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?