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1st Thomas Reinke kept his winning streak alive, now at fourteen games, with a 4-0 +498 finish. His twenty-game streak from 2016 is in reach, but we won't be really impressed until he goes an entire club season without losing a game. In round one, he obliterated Charles Reinke 558-390, bingoing with COBBLES, DINGIER, ENLARGE, and NIPTERS# (NWL players should remember the tough-to-spot PTERINS). After that, Thomas' bingo frequency dropped off significantly, but he inexorably kept the wins flowing. He made quick work of John Bialek, 411-323, thanks to RIPSAWN (INWRAPS might be the easier word to spot there), and erased Dennis Lloyd 449-268 with TAXWISE (again, an easier anagram is available with WAXIEST). To end yet another perfect night, Thomas defeated Andy Bohnsack, 447-386, finding ORANGES to Andy's INTRUDED and SECONDO.

2nd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 +305 and averaged 467 points per game, one point more than Thomas' 466 average. His night started off poorly with a 354-455 loss to Ed Nawrocki; bingoing with FLUORINE and LAMINATE wasn't enough as Ed hit on HAGRIDE, BRIGHTS, and MATTERS. Ed then promptly left after playing just one game, wisely keeping his undefeated record intact. Bryan came back with a 447-431 win against Charles Reinke, overcoming Charles' RAGOUTED, CLERIDS, and GAZELLES with his own DROVING and SAPROBE. The spread started piling up in round three when Bryan turned away Helen Flores, 459-322, getting READDICT, FAIRIES, and word of the week OPTRONIC. Saving his best for last, Bryan broke through the 600-point threshold by felling Dennis Lloyd 606-353, bingoing four times with AGNOMINA, FETCHES, RESTABLE, and WEIRDIE, the latter for 112 points.

3rd Andy Bohnsack finished at 3-2 +581. In the first round, privileged with the chance to get two wins for the price of one, Andy squandered his chance by coming away with just one win out of two in his match against Dave Kinzer and James Rollins. He beat Dave 444-296, but couldn't get past James, and lost 377-405. Determined to make his next win count, Andy turned around and clobbered Richard Lauder, 609-236, bingoing FIVE times: ELEVATE, LINURON, ERASION, DARIOLE, and SATARAS (close observers will note that this was the first of two 600+ games played this night). In the third game of the night, Andy got a smaller, but still sizable, win over John Bialek, 479-330, but things derailed at the end, and he lost to Thomas Reinke, 386-447.

1st Thomas Reinke hit ten straight wins with another perfect night, this time going 5-0 +423. He jumped straight into the deep end of the pool with a two-on-one against Andy Bohnsack and Bryan Benwitz; while the outcome of both games was in doubt, Thomas managed to win both, 444-433 against Andy and 401-385 against Bryan (who found CARPETING, the thirteenth nine-letter bingo this year). In round two, Thomas unleashed the full force of the (nearly) complete dictionary that lives in his head, bingoing five times (PARANOEA, DEMURER, DALTONS, SETUALE#, AURIFIES#) to beat Mark Kenas 547-338. Notably, DEMURER was a seven-tile overlap next to PARANOEA (probably involving some Collins-only twos). Against Lynda Finn, Thomas was actually outbingoed one to three (FELWORTS vs. EARSTONE, DEEPENS, TENSILE), but still won comfortably, 489-413. Thomas finished with another 500-pointer against Mark, winning 505-394 with RETICENT, RAISONNE, and the phony TAILYIED* (TUILYIED# and TAILYIE# are good, but most readers probably don't want to commit any of those words to memory).

2nd Charles Reinke went 4-1 +357, exactly undoing the previous week's 1-4 performance. Charles dropped his first game against Mark Kenas, 388-503, despite three bingos of TOOLBAG#, PAGINATE, and MARMITE; Mark had DATIVES, GROCERS, and CASSONE# to equalize things. A two-on-one vs. Richard Lauder and Helen Flores got Charles back to his winning ways; despite just one bingo in each game, neither one was particularly close, 514-268 against Richard and 402-279 against Helen. Helen, and everybody else, learned the word OPACIFY, which is a fun hook on PACIFY. In a rematch against Mark, Charles claimed victory, 445-429, finding CROSTINI, FLEETEST, and HOSEMAN#. Charles wrapped things up with a solid 426-339 win against Andy Bohnsack, where Charles' first bingo of PATZERS was perhaps descriptive of his opponent (his second, UNGULATE, perhaps wasn't so descriptive). Andy played the nice GEMMATES, but one could argue that the anagram, TAGMEMES, would have been even nicer.

3rd Ed Nawrocki went a perfect 2-0 +155, edging out all other players with two wins thanks to the utter lack of losses on his scoresheet. He barely escaped his round one game against Carol Ormand, but his bingo finds of DINGIES and NEGATES carried him to a two-point win, 373-371 (Carol had REAGENT as her sole bingo). Ed then put a major exclamation point on his abbreviated night of Scrabble with a 463-310 victory against Lloyd Stohler. Ed displayed more bingo-finding ability with HENRIES and LOADERS, while Lloyd minimized the damage with ARRANGE.

1st Thomas Reinke fully dominated the competition, going 5-0 +163. Usually when Thomas goes 5-0 his spread is in the +bazillion range, so maybe "fully dominated" isn't the correct phrase. In any case, Thomas adequately dominated all his foes, starting with a 436-429 win over Mark Kenas where his bingos were RENNASE and TUNICATE. Thomas improved on that seven-point margin, but just barely, when he met Mark for a rematch and won 503-495. Extra style points were awarded for the three-A PANATELA (also spelled PANETELA) and the nine-letter CLARITIES (ERISTICAL would have been cooler). Continuing the trend of Thomas' opponents scoring over 400, Thomas defeated Richard Lauder 473-415, matching Richard's LOUNGEST and FILMIEST with PANELING and TARRIED. He also allowed Charles Reinke to score entirely too many points, but won anyway, 440-420, playing AREOLAS, DESMOID, and ARRIERO# vs. Charles' FANCIERS, CRAALING, and POGONIAS. Thomas wrapped up his perfect night by beating Steve Hartsman 394-324, despite Steve's Word-of-the-Week find of GUAIACOL.

2nd Dave Kinzer went 2-1 +190, good enough for second place on a night when most players finished at 2-2. Round one could have gone better, as Dave found himself on the losing end of a match vs. Richard Lauder, 374-396. Dave got down BRACERS, but was outdone by Richard's GANDERS and RENDIBLE (which anagrams to the tough-to-find BEDLINER and LINEBRED). Dave followed that up with a notable win against Bryan Benwitz, 359-354, notable because it was Dave's first win against Bryan since 2017. For those who might have forgotten, 2017 was a long time ago. Now that the curse has been broken, Dave will (hopefully) not have to wait another nine years to get another win. Dave saved his best for last when he beat Lloyd Stohler 449-242 in the last game, getting OUTPACE and GROUTERS.

2nd Mark Kenas finished 2-2 +418 with a 502 per-game average, quite a high average game for a .500 record. He lost to Thomas Reinke in two close games, 429-436 and 495-503 for a grand total of -15 spread. He more than made up for those two losses in his two games against Charles Reinke, where he racked up +433 spread. The first was a 581-349 affair where Mark bingoed four times: SQUIRTED, CHLORATE, OBELION#, and PEERING. The second was a bit more restrained, but only a bit, as Mark landed the one-two punch in a 502-301 victory. The prosaic GOATIER and OUTEARN were Mark's bingos in that one, hardly exercising his deep knowledge of the Collins dictionary.