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1st Andy Bohnsack was the undisputed weekly champion with a 4-0 +393 record. Not only that, but he took the hardest road to get there, beating all three of those players who finished with just one loss. Round one saw him dispatch Steve Hartsman, 456-385, matching Steve's finds of SOMEBODY and YEARLING with BASINET and ATOMIZE. In the next game, he matched up against Dave Kinzer and won 435-337 with bingos of GROANED and TUTORING (TROUTING is also a word, although TROUTED* isn't). Dave forgot the #1 rule of playing Andy, which is to try to match Andy's strategic approach, that is to say, bingo as much as possible. Charles Reinke also needed to be reminded of that rule, as he fell to Andy 393-347, his sole MITERING no match for Andy's SNORTER and NITROSO. Andy put the fourth and final feather in his cap by trouncing Ron Malzer, 515-337, finding VERBENAS, CORONAE, and CHEATING for his bingos. A more skillful writer would be able to wring a cheating joke out of that one, but I've got nothing.

2nd Charles Reinke enjoyed a 4-1 +153 record, hitting that exact W/L total for the third week in a row. With Mark absent, Charles got just one Collins-lexicon game for the night, that being a round-one encounter vs. Thomas Reinke that he won 499-461. Thomas landed SURETIES, IRATELY, and ILIACUS#, while Charles had SIMPLER and REORGED. Round two saw Charles take on both Lynda Finn and Ron Malzer; deploying three bingos in each of those games, he managed to win both, 432-335 vs. Lynda (ULEXITES, UNADDED, SAINTDOM) and a high-scoring 456-403 vs. Ron (KERATOSE, LOUNGED, WINDLES). The aforementioned loss to Andy Bohnsack, 347-393, put the kibosh to Charles' ever-present "go undefeated" plans, but he recovered just enough to pull out a close win over Bryan Benwitz, 441-430. Bryan hit BLONDINE (which takes a D!) and SCAUPER; Charles had VOLTING, TANBARKS and ROTINIS. (Long-timers will remember the bad old days when the only bingo in IINORST was the harder-to-spot IRONIST)

3rd Steve Hartsman finished 3-1 +134, a nice little bit of momentum heading into the weekend's up-north tournament in Hudson. He smartly got his loss out of the way early when he was felled by Andy Bohnsack, 385-456. Remembering last week's loss to Helen Flores, Steve was granted a chance at revenge and took full advantage with a mammoth victory, 525-364. MOTTLING, SPIRIEST, and LARIATS were Steve's bingos in that one. Steve also picked up an impressive win over club leader Thomas Reinke, 419-396, thanks to MARTINET and PASTORS. Finishing the night with a match against John Bialek, Steve had to sweat a little bit as he came away with a 375-354 win, finding ENROOTS to John's LOANERS.

Thomas' BIRDLIFE was word of the week. It pluralizes to BIRDLIFES, not BIRDLIVES*.

1st Bryan Benwitz went 4-0 for the fourth time this year, with a 461 per-game average and a +425 spread total. Facing a four-game losing streak against Andy Bohnsack, Bryan emphatically ended Andy's run with a 504-369 win, getting AUDITING, ZORILLAS, and EMERSION. A match against Charles Reinke saw both players get just one bingo (Bryan's ARTLESS vs. Charles' SARCINAE), but Bryan got a comfortable win, 403-333. Bryan's success against tough players continued as he beat Steve Hartsman 407-360, plopping down PELTRIES and CUISINE. With the elusive 4-0 in reach, Bryan pulled out all the stops against Helen Flores, bingoing with GLONOIN, JALOUSIE, TURRETS, and COLEASE* to cruise to victory, 529-356. (Note: COLEASE* becomes somewhat more defensible once you learn that COLESSEE and COLESSOR are words. There is also a word in ACEELOSS that is not COLEASES*.)

2nd Thomas Reinke went 4-1 with a monstrous spread of +595. A round one bout against John Bialek went quite well for Thomas (and consequently, quite poorly for John), with Thomas prevailing 545-256 on the strength of RADULAS, OCREATE, and TANYARDS. In his customary two-game set against Mark Kenas, Thomas won both, although the fact that he got away with phony bingos in both (under the five-point challenge rule, no less) basically nullifies the wins. PREWINS* (looking for PREWYNS#) was deployed in the initial 431-411 win, and PIRNING* (PERNING#) was the offending bingo in the second win, 467-327. Thomas' loss was to Andy Bohnsack, 366-399; Thomas found BAGGIEST, but Andy had FANTASY and TONTINES. Thomas neutralized Steve Hartsman in the final round, 466-287 to conclude yet another successful Scrabble outing.

3rd Charles Reinke went an identical 4-1 to his brother, but with a smaller +354 spread. His first game against Mark Kenas was the quintessential Collins game, with both players bingoing three times (Charles: SIDALCEA, CLOTTIER#, JAGHIRE#; Mark: RETAPING, SENTRIES, STENOKY) and with a near-1000-point score total. It was Charles' win, 544-446. Charles later beat Mark in a lower-scoring, not-as-quintessentially-Collins game, 407-396, where Mark made waves with a word-of-the-week find of VOLPLANE. Charles' scoring took a nosedive as he failed to substantially alter Bryan Benwitz's winning ways in a 333-403 loss. But Charles' scoring power was revived in a 573-320 victory over Richard Lauder where a 140-point 3x3 of MATTERED mattered the most. Charles finished with a 445-383 win against Andy Bohnsack, getting some higher-probability sevens on the board in CARITAS, ENDORSE, and SEMINAR.

1st Andy Bohnsack took the top spot for the second week in a row, going 4-1 +552 and averaging 461 points per game. Against Richard Lauder in round one, both players limped to the finish line with a lower-than-usual final score of 355-283, advantage Andy. As a counterpoint to that game, Andy faced off against Helen Flores at the same time (shout out to odd numbers) and won 500-320, bingoing with BUOYAGE, RADIANCE, and REASSIGN. In round two, Andy got down a triple-triple of ROMAINES (140 points) against Charles Reinke, but came up just short, losing 480-488. Taking on Bryan Benwitz in the next game, Andy lengthened his winning streak against Bryan to four straight in a 503-359 win. VAINEST, UNISSUED, and ALODIUM were Andy's bingos. Andy ended the night with a big win over John Bialek, 466-302, thanks to INERTIAL, CUPRITE, and LATEXES (LATEX also pluralizes to LATICES).

2nd Charles Reinke averaged 483 points per game (take that Andy) to also finish 4-1 with a spread of +341. Charles wasted no time placing himself firmly in the winners' bracket with a first-round drubbing of Steve Hartsman, 554-377. Steve found SCROOGES and WERGELTS (also spelled WERGELD, WERGILD, and WEREGILD), while Charles laid the bingos on thick with UNSEEMLY, COGNATES, INVENTED, and ARMADAS. For round two, Charles faced a tough two-on-one against Andy Bohnsack and Mark Kenas, but prevailed in both, 488-480 against Andy and 473-413 against Mark. Charles did sneak by a phony against Mark, the plausible OCHREOID* (OCHEROID and CHOREOID are good), in addition to MONKEYED and SCENEMAN#. Charles racked up more spread with a 487-318 win against John Bialek (countering John's nice find of DETENTE with TORUSES, DULCINEA, and LOONIER), but couldn't close the deal on a perfect 5-0 record as his rematch against Mark resulted in a loss, 414-487. (Note for bingo nerds: of the eight playable words in EORSSTU, we are still waiting for people to play OESTRUS, SOUTERS, and STOURES. ESTROUS, OUSTERS, SOUREST, and TUSSORE have all been played. Charles picked correctly when choosing TORUSES, which was the first time that word has been played.)

3rd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 +77, incrementally forcing his yearly winning percentage upward as he (and everybody else) attempts to catch Thomas in the standings. A 417-336 win against Dave Kinzer was a good start as Bryan bingoed with INDUCTEE, DELOUSER, and ANSERINE. He also picked up an important win against Thomas Reinke, 382-369, getting down TABOULEH and INTERRED to Thomas' SEITANS (all six available bingos in AEINSST have been played multiple times, so Thomas didn't need to worry about picking the right one). For the second week in a row, Bryan's sole loss was to Andy Bohnsack, this time 359-503. But Bryan stormed back to defeat Steve Hartsman in the final game, 494-367, hitting on STORMED, DIETARY, and BURLEYS.

Richard's ISOBATHS was word of the week.