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1st Charles Reinke found himself on the top of the proverbial heap with a perfect 4-0 +334 record. His first game was, unsurprisingly, a victory, with Charles triumphing 418-334 over James Frankki. Charles had SNEERED and PANIERS as his bingos, while James had SERENADE (which is SNEERED + A). A match against Dave Gilligan ended with Charles' out-bingo of GURGLING, which took a relatively close game into "drubbing" territory, 452-267. The upward trajectory for Charles continued as he faced off against Bryan Benwitz and won 516-389. Bryan played CRISPIER and URETHANS, but Charles proved once again that three bingos is better than two by playing DETENTS, DEBATING, and EMENDERS. That previously-mentioned upward trajectory, which seemed poised to unceasingly continue upward for all eternity, did drop down a little bit in the final game as Charles squeaked out a close game against newcomer Barb Pratzel, 398-376. Barb's SQUAREST for 100 was the highest-scoring bingo of the night, but it fell just short of securing her the victory.

2nd Thomas Reinke went 4-1 +224, but his 80% winning percentage was barely higher than his 79.2% winning percentage for the club season, meaning he should have tried harder to go 5-0. His first game was a two-on-one with mixed results; he beat Dennis Lloyd in a tightly-fought 385-369 contest, but fell to Bryan Benwitz 397-440 in the other game. Interestingly, Thomas phonied Dennis with the plausible-sounding misscore, a word which all Scrabble players have used at least one time while correcting an incorrectly-counted play. In the second round, Thomas had another close game, but used bingos of DIVORCEE and DRONERS to take out James Frankki 408-392. James played CHOLERA, which is good in Scrabble but not good in real life. After a solid 405-324 win against Betty Hasselkus, Thomas went up against Mark Kenas in a game using the Collins dictionary. That one was a blowout in Thomas' favor, 493-339, and he had a trio of nice bingos: ACACIAS, FURANES, and word-of-the-week NAPROXEN.

3rd Bryan Benwitz finished 3-1 +147, taking third by just a few spread points over Barb Pratzel. He started strongly and fearlessly by taking down Thomas Reinke 440-397, playing bingos of ALEURONE, ENDORSEE, and ARRAIGNS to great effect. A game against Gail Salm in the next round was slightly less comfortable for Bryan, but he still got the win, 398-375. Gail did outbingo him by getting UNSEATS and BETAINES to Bryan's sole SUNTANS. In the third round, Bryan suffered his only loss, the 389-516 final score wiping out all of his spread and leaving him in the negatives. However, all that spread was gained back and more with a 524-316 win over James Frankki. His three bingos of MENTION, REVILER, and TORSADE were nice, but even nicer were his non-bingo plays of FUNPLEX and QAJAQ, the latter of which might not get played for another two decades.

4th Barb Pratzel, in her first-ever experience with competitive Scrabble, went 3-1 +130 (with a 406 average!) and just barely missed out on the top three. Her best game was a 458-378 win against Gail Salm where she played UNEARTHS and STRIVEN. With six bingos in four games, she found herself right at home with the club's collection of bingo-prone players!

1st Thomas Reinke shook off the ice accumulated over a multi-week absence from Scrabble, and came in first place with a 3-1 +277 record. His first play of the night was a 106-point double-double RAMPANCY, and he used that early advantage to escape with a 475-449 win against Bryan. Bryan managed that many points despite only one bingo, LOUDEST, while Thomas added SERRANO and GAIETIES (the fourth time he's played that word). Against Charles in the second round, he won decisively, 467-336. A seemingly great accomplishment, until you look at the standings for the night and see Charles' name at the very bottom. Thomas bingoed with AVERAGED, PANFRIES, and SNIFTER in that one. After that, he faced the scorching-hot Dennis, and succumbed 380-418. Dennis' early power-tile plays and bingo of GLANCED were enough to outrun Thomas' TENORINO (n. a high tenor, plural TENORINI) and ASSENTER. In the final round, he cruised to a 451-293 win against Helen, who would've put up more of a fight if the blank she drew wasn't the last tile in the bag.

2nd James Frankki came in second with a 3-1 +54 record. He started his night off right with a 413-345 win against Helen. Helen had a nice find of APERTURE, but two is more than one, and James bingoed twice, with VETOERS and EARNEST. Bingoes were hard to come by in the next round as he faced Bryan. Neither player got down all their letters at once, although James did try a phony with both blanks on an extremely closed board. The final in that one was 262-356, and now that I've typed that out, everyone can forget that that game ever happened. Things went better for him in the third match as he beat Charles (who, I might add, is the reigning club champion) 405-385. He played the always-useful AILERON to help him along the way. To complete his evening, he beat Dennis 418-358, with bingos of PANELING and CURTALS (n. an animal with a clipped tail). Dennis did have a high-scoring SITUATE, but it was too little, too late.

3rd Bryan Benwitz earned third despite playing only three bingoes, ending up at 2-2 +232. He scored well even with a single bingo against Thomas, thanks to a steady stream of high-scoring plays. After his 356-262 win against James which I said we could all forget about (I lied), he faced Helen and lost 351-372. Helen played an unusual 3-U bingo, UNUSUAL. There are only six other seven-letters words with that many U's, including MUUMUUS which has 4 of the cursed tile. Bryan didn't end up bingoing that game (probably because he couldn't draw three U's at the same time because Helen was hogging them all), but any complaints ceased when he beat Charles 566-381. Such a high score was made possible by his triple-triple SEAWANTS (n. a form of currency in the form of polished shells, more commonly known as WAMPUM). The 185 points he scored for that are the most he's scored for a bingo since the club started keeping track.

Belated congratulations to Dennis Lloyd for winning the second division of the tournament he played in New York City. He was the bottom seed, rated far below everyone else, but showed his Midwestern mettle and went 6-2 +296 to win. In addition to some cold hard cash, he gained a bunch of rating points that will be redistrubted to the needy.

1st Charles Reinke finished with a 4-0-1 +411 record, which technically counts as "undefeated" but does not qualify for the designation of a "perfect night". Coming into the session with nine straight wins, Charles was looking to get a quick win to extend the streak to ten, but James Frankki had other plans: their match ended in a deadlocked 365-365 tie. After unconvincingly (and unsuccessfully) pleading club leadership to allow the winning streak to continue on grounds of a technicality, Charles went on to win his next four anyway. He defeated Bryan Benwitz 490-405 thanks to bingos of NOPALES, BORACES, and SWEETLIP (Bryan got down SORDINI and the nice find of REPANDLY). The next round saw Charles tasked with playing two at once, but this extra measure of challenge was surmounted; he beat Michael David 450-385 (playing ADENINES and LOCKETS) and Dave Gilligan 530-289 (playing the useful high-probability eights of NEOTERIC and DATELINE). The establishment of a new winning streak was completed with a 431-411 win against Thomas Reinke. Thomas displayed an unfortunate lack of awareness as to which varieties of cheese have made it into the dictionary, phonying with STILTONS in addition to his valid play of OBDURATE. Charles had LEPROTIC, ROBINIAS, and OBEDIENT as his bingos.

2nd Aaron Bader did his part in helping to bankrupt the club by playing two triple-triples during his customary four-game series against Mark, which Aaron comfortably won, going 3-1 +105. The first game saw Aaron take a relatively low-scoring (in the Collins context) win, 414-353. Mark got in his one victory in round two, 439-401, but the bingos played were all unspectacular seven-letter words, so no bytes will be wasted in this writeup to list them (instead we'll waste bytes by writing frivolous parentheticals). Round three was a high-scoring 485-455 win for Aaron, who did most of his damage by playing PEARMAIN for 185. Mark played MAUVEIN#, ANKUSES, and word of the week GALABIYA (which has roughly two thousand valid spellings and six thousand invalid spellings). If you thought their round three game was embarrassingly high-scoring, you'll turn beet red at the score of their fourth-round game. The final tally was 432-480 in Aaron's favor. It was in this game that Aaron played his second triple-triple of the night, OUTSERVE for 158.

3rd Lynda Finn only played three games, but made the most of them by finishing 2-0-1 +128. She also disordered the orderly statskeeping of the club by introducting another tie game into the system. Against Mary Becker in the first round, Lynda won by a healthy margin, 448-336. She played two different bingos out of almost the same rack, COOLERS (CELOORS) and ORIOLES (EILOORS). Her normally strong scoring instincts seemed to disappear in round two, but her winning instincts did not, as she took down Dave Gilligan 346-330. Lynda played LENTOID; Dave played RETIREES. In what would end up being her final game, Lynda faced off against the fearsome Thomas Reinke, and came away with an acceptable outcome, which was a 432-432 tie. Both players got three bingos: DECRIES, HUNKIEST, and PATZERS for Lynda, URINATES, NEGATES, and AURICLED for Thomas.