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1st Charles Reinke's 3-1 +330 record was good enough in a field where no player went undefeated. He had a bit of a rough start when his first-round matchup against Mark Kenas resulted in a 429-443 defeat; he found OSTRAKON as his only bingo (can also be spelled OSTRACON), while Mark had a pair of high-probability sevens, VASTIER and STANDEE. In round two, Charles withstood three bingos from Ron Malzer (SLANDER, AUTHORS, and STAINERS) to secure a 438-409 victory. Following that tough win, a redo against Mark Kenas resulted in a significantly better outcome for Charles than their first go-around, with Charles taking a decisive 537-361 win thanks to bingos of BEARPAW, SLEEPER, and REFUTED. Charles then closed out the night with a win over the 3-0 Bryan Benwitz, 491-352. Again, Charles three bingos (TAENIAS, TOLLAGES, FUNSTER) were crucial to his triumph.

2nd Lynda Finn came off a strong performance at the previous weekend's Greeneye tournament in Minnesota to finish at 3-1 +149. Like Charles above, Lynda suffered defeat in round one, taken down by Richard Lauder 381-448. Richard flexed his bingo knowledge with DELETION, PEDALOS, and OUSTERS, while Lynda had INGESTED. Lynda's fortunes turned dramatically in round two as she vaniquished Sara McLaughlin 450-325, getting DEFINITE and OVERFIT as her bonus plays. Two more bingos, RESITES and ETESIAN were in store for Ron Malzer, and Lynda's reward was a prominent W on her (misplaced but later recovered) scoresheet, 397-351. ETESIAN was just played by Lynda last week, and has now been played at our club 44 times since 2011, the most of any single bingo - a true testament to the extreme likelihood of having AEEINST all on your rack at the same time (AIRIEST, EASIEST, ATONIES, and ERASION round out the top five, and we don't hit an eight-letter word until AERATION, RELATION, and RETAINER tied for 19th place). Back to the Scrabble action, Lynda finished her night (and secured her spot in the writeup) with a 407-362 win against Dennis Lloyd, despite getting outbingoed two to one (Lynda's DISCORD vs. Dennis' ALIENIST and word-of-the-week SUAVITY).

3rd Bryan Benwitz averaged a bit lower than his recent standard with "just" 430 per game, but finished at 3-1 +105 regardless. He got his big score out of the way early when he clobbered Dennis Lloyd 480-321. Both players had two bingos (Bryan: BOOTEES, BORNITIC; Dennis: LEERIEST, SCIMITAR), so the large gulf in scores must be explainable by some other point-scoring mechanism. Bryan slowed things down a bit with a smaller, but still solid, 429-364 victory over Richard Lauder, where the odd-looking LUNGEING was one of Bryan's two bingos (the other being LATERIZE), and a natural ASSHATS on Richard's rack was sadly not played, to the dismay of juvenile humorists everwhere. Bryan improved to 3-0 with a 457-437 win over Thomas Reinke; Thomas' 131-point COZIEST wasn't quite enough, although it might have been if he hadn't allowed Bryan to get away with ENRAGER*. A perfect 4-0 was prevented by Charles Reinke, who enacted some sort of twin-based revenge on Bryan to hand him a 352-491 loss.

As mentioned earlier, Dennis' SUAVITY was word of the week, but Sara's VITREOUS, Dennis' SCIMITAR, and Charles' BEARPAW, among others, were all candidates.

1st Charles Reinke thoroughly dominated the competition with an unblemished 5-0 +536 record. His first game was a high-scoring slugfest which he eventually won 479-453. The slugfest was, of course, metaphorical, as a "real" slugfest between Charles and Mark would certainly have a different outcome. In round two, Charles took on both Lynda Finn and Richard Lauder; the game against Lynda was relatively close at 413-354, while the game against Richard was a landslide victory for Charles, 522-344. If the victory was a landslide, Charles' four bingos of TWINGES, DECREASE, HADRONIC, and PATTIES were the boulders embedded in the landslide crushing cars and houses in their path. A rematch against Mark Kenas was another high-scoring win for Charles, 537-394; Mark wisely passed up TINDERED* to play DENDRITE as his only bingo, while Charles had AVOSETS, SINGULT#, and SASTRUGI (fun fact: if you have the word GUITARS, the only eight letter words in those letters are SASTRUGI and ZASTRUGI). Charles finished off his perfect night by defeating Sara McLaughlin 438-308, with bingos of ANAEMIAS and CURTAINS.

2nd Sara McLaughlin notched her second-straight three-win night with her 3-1 +115 record. Her first game was a solid 428-273 win over club long-timer Sue Goldstein, aided by bingos of TAPERING and OUTFIRE. She followed that up with a standout win over last year's club champion Bryan Benwitz, 472-400. Sara's bingos in that one were REPOSES and the funny-looking (but very useful) UTILISER, while Bryan's three-bingo outburst (CARTONED, TROIKAS, ENAMORED) proved to be not nearly enough to overcome Sara's relentless scoring onslaught. Sara improved to 3-0 with a lower-scoring 347-329 win against Dave Kinzer where the only bingo on the board when all was said and done was her TARDIES. Hopes of an undefeated club session were sadly snuffed out in round four where Sara suffered defeat at the hands (and tiles) of Charles Reinke, 308-438.

3rd Thomas Reinke averaged 468 points per game, but his opponents averaged 450, resulting in a 3-1 record with a lower-than-expected spread of +71. His night started with a well-contested game against Richard Lauder, 416-399. Thomas had FRONTAGE and ENTASIAS against Richard's NEEDIER and SENOPIA. Against Mark Kenas, Thomas found the unlikely TSADDIQ# (in addition to SIXTEEN and PREAUDIT), but fell 445-505 thanks to Mark's triple-triple of PEDALIER for 149 points and a nifty 80-point EXIGUOUS. It seems somewhat unbalanced that Mark bingoed with two U's and an X while Thomas played a U-less Q bingo, but Mark's probably not complaining. In round three, Thomas scored a needed win against Bryan Benwitz, 483-422, playing VALERIAN and DISTICH. DISTICH is a Greek word for a pair of verses; MONOSTICH, TRISTICH, HEXASTICH, and a bunch of other variants are also acceptable. STICH is also a good word by itself. Thomas concluded his evening with another fireworks-filled brawl against Mark Kenas, which he won 526-473, getting down AWAITED, AVERSION, and COOLANTS in the process.

1st Mark Kenas enjoyed a rare 4-0 performance, the only undefeated player from a full contingent of 16 competitors. As Mark is limited, by choice, to competing only in the Collins lexicon, his only opponents are an endless cascade of Reinkes, whose combined skill means that Mark never has an "easy" game. However, it was only a matter of time until the stars aligned for an undefeated night, and Wednesday night was the night. Mark began with a 454-400 win over Thomas Reinke, getting bingos of GLADIOLE#, OWLIEST, and SATURATE. A rematch went down to the wire, but Mark prevailed again, 451-448, with bingos of FAIRIER and HORNITOS. This loss was made more painful for Thomas by virtue of the fact that he had given Mark five extra points earlier in the game by challenging a valid word - in the Collins lexicon, the penalty for a lost challenge is not losing a turn, but instead giving one's opponent five free points. Given Mark's propensity for fake words, one can understand why Thomas was so flippant with his challenges. Against Charles Reinke, Mark also did well, winning their first game 500-396 (playing SPINNEY, LIONESS, and TOUZIEST# for 131) and their second 452-415 (playing BARFLIES and ESCROLS#).

2nd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 with a monster spread of +632 and a dizzying per-game average of 489. A first-round loss to Charles Reinke, 404-477, put him in the "losers' bracket" immediately - his bingos of SAUTERNE and DROWSIER couldn't overcome Charles' CENTARE, DARKING, RETORTS, and nine-letter UREOTELIC. UREOTELIC is an adjective meaning "eliminating unneeded nitrogen in the form of urea" and was chosen as word of the week by a unanimous vote of one. Bryan recovered from defeat in violent fashion, unelashing a hellish 631 points against Dave Kinzer, who scored decently at 318 but still lost by over 300. Bryan played SUPINATE, PELTERS, RECOINED, and DANCERS in his winning effort, although, with 631 total points scored, I think we all expected Bryan to have five or six bingos in the game, not just four. It's also worth nothing that 631 seems like it would be a record for highest score this year, but that title belongs to Mark Kenas and his 650, a mark which will be hard for anybody to top. Bryan's 421-348 win over John Bialek was more in the realm of normalcy, but then he pulled out all the stops once again to defeat Sara McLaughlin 501-182 for his second 300-point win of the night. Bryan found ZOYSIAS, COLDEST, and BATSMEN to secure victory.

3rd Richard Lauder continued his efforts to average two bingos per game, as he played 10 of them en route to a 3-1 +255 finish. His night started with a three-bingo effort against Helen Flores, playing INSOLES, MADDEST, and OGREISH en route to a 418-336 win. The bingo spigot continued to flow abundantly when Richard faced off against Ron Malzer; Richard propelled himself to a 440-338 win with finds of NOSTRILS, ERGATES, and OUTLINER. Ron, for his part, got down DETAINEE to ensure that Richard didn't have ALL the fun. A match against Charles Reinke proved to be Richard's only loss, 364-401, with his single bingo of CITREOUS not being quite enough. But order was restored when Richard plopped down another trio of bingos (NEUTRON, OUTWILE, ORIENTS) while dispatching Wendy Bialek, 431-323.