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1st Charles Reinke ran the table with a 5-0 +284 record. His long-ago study of high-probability words paid off in a big way as he plopped down DARTLES, TOONIES, and TOASTIER in a 433-387 win over Andy Bohnsack, who had the slightly-less-common MUSICALE. In round two, Charles' lexical proficiency was put to the test as he battled Mark Kenas in the Collins dictionary and Bryan Benwitz in the NWL dictionary at the same time; in the end, Charles won both, 439-348 against Mark and 490-459 against Bryan. In the latter game, Charles had a trio of nice bingos: AGUELIKE, EARTHPEA, and BEHOLDER. Sticking with Collins for the rest of the night, Charles beat Thomas Reinke 458-361 (getting ZENAIDAS and NEATENS), then wrapped up his perfect record by fighting off Mark once again, 423-404.

2nd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 +34, and with all his games being decided by 31 points or less, he's probably still recovering from elevated stress levels. He continued a run of close games against Richard Lauder by winning again, 401-380; His last three wins against Richard have been by two, five, and now nineteen points, and Richard's most recent win in the matchup was by just eight points. Bryan went on to get his highest score of the night in round two; sadly, all this effort resulted in his only loss, as he was felled by Charles Reinke 459-490 despite bingo finds of RESILED and TUTORAGE. A much-anticipated match against Andy Bohnsack resulted in fewer fireworks (of the bingo variety), as each player just had one (Bryan's DINOSAUR vs. Andy's ETERNISE), but it was neverthless Bryan's win, 378-362. Bryan finished up another successful club session by beating Thomas Reinke 439-411, getting SCANTED, REGALES, and TREADING as his bingos.

3rd Andy Bohnsack went 3-2 for the second straight week, this time with the marginally superior spread total of +357. An early loss to Charles Reinke, 387-433, put Andy in the losers' bracket early (maybe we could call it the "non-winners' bracket"), but he quickly nullified that loss with a 517-314 victory over Helen Flores, where his 86-point nine-letter find of REFORMATS was star of the show (he also got DETAINS and ATRESIAS, which were not stars of the show). Losing to Bryan Benwitz 362-378 was another setback, but Andy found his stride in the final round, winning both games of a two-on-one quite convincingly: 403-323 against Lynda Finn and 493-357 against Ron Malzer.

Ron's IMBECILE was Word of the Week in addition to being an exceptionally fine example of tile-based name-calling.

1st Bryan Benwitz continued to make incremental progress towards retaking the club's #1 spot with a 3-0 +132 record. His first-round matchup against Ron Malzer featured plenty of fireworks: Ron triple-tripled late with INTEREST for 131 points, but Bryan took the win with his out-bingo of QUAGMIRE. Final score: 457-410. For the next round, Bryan pulled off an impressive feat, scoring that same exact amount of points in a 457-377 win over Charles Reinke, finding bingos of CAJOLING, MADUROS, and VENERATE. Scrabble tip of the day: if you can score exactly 457 points in every single game, you'll probably win a lot of games. Bryan's final game was a close 418-413 victory against Richard Lauder, landing ORDINAL, RECASTS, and DROSERA to Richard's COTTAGE and IMPORTED.

2nd Thomas Reinke suffered just a single loss for the third consecutive week, this time going 3-1 +228. That single loss happened right at the beginning of the night, as he fell 450-469 to Charles Reinke. Reinke vs. Reinke games are often bingo-heavy, and this game was no exception, with Thomas getting CASIMIRE, TORTURED, and XYLONITE# to Charles' ATONIES, GARBLED, and SAGUINS#. The rematch was kinder to Thomas as he got DECAMPS, ORIENTAL, and ENSEALED# to win 468-365. Thomas also scored a win against Dennis Lloyd, 428-315, getting PHLOEMS and CENTURY vs. Dennis' singular STOMPED (Dennis probably wishes that "STOMPED" was a more accurate description of what he did to Thomas in that game). In round four, Thomas got to play the bucket-list word of GADZOOKS (in addition to two other G bingos, GUARDED and PORTAGE) in a 415-384 win against Andy Bohnsack. The club's quest to play every single bingo in the dictionary has overcome a significant roadblock, but words like ZYZZYVA and PIZZAZES and PIZAZZES still loom large.

3rd Richard Lauder got his second-straight 3-1 performance, this time with a spread of +131 and a 411 per-game average. Things started slow with a 368-311 victory against Dave Kinzer where the only bingo on the board was Richard's phony MOONEYED* (MOONEYE is a word, but it's a type of fish - FROGEYE to FROGEYED is an example of an EYE word that takes the D). Richard picked up the pace in round two, getting three bingos (IGNITOR, BOSQUES, RETIRED) to beat Andy Bohnsack 408-381, and his ascent continued when he downed Lynda Finn 453-401, getting a punishing 114-pointer of PREVIEW in the process. Sadly, Richard's 4-0 aspirations were dismantled at the last, as Bryan Benwitz took him out, 418-413.

1st Thomas Reinke went 4-1 +302, continuing to hold on (barely) to his top spot in the yearly standings. Round one was essentially a demonstration of his bingoing ability as he played seven bingos across the two games of his two-on-one. He beat Dennis Lloyd 487-408, getting GRIDIRON, PICOWAVE, TUSHIES, and CARTONED, although Dennis was no slouch with his own MUTINEER, SEATING, and MARLINS. Thomas added IGNITED, SCOWLERS, and LYDDITES in a 432-377 win over Lynda Finn, who had RAMBLER and SOLANIN. Thomas' only loss was in round two to Mark Kenas; the consolation was that it was quite a high-scoring loss, 496-508. FEIGNERS, EIDOLON, and UNSATED were Thomas' bingos, while Mark had CAMPEST#, SATIRISE, and GROUPOID. Thomas got his revenge later with a 429-424 win against Mark. A 471-296 victory against Sara McLaughlin rounded out the evening.

2nd Bryan Benwitz rose to the top of a group of 3-1 finishers, thanks to his +289 spread. He fought hard for a round-one win versus Sara McLaughlin, 389-355, with his sole bingo being a phony STELENES* (STELENE means pertaining to a stele); meanwhile, Sara's two bingos of TINNIEST and TRAINER were perfectly valid and yet not rewarded with a win. Bryan got his bingoing groove back on when he played four of them (MINCERS, ORIENTS, DONATORS, HAULIERS) in a 528-318 victory against Kave Kinzer. Squaring off against the feared Andy Bohnsack, Bryan suffered his only defeat, 381-476; his PALLIDER and RENTING were outdone by Andy's REBORING, CANULAS, and UNFIXES. A match against Charles Reinke in the final round went considerably better for Bryan, as he prevailed handily, 471-331, and playing the word of the week, BOPEEPS, in the process. BOPEEP is apparently another word for PEEKABOO, as is its anagram, PEEPBO.

3rd Andy Bohnsack finished 3-1 +230, and would have gone 4-0 were it not for that whole "ruin the perfect record in the last round" thing. A 435-361 win over Richard Lauder was a good start to the evening, with Andy's balanced scoring attack able to withstand Richard's heavy-hitting ISOLATE (91) and RECLAIM (83). Andy followed that up with two wins against some of the club's toughest customers, 452-346 against Charles Reinke and 476-381 against Bryan Benwitz. But it all came crashing down in the final round (if the concept of "all" is restricted to mean "success in a four-game stretch of Scrabble games") when Andy was felled by Dennis Lloyd, 353-398, putting Dennis' winning streak against Andy at three games (maybe Dennis can give Bryan some tips).

4th Richard Lauder went 3-1 +59, reeling off three straight wins after a first-round loss to Andy.