Aaron Demonstrates That Knowing All the Nine-Letter Words Can Be Useful

1st Aaron Bader put together a dominant evening despite the swirl of British-dictionary words clouding his mind, going 4-0 with a huge 760 spread. After gaining 361 points of that spread in one fell swoop against Barb, he faced the tough trio of Thomas, Bryan, and Charles, easily beating each in turn. In his 433-372 victory against Thomas, he played the beautiful word-of-the-week 9-letter double-double CREPITANT (adj. having or making a crackling sound) for 104 points. In his next game, a 467-294 win against Bryan, he played another (though slightly more prosaic) nine, TOLLGATES, as well as another double-double, ONCOGENE (n. a gene that causes a cell to become cancerous). For his final act, he dominated club-leader Charles 513-348, playing the nice ACARIDAN (anagram ARCADIAN).

2nd Bryan Benwitz, after coming in first the last two weeks, had to settle for second, going 3-1 +291. Like Aaron, he opened with a huge win, 537-236 against Helen, playing INTERNED, AORISTS, SEPALOID, and the excellent HEMPSEED (n. the seed of hemp, what, you were expecting something else?). All that bingoing must have tired him out, as he only bingoed three more times the whole evening: twice against Mary, and once in a final-round 387-370 win over Andy. Reminder to club members: when you bingo four times in a game, it is expected that you bingo AT LEAST 6 times in your next game.

3rd Peter Schmiedicke went 3-1 +232, successfully keeping either twin from the top three for the third consecutive week. A bingo-sparse 370-414 to the T-Twin gave way to three straight wins, the first against Andy, 466-420. Unlike his game with Thomas, this one was satisfactory to bingo-lovers everywhere: Peter played ADROITLY, TRENCHER, SOUPIEST, and LATRINES, while Andy played OILCANS and the phony VEXATES* (only VEXATION is good). He followed this up with a win against Richard 451-316, and a win against Gail, 434-339. Hopefully this streak of good play follows him to Elmhurst, Illinois, where he and a few other club members are playing the Arden Cup this weekend.

The bingo-king/queen title was hotly contested with Aaron, Andy, and Gail all notching 10 bingos. If only we had a three-sided coin to settle this dispute.