Charles Reinke Snags First Place Despite Not Playing Twelve Bingos in Three Games

1st Charles Reinke finished 4-1 with a sizable spread of +524. One look at his opponent's average score of 323 makes it clear how he was able to rack up so much spread. Charles cleverly tanked his first game against Peter Schmiedicke, losing 368-394, in order to play easier competition in the rest of his games. He even went so far as to allow Peter's phony DRYINGS to stay on the board so as to supplement his losing chances. Of course, in the real world, Charles has perfect knowledge of which -ING words take an S. Simultaneous to that game, Charles defeated Betty Hasselkus 490-285, playing the high-probability EULOGIST and ATONIES against Betty's DEITIES. Another 200-point margin was attained against Gail Salm, who fell 307-517. Gail managed to play INCITERS, but Charles ran away with it, playing PLIMSOLE, AREOLES, and the word of the week, OXTONGUE (n. a European herb).

2nd Aaron Bader played just three games, but thoroughly dominated in all of them, playing four bingos and scoring over 500 in each one. Thus, his record of 3-0 +619 might be the best three-game performance in club history. The massacre commenced when Aaron matched up against Barb Besadny and won easily, 531-234, playing GREEDIER (appropriate), EASIEST (also appropriate), GASEITY, and UNPAIRED. His second game, he was matched against an opponent who was also coming off a 200-point win, Gail Salm, but this fact did not cause his resolve to falter, and he cleaned up with a 512-349 victory. His four bingos in that one were GAOLERS, FLEETING, EREMITES, and TRENDERS, the last of which is not good in any human dictionary. Aaron ended his night prematurely with a 527-368 drubbing of top expert Thomas Reinke. The bearded twin got EGESTION and PUNISHES, but lost momentum with a phony BESEIGER (although he will be quick to point out that the correct spelling didn't fit). Meanwhile, Aaron's inability to draw bad tiles continued unchecked, as he played CANDELA, DROOPIER, BRUITERS, and TANTIVY.

3rd Dennis Lloyd went 3-1 +120 and improved his yearly record to an even 6-6. He got off to a good start by defeating Helen Flores on her home turf, 408-348. PRETEND and MILIEUS (MILIEUX also being acceptable) were his bingos; Helen played ROMANCE and lamented at the fact that it never got extended to the new word, BROMANCE. Against Richard Lauder, Dennis won cleanly, 403-309. Richard had an early two-blank CARRIES, but Dennis pulled ahead for good with his play of ROUSING. Richard was also punished for playing DOLMA thinking that it didn't take an S, as he only knew the "real" plural of the word, which is DOLMADES. Peter Schmiedicke was the only one to hand Dennis a loss, and he did it in convincing fashion, winning 489-356. Despite the gulf between their scores, the two players matched each other bingo-for-bingo: Peter had DRONGOS and TOWERED to Dennis' AILERON and DEVIATE.

Two new bingos were played this week, both by Charles: IONISER and BLEAREST. The club also reached a milestone, having played its 10,000th unique bingo. However, there are still some 46,000 left to be played, and most of the low-hanging fruit (in the form of high-probability words) has been plucked off the tree and consumed, so even 20,000 is probably a decade off.

After a period of inactivity, the club's Facebook page is being resurrected: https://www.facebook.com/Madison-Scrabble-Club-388301582736 . We will try to feature photos of cool plays or other notable things, so if a cool or notable thing happens in your game, snap a picture of it or get one of the twins to do it.