meens the same as SMITHEREENS.

1st Charles Reinke followed up his weekend domination of the Arden Cup in Chicago with an additional serving of domination specially whipped up for the good people of Madison, Wisconsin. A 4-0 +458 record and 470 per-game average left him in undisputed first place for the night. He started off with a 453-321 win over Mary Becker, getting down a trio of high-probability seven-letter bingos: TOONIES, RENVOIS, and ORGEATS. The bingos continued unabated in the next game as Charles had four of them (MICRODOT, IDOLATRY, PETERING, and UNREASON) in a 521-395 victory against the similarly-named Thomas Reinke (who played EXORDIA and DONATIVE). In round three, Richard Lauder proved most capable at slowing down Charles' scoring might, but he was only partially successful as Charles won the game regardless, 401-359. Both players had two bingos in that one: Charles played PREWIRES and SOLENOID while Richard had TORSADES and MIAOUED (the latter of which looks more like a drunken typo than a real word). In the last game of the night, with an undefeated record on the line, Charles had no problem shaking off Bryan Benwitz; the final score of 503-345 was not particularly close. Bryan avoided complete chastening by getting down a bingo of POISONED, but Charles, again, had three bingos (PHORETIC, TINSTONE, and VIBRATOS) to put the game away.

2nd Thomas Reinke stared upwards in the standings with feelings of jealousy and hatred, but, in the end, was content with a second-place finish at 3-1 +235 (that contentedness made easier to achieve by virtue of the fact that he still holds a commanding lead over his brother in the yearly standings). In the first game of the night, Thomas faced off against Bryan Benwitz and won comfortably, 409-343, playing bingos of TABOULI and NESTLIKE (Bryan had RINGETTE). Thomas then ran into the unstoppable Charles Reinke and was defeated 395-521 for his sole defeat of the evening. Things turned around in the next game, where Thomas made easy work of Helen Flores, 536-359. Helen got down a bingo of TOILETS (after bemoaning the lack of an open T on the board for STILETTO), while Thomas had four bingos of his own: GEODETIC, TUMBRIL, ABELIAN, and ANOTHER (as in, "Thomas's opponent flipped the board when he played ANOTHER bingo"). In round four, Dave Gilligan made a surprise late arrival (after having stalked around the outside of the church on foot for an hour) and was rewarded with a matchup against Thomas, which didn't go well for Dave, as the 321-439 final score will attest. Things could have been worse, as Dave did manage to play a bingo (CARDING), but Thomas outdid him with two (SMEARED and DEFICITS).

3rd Richard Lauder played just three games (being fatigued from a grueling day out on the links), but made the most of it with a 2-1 +159 record. He squared off against James Frankki in the first game and was victorious, 399-347, thanks to bingos of VENTAGES and DONATION, which were much more potent and intimidating bingos than James' singular RESINOUS. Richard then went up against Helen Flores and scored another victory, 405-256. Sadly, the integrity of his winning effort was despoiled by a phony OUTAGED. On the plus side, his valid play of MORSELED drew a challenge from his rightfully suspicious opponent. On the even plusser side, his nonbingo outplay of UNDOUBLES (played through DO on the board) earned him a seriously large amount of style points (cash value: one-hundredth of a cent). The third and final game of Richard's evening did not have such a positive outcome as he was felled by Charles Reinke, 359-401, but Richard had just beaten Charles the week before, so the memory of that happy occurrence may have softened the blow somewhat.