1st Bryan Benwitz answered the unanswerable question of "does 3-1 place ahead of 4-2" with a resounding "dunno", going 3-1 +98 and maybe coming in first place in the weekly results. He dispatched Reinke #1 (Thomas) in the opening bout, 409-388, finding OENOMEL to Thomas' VIRUSOID. Reinke #2 (Charles) proved to be a tougher opponent, and Bryan lost by a considerable margin, 404-524, despite bingos of HEADPIN and WINTRIER (Charles shamefully played the CSW-only UNSTAGED#, as well as OBSTACLE and REASONS). Round three saw Bryan defeat Helen Flores by an even 100 points, 448-338 (hurray for easy math), turning back her ROUTING with his own CURIOSA, ASSIGNEE, and THIRSTED. Bryan ended his evening with a lower-scoring 357-260 win against Sara McLaughlin, bingoing with SERRANO.
2nd Charles Reinke took advantage of a small, odd-numbered group of players to play two separate two-on-one matches, the end result being a 4-2 +592 record and an eye-watering per-game average of 491. He picked up two big wins in round one, vanquishing Richard Lauder 484-325 and Mark Kenas 529-308. In the Mark game, Charles' prophetic find of BLIZZARD was word of the week, while his other, non-prophetic bingos of SOLUNAR, FATIGUES, and BRANSLES# were not word of the week. Charles broke through the 500-point barrier again by taking down Bryan Benwitz 524-404. Another two-on-one match followed, with Charles splitting the games. Oddly, his losing score (484-567 vs. Mark) was one point higher than his winning score (483-306 vs. Sara McLaughlin). Mark notably got his revenge with four bingos (UNEASIER, SURMISAL#, RAREBIT, ETERNAL), while Charles had just one (AEGIRITE#), although a non-bingo triple-triple of OPTICIST for 108 was basically a bingo. Charles ended the night with a whimper (albeit a loud whimper), losing 442-444 to Thomas Reinke; Charles' three bingos of BLINKERS, EGESTION, and FOREHAND were outdone by Thomas' OUREBIS, EXOTICA, VINOSITY, and SAUNTER.
1st Bryan Benwitz prevailed over an evenly-matched field where nobody went undefeated (but six players went 2-2), finishing at 3-1 +277. He used up a significant chunk of his good fortune in round one (if we all agree to buy into the concept that good fortune is a finite resource that can be expended over one's lifetime), roundly defeating Richard Lauder 527-282. A significant percentage of Richard's final score came from his bingo of ORGASTIC, while Bryan threw down MORTARED, GOLDENLY, and ENSNARL. Bryan got another sizable win in round two, this time against Dennis Lloyd, 427-342, playing PERSONA to Dennis' STANCES. The "1" of Bryan's 3-1 record reared its head in the next game, as Bryan lost to Andy Bohnsack 317-429 (it seems like I have to describe a match of theirs every single week so I'm refusing to write any more on the subject). Bryan bounced back with a 414-355 win against Steve Hartsman, bingoing with MUSTANG and PATCHER.
2nd Andy Bohnsack went 3-1 +196, with an Andy-esque statline of 400 points and 2.25 bingos per game. He started things off with his sixth straight win over familiar foe Lynda Finn, 406-336, bingoing with BEGALLS and SPINATE while holding Lynda to a grand total of zero bingos. Andy repeated that feat in round two, locking down Steve Hartsman for a 370-292 victory. Of note in that one was Andy's TRASHMEN, which, if changed slightly to TRASHMAN, becomes the anagram of Steve's last name. Andy continued the name-calling with an additional find of DETRITUS. In round three, Andy got a win against Bryan Benwitz 429-317 (enough said), but was stopped short of an undefeated record by a 395-459 loss to Thomas Reinke in the final game. Andy can point to his acceptance of Thomas' phony INOSITIC* (INOSITE has no adjective form) as a potential game-loser.
3rd Thomas Reinke used his extra game to prevail over the teeming horde of 2-2 finishers, ending up at 3-1 +110. It was a rough start for Thomas as he elected himself the lucky recipient of a 2-on-1 game, only to lose both of them, 392-396 vs. Charles Reinke and 395-489 vs. Mark Kenas. Thomas hit on bingos of YAUTIAS, OILSEED, and ASTEISMS# (sadly, never extended to the more familiar CASTEISMS) in those games. Taking the first step on the long road towards recovery, Thomas won his next game, beating Lynda Finn 392-375, finding SPONGER to Lynda's AREOLES and REMAILED. He then got major revenge on Mark, triumphing in their rematch by a score of 486 to 359. Thomas' bingo mojo (bojo?) returned with INHOLDER, CASITAS, RELEARNT, and ARROZES. Round four saw Thomas complete his comeback (or whatever you would call it) with a 459-395 victory over Andy Bohnsack, getting down REFERENT and the previously-noted INOSITIC*.
Sara's BIGWIGS was word of the week, beating out Charles' SHOPGIRL (SHOPBOY and SHOPMAN are also good, but SHOPWOMAN# is only good in Collins).
1st Andy Bohnsack fully dominated from start to finish, ending at 4-0 +558 and holding his opponents to an average of 317 per game. He made easy work of Steve Hartsman in round one, winning 428-287 thanks to ARIDNESS and GLIMMER. In round two, Andy upped his winning margin, beating Dave Kinzer by 185 points, 512-327. Andy got down TERRIES, VENDERS, and PELICAN, but at least Dave found word-of-the-week WAVELETS for style points. Another big win came against Carol Ormand; STRAFING, SCALPERS, and the nine-letter ALIENATED (more style points!) were Andy's bingos in that one. Cementing Andy's undefeated evening was a 429-383 victory against Bryan Benwitz, wherein Andy took a slight break from bingoing (playing just one: KNEELING) but took no breaks at all from his general inclination towards winning games of Scrabble.
2nd Thomas Reinke averaged 490 points per game (which seems cool until you look at the stats and see that he averaged 503 two weeks ago) and went 3-1 +411. Utilizing the tried-and-true tactic of "sandbagging", Thomas lost his first game of the night, 454-459 against Mark Kenas. Mark had two nice finds of PONYTAIL and CIRRIPED; sadly, CIRRIPED was never extended into CIRRIPEDE. Thomas came back from that loss to defeat Lynda Finn 534-323, bingoing with ATTAINED, SEXTAINS, and TEMPORAL. In round three, Thomas evened things up with Mark, winning their rematch 513-431 with bingos of RESCALE, LINOCUT, and GRANFERS#. The bingoing continued unabated into the final round, as Thomas found three more bingos (CAROTENE, UNEASILY, SALLIES) to take down Sara McLaughlin, 459-336.
3rd Bryan Benwitz continued his streak of strong play by again finishing at 3-1, this time with a +221 spread. He outdueled Lynda Finn in round one, finding ERECTILE and MATURATE vs. Lynda's ALIENERS and FANCIEST for a 432-373 win. He picked up another win in round two, making good use of power tiles in his bingos (ANXIETY, JAROSITE) for a 456-328 victory against Helen Flores. The worrisome upward trend in Bryan's scores continued as he downed Steve Hartsman by a score of 470-390, getting RACINOS, TRASHIER, and DINETTE to Steve's SEDARIM and VIBRATES. That worrisome upward trend mentioned in the previous sentence was abruptly halted by Andy Bohnsack in the final round, as Bryan lost 393-429.
Wednesday, December 31:
NO SCRABBLE CLUB ON NEW YEARS EVE
Wednesday, January 7:
Scrabble at Covenant Church
Wednesday, January 14:
Scrabble at Covenant Church
Wednesday, January 21:
Scrabble at Misty Mountain Games
Saturday, January 24:
Madison Scrabble Club Party and Tournament
Club Results 12/17
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Posted 11/28/2025