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1st James Frankki placed himself in rare company by coming in first place despite having a negative point spread, going 3-1 -14. That subzero number can be blamed on one Bryan Benwitz, who wiped the floor with James in the first round, 466-308. James got down a single bingo of ENATION in his losing effort, while Bryan had HOTLINE and EJECTING. In round two, James bounced back by getting a comfortable win over the fearsome Thomas Reinke, 440-374. Again, he had just one bingo (DANGLES) to his opponent's two (DORMOUSE and ANCIENTS), but an 83-point play of ZERK provided the needed scoring to take Thomas down. James furthered his goal of finishing in first by vanquishing Lynda Finn in a close round-three matchup, 419-413. His bingos of NEARNESS and AMREETAS were countered by Lynda's OPUNTIA and DESERVE, but he pulled out the six-point victory regardless. In the fourth round, James faced off against Barb Pratzel and took the win, 399-327, despite not getting down a bingo. Barb played APPLIED using both blanks, proving that two blanks at once is usually a curse rather than a blessing.

2nd Charles Reinke went 3-2 +311, which was good for second place in a small group of seven players. He began the night with a 2-on-1 match against both Lynda Finn and Barb Pratzel which ended very favorably for him; he beat Lynda 445-341, playing MITTENED, LIGATURE, and AGROUND as his bingos, and Barb 546-284, getting PHAROSES and a triple-triple of ASCRIBES for 149 points using both blanks (proving that two blanks at once is not always a curse). Things went south for Charles in the next game as he was defeated by Bryan Benwitz 385-419. Both players had just one bingo; JONESES for Charles and RAVELING for Bryan. The losing trend continued when he met up against Thomas Reinke in round three, falling by a score of 501 to 523, but some consolation was gained by the 501-point losing score being the fifth-highest losing score in the club since modern record-keeping began in 2011. Charles played SANIDINE, AREOLES, FATIGUES, and RAILROAD on his way to defeat, while Thomas had AIRFOIL, REVOTED, and ANTLIONS. The two twins met again in round four, and this time, Charles pulled out the win, but only by the tiniest of margins, 450-449. SAUNTER and EXCRETAL were Charles' bingos; Thomas got DESTROYS and BIOGENS (passing up its self-descriptive anagram, BINGOES).

1st Charles Reinke, with a 4-1 +513 record, came in first, which you probably had already figured out, considering that this is the first paragraph. He won 422-381 against Dave in the first round, with Dave playing DEXTROSE and Charles playing ENACTION and IMBECILE. Remember, it's not nice to call your opponents names over the Scrabble board. In the second round he played as the "one" in a two-on-one, and won both games. He outbingoed his opponent 3-0 in each, but the final scores were very different. He won big against Mary by scoring a whopping 601 points (featuring an appropriate bingo of DOMINATE), and against Bryan, could barely eke out a 392-389 victory. He had another close game in the next game, but this time he was on the wrong side of it, losing to Thomas 442-449. He bingoed early with RETINUE and KYANISE, but Thomas had OLEFINE, ENTAILS (later extended to VENTAILS), and the game-saving find of CEREBRIC. In the final game, he won against Helen 463-317, playing only one bingo, OVERSET. Sources close to the situation tell me that he passed up on the valid REEKERS. "One that reeks". Come on.

2nd Thomas Reinke also went 4-1, but with a seriously inferior and honestly pathetic +347 spread. He sat down to face James in the first round, but was abruptly pressed into service to play a late-arriving Richard as well. The game against James ended as a 453-338 win, but the shock at Richard's arrival led him to a 390-402 loss. Richard bingoed three times, with STOREMAN, RICHENS, and TRIPPING for 98, while Thomas could only manage ESTREAT. Against Dave in the next game, he started off with UNMOLTEN, and also added SOOTIER and WAFFLER (n. one who waffles). That last one was 119 points, accounting for a big part of the 494-310 win. After his 449-442 win against Charles, he faced Bryan in the final game. After plenty of bingos, power-tile plays, and frustrated sighs, Thomas came out on top 514-461. He played four bingos: PARGETS, OEDIPEAN (adj. pertaining to the Oedipus complex), REGATTA (a word, it was pointed out, that was played by Bryan in his first ever club game), and BINATELY.

3rd Aaron Bader came in third with a 3-1 +323 record. In the first game he faced Mark (spoiler alert: he plays Mark in all the other rounds as well) and won 526-300. He had one normal bingo, ENGINOUS, as well as two abnormal Collins-only ones, SLARTED* (anagram DARTLES) and ESSIVES*. Things were a lot closer in the next game, but he managed to pull out a 425-411 win by closing the board so much that Mark was unable to bingo with his final double-blank racks. Mark did play the word of the week, BONSPIEL, in that game. Aaron suffered his only loss of the night in the third round, 419-454, as Mark's late COHUNES (n. COHUNE, a palm tree, also CAHOUN) scored way too many points (86) to come back from. In the last round, he double-doubled early with TETANOID (adj. resembling tetanus) through Mark's ANGUIPED* and later played REGESTS*.

Honorable mentions: Gail and Helen both went 3-1 as well, but missed out on getting paragraphs of their own due to some esoteric (and discriminatory) concept known as "spread".

1st Charles Reinke came in first with a 4-1 +502 record. He got an early start on Indepence Day with some fireworks of his own in the first game, as he played five bingos against James in a 567-302 win. Those bingos: OSCULAR, OUTLEARN, IDOCRASE (a mineral also known as VESUVIANITE), WEIGHTS, and UNPLOWED. He then faced two players at once, but this wasn't a usual two-on-one pairing: he was facing Thomas and Bryan, two very tough players. He won against Bryan 463-352, outdoing Bryan's KITTENS with his own ALANINE and CLAVIER. He wasn't so lucky against Thomas, though a late bingo of REGINAS for 94 prevented the game from being a total blowout, with the final being 489-434 in favor of Thomas. In round three, he faced Betty and won 441-297, with bingos of OPULENT and SALINITY. Unforunately for Bryan, he was forced to play Charles a second time in the final round, and the result was again not in his favor, 473-436. Bryan played DOMINATE, INERRANT, and REALISES, while Charles had bingos of VERBENAS and AVERTER.

2nd Thomas Reinke put together a solid-but-not-solid-enough-for-first-place 4-1 +414 night, good for second place. He started off playing in a two-on-one, against Helen and Betty. He exited the round with 389 points of spread, an impressive feat marred slightly by his phony QUOTINGS* for 107 against Helen. In the next game he was the beneficiary of his opponent's divided attention, as he beat Charles 489-434 with bingos of BOTTLING, DREAREST, and ENTERIC. He walso the beneficiary of his opponents's divided attention in the third round, but even with that advantage, he couldn't beat Aaron in a Collins dictionary battle, losing 382-461. He played another game of Collins in the final round, this time against Mark. Things worked out better for him in this one, as he found out that if you just draw a bunch of bingos that are already good in the American dictionary, you can win despite a large vocabulary deficit. The final was 492-443, with his bingos being MELODIA, CORDAGE, and INFLATOR. Mark played two Collins-only bingos, PETERMEN* and ENCARPUS* (n. a frieze decoration of festooned fruit, and here all my frieze decorations of fruit were blatantly unfestooned like I'm some sort of cultureless heathen).

3rd Aaron Bader went 3-1 +215 in his weekly Collins match with Mark (rudely interrupted by an interloper), finishing in third. He won the opener 480-318, with bingos of ADUSTING* (ADUST is good in our dictionary but is only an adjective), KERNELS, and EMBOWELS. For reference BOWEL, EMBOWEL, DISBOWEL, and DISEMBOWEL all mean the same thing, and it's not a good thing either. His second game with Mark was marked (get it?!?!?!?) by his triple-triple of HONOREES through the N in Mark's just-played NOTICERS. That play was 158 points by itself, which directly led to a 500-404 win. He played two in the third round, a tough task when the opponents are Thomas and Mark, but club leadership maintains that the task could have been made much tougher with the addition of a blindfold, the temporary removal from the dictionary of all words containing an "E", and intermittent proddings with sharp implements. In any case, he beat Thomas 461-382 with normal bingos of RAIDERS, COEDITED, and SERENATA. Against Mark, he lost 399-521, his bingos of BHEESTIE and PICANTE losing out to Mark's INCHTAPE*, LARDOONS, FASTINGS, and GROUTIER.