1st Thomas Reinke went undefeated for the third week in a row, this time ending up with a 4-0 +511 record. His first game was a big win against a late-arriving, harried-looking Helen, where he scored 505 and played LEADENS, SOBBERS (an appropriate term describing the usual state of one of his Scrabble victims), and HUMANITY. He faced Charles in the second round, and won 438-382. Charles started off with a big SHIELDED for 94, but that was his only bingo, and Thomas' sole SETBACKS along with some other stuff (exact nature of the stuff is unknown) was enough to take the win. Thomas' next match was against Gail, where he won 443-365. He got two bingos, SPOILER and ACULEATE (n. a stinging insect), early, then proceeded to play so much defense that Gail couldn't bingo at all. There was a definite lack of places to play by the end, but they managed to squeeze all 100 letters onto the board when all was said and done, achieving the customary 44.44444 percent tile coverage. In the final game, there was a rematch of the classic twin matchup, and Thomas again came out on top, 500-382. He played ZENAIDAS, STUNNERS, and DICENTRA in that game, while Charles' two bingos meant that Thomas had only three played against him the whole night. Easy to win games when your opponents aren't getting 50-point bonuses all the time, I guess.

2nd Gail Salm came in second place with a 3-1 +46 final tally. She won a close one against Dave in the opener, 395-371, countering his word-of-the-week CHOLERIC (adj. bad-tempered) with SCORIAE and playing enough defense to keep her opponent from bingoing at the end. Her scoring output dipped in the second game, by one point, but she still beat Bryan 394-349 by playing TENSIVE and PINIEST. That makes two wins in a row for her against that particular opponent, and the trend doesn't show any signs of stopping, as Bryan will continue to not win any games against her for at least the next week. In the third game, she faced the unstoppable defensive juggernaut of Thomas and lost 365-443, but she recovered in the final game, beating Helen 436-381.