Blog

1st Thomas Reinke topped a field where nobody went undefeated, but four players went 3-1, with his 3-1 +264 record. That +264 spread put him a whopping nine spread points ahead of second place and nineteen spread points ahead of third. Thomas started strong by beating Helen Flores 472-272, despite "only" bingoing once with VERTISOL. His scoring potency wore off in the next game as he was bested by Andy Bohnsack 347-402; his bingo of INDURATE failed to stand up to Andy's DONATES and POSTMAN. The bingos flowed more freely in a Collins-lexicon matchup against Charles Reinke; Thomas deployed AGOUTIES, PACIFIED, EMBROWN, and AVENIRS# en route to a 558-444 win. Thomas finished with a low-scoring 338-333 win against Steve Hartsman, where Thomas' three-O OVERTOOK was the only bingo played by either player.

2nd Steve Hartsman reversed the previous week's 1-3 record with a 3-1 +255 showing. His first game was a hard-fought 378-336 win over Sara McLaughlin, where Sara's RECRUIT was matched by Steve's INSIDES. Round two saw Steve and his 20+ years of tournament experience go against the upstart James Rollins, and experience prevailed as Steve played PARITIES and CONTORTS on his way to a 431-253 victory. Matching up against Andy Bohnsack in the next game, Steve played two more bingos (ADMIRING, SIRENIAN) for a 442-402 win. Sadly, a potentially perfect night was disrupted by Thomas Reinke, as their fourth-round contest ended with both players well below their yearly averages, 333-338.

3rd Lynda Finn made her third writeup appearance in four attempts with a 3-1 +245 record. A 368-410 loss to Charles Reinke in round one was perhaps not Lynda's preferred way to start a relaxing (?) evening of Scrabble, but things quickly turned around with a big 488-263 win against Sara McLaughlin. Lynda got down STOLLEN, INTONERS, and CAESIUM in that one. Things were a bit closer against James Rollins, but Lynda found the game's only bingo (HETAIRA) and it was her win, 370-334. She finished her relaxing (?) evening of Scrabble with a 434-408 victory versus Andy Bohnsack, playing MISINTER, ENDEMIC, and GEARING to Andy's SHIVERED. That win makes her the winner of six of the last eight games in the Lynda-Andy matchup, although the lifetime series still belongs comfortably to Andy.

4th Helen Flores went 3-1 -35, recovering from a big loss in round one to win her next three. Among those wins was a 384-379 victory against Bryan Benwitz, snapping a 26-game losing streak against Bryan.

Bryan Benwitz got the first 600-point game of the year when he scored exactly 600 against Sara McLaughlin. His 212-point SPEEDWAY accounted for over a third of his final score, and is the highest-scoring bingo so far this year by a significant margin (Mark Kenas' SLABBERY for 176 is the next highest). 212 points is also tied for the fourth-highest scoring bingo since modern statkeeping began in 2011.

1st Thomas Reinke spookily attained the exact same record, 4-0 +444, that he attained two weeks ago, making one think that the number "4" has some mysterious cosmic significance, the exact nature of which will remain forever elusive to our underpowered human brains. He began his night with a Collins-lexicon showdown vs. Charles Reinke which he won comfortably, 521-414, benefiting from four bingos: ABOIDEAU, MILITATE, WAGGLED, and RINKHALS (a RINKHALS is an African snake, pluralizing to RINKHALSES - there is no RINKHAL*, but you do get the related RINGHALS and RINGHALSES). Charles got down NOTATES and SOVIETIC#. In round two, Thomas fought off Bryan Benwitz, 410-378, finding FOOTRACE and UNCAGED. Thomas' 570 points in the third game was the highest individual game score of the night, scored against Dennis Lloyd, who finished with 361. The number "4" made a conspicuous reappearance, as that's how many bingos Thomas had: EXPLAIN, FORNICAL, NEGATES, CATENATE. Thomas finished off with a win against fellow 3-0 combatant, beating Sara McLaughlin 435-339 and taking the gold medal in the weekly standings (the "gold medal" is actually just a stale piece of cranberry-walnut scone).

2nd Andy Bohnsack finished strong at 3-1 +127, a perfectly acceptable record despite being a significant step down from the previous week's 5-0. It wasn't a great start for Andy as he was promptly handed a loss in round one: outbingoed by Sara McLaughlin three (SCALING, LOUNGIER, BERATING) to two (OVERLAPS, ROTURIER), Andy just barely fell short, 433-437. Filled with towering fury (or maybe just a twinge of annoyance [or literally no emotion at all]), Andy went on to vanquish two of the club's top players in consecutive games, first beating Charles Reinke 456-414 (with DITCHED and SERRANO) before besting Bryan Benwitz 414-404 (deploying HARDENS and STONIER). Andy completed his heroic comeback from his 0-1 start with a 459-380 victory against Milwaukeeite Steve Hartsman, showing off the rather stale fruits of his long-ago bingo study with OBTUSER, OGREISM, and SPRAINED.

3rd James Rollins' 3-1 +73 record won out against Sara McLaughlin's 3-1 -16 for third place, his first (but hopefully not last) appearance in the weekly writeup. He got off to a good start by taking a close win against Dennis Lloyd, 382-373, withstanding Dennis' PLUNGED and SENIORS, which were countered by James' RESCRIPT. James suffered a setback in round two when he lost to Sara McLaughlin 366-406; for those reading closely, that means Sara was responsible for the single losses of the 3-1 players who finished ahead of her, which feels like it should count for something. James recovered quickly from the loss, defeated Dave Kinzer 422-329, aided by bingo finds of CAROUSEL, INSOLATE, and HAIRTIE*. But the largest and most eye-catching feather in James' cap was a fourth-round victory over the club' leader in win percentage, Charles Reinke, 460-499. James dropped DESTAIN and LICENSE on the board for big scores, while Charles' TOWERIER, PALEOSOL, and INERTIA weren't quite enough.

Charles' MAKEFAST was word of the week, beating out a few of his other bingos (BODYSIDE, PALEOSOL) for the arbitrary honor.

1st Andy Bohnsack went undefeated for the second straight week, if you're only including weeks where we played at our east side location, with a 5-0 +434 record. He also dominated all other bingoers with thirteen bonus plays, nearly doubling the total of the next-most-prolific bingoer. Honored with the chance to play two games at once in the first round, Andy was relatively restrained in one game (winning 359-298 vs. Dennis Lloyd) while showing very little restraint in the other (beating Dave Kinzer 530-330). The game against Dave was tainted by Andy's phony UTRICATE* (he was thinking URTICATE), but he had plenty of valid bingos in that one as well: STURDIES, ALTERANT, and UNCHAIRS. He again utilized the battle-tested strategy of "overwhelm your opponent with bingos" against Charles Reinke, playing LIGHTERS, RAPTURES, and NAEVOID in a 434-385. After a non-Reinke interlude against James Rollins (Andy's win, 434-314), Andy squared off against the other Reinke and won a close one, 394-390. He needed every last point from his three bingos of ENROBED, RETUNES, and CHARIOT to win the game and secure the perfect record.

2nd Charles Reinke finished at 3-1 +484, holding his opponents to an uncommonly low per-game average of 331. In round one, Charles held the unfailingly bingo-prone Bryan Benwitz to zero bingos in a 525-289 win. Charles got down AEROLITE, PREFADES, and KAISERIN, selfishly hogging all the bingo action for himself. The good start was immediately tempered by a 385-434 loss to Andy Bohnsack where Charles only managed to get down MARLIER. But Andy's 434 would be by far the highest score of any of Charles' opponents; in the next round, Charles fought his brother Thomas to a low-scoring 388-341 win. Again, Charles held his opponent bingoless while getting two of his own: GOANNAS and the odd-but-valid NARRATER. Charles wrapped things up with a 509-259 win over Dennis Lloyd, an oddly large margin considering the combatants had the same amount of bingos (Charles' SURFINGS against Dennis' SCANTER).

3rd Thomas Reinke went 3-2 +118. He started nicely with a 468-392 win against Lynda Finn, finding high-probability sevens NEONATE and SELENIC to Lynda's high-probability eight of DERISION. Thomas got down two more bingos, PLEOPODS and VENTURIS, in a 410-359 round-two victory over Ron Malzer. Limping along below his season average of 2.25 bingos per game, Thomas hit a major snag as he was held bingoless in a 341-388 loss to Charles Reinke (I though Collins games were supposed to score more than that). Thomas partially regained his mojo in the final round as he faced an uncommonly tough two-on-one against Andy Bohnsack and Bryan Benwitz. A nifty WINESAPS against Andy was not enough for the win, as Thomas lost 390-394, but his HIRPLED and REORDAIN helped to propel him to a 403-362 win against Bryan, who played SAVORERS and ANISEED.

Bryan's 102-point BUCKRAMS was word of the week, edging out Thomas' PLEOPODS.