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One Can Only Hope Our New Queen is as Benevolent as the Deposed King

1st Mary Becker started off the new club season with determination, going 4-0 +302, her first undefeated performance since 2012. In her usual manner, she didn't rely on bingoes to earn the wins, instead preferring to find other ways to score. After all, two 35-ish point plays are about the same as a fishing play and a bingo. She beat Dave and Gail with the help of one bingo per, PLEASING against Dave and RELEASE against Gail, scoring 390 both times. This led to a matchup with Thomas in the 3rd game, where, despite his bingos of TEGULAR and DOYENNE (n. a female doyen, appropriate in this case), she earned the win 403-363 with the help of a multitude of high-scoring non-bingos. Being lossless going into the final game, it only made sense that she was paired against the other lossless player, John, in what was probably not a very expected matchup of undefeateds. With the help of FESTIVAL, she got the victory, 394-328, and now stands alone at the top of the club standings. How's the weather up there?

2nd Charles Reinke fell drastically off his previous seasons's 75.8 winning percentage pace, going 3-1 +514, .032 wins less than expected. He started off well against Betty, showing no indications of the disappointing night he would have, winning 540-280 while playing TURBOJET (n. probably a really powerful type of jet engine), the always-appropriate VERBOSE, and DIAGNOSE. His bingos of ENTRIES and DOWNTIME were not enough against Thomas, against whom he he lost humiliatingly 386-434. He managed to secure two more big wins against Dave and Bryan, playing the nifty AHIMSAS (n. the concept of nonviolence in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism) against Dave, but it was not enough to salvage the night. Charles' meager 75 percent win rate on this night can never be erased from the club's collective memory.

3rd Andy Bohnsack celebrated the start of a new school year by going 3-1 +178. He started off with a 431-367 win over Aaron, giving him a one-game winning streak over the guy who just got done beating him 12 times in a row. Only 11 more Andy, you can do it! In the second round, he faced club newcomer John, who utilized his prior Scrabble experience to win 387-354, playing RETAINED and ENABLER to Andy's HALIDES. If the loss affected him, he didn't show it with his play the next two games. He first beat Gail 447-320 with the bingos of EDIFYING (anagram DEIFYING) and OVERSTIR (anagram SERVITOR), and then beat Thomas, 422-402, with the help of OUTEARNS, LEVATOR, and SAGUARO.

Dave played the Word of the Week, MYELINES (n. alternate spelling of MYELIN, a fatty substance surrounding the axon of nerve fibers).

Lynda "Infinnite Points" Finn Scores Many, but Not Quite Infinite, Points

1st Lynda Finn went 4-1 +134, coming in first by taking advantage of a programming feature which sorts players by total wins, not win percentage. She phonied in both of her closest wins, proving that 1.) phonying is fun and 2.) sometimes you need to do it if you want to win. Against Dennis Lloyd, Lynda won by a score of 415-407, playing the valid CALDERAS to go along with GOSSIMER (GOSSAMER is the correct spelling); Dennis had SPRINTED and OUTLINED. Later, in a game against Mary Becker, Lynda barely came away with the victory, winning 423-421 thanks to an impossible-to-challenge PIROGHIS. PIROGHI is valid, and most variations of that tasty Russian dumpling do take an S, so it's not surprising that it stayed on the board. Lynda did not need to utilize any fake words in her first-place-clinching victory over Thomas Reinke, 539-387. All four of her bingos were legit: MARLIEST, FLAVINE, PURITANS, and TONSURE. Thomas got down ARIETTA and ETRIERS, but all he managed to accomplish with those bingos was a 150-point loss instead of a 250-point loss.

2nd Aaron Bader went 3-0 +263, then went home, forfeiting his chance for a helping of that four-and-oh undefeated glory. He started off his evening strong with a revenge win against Charles Reinke, 498-371. His high-scoring bingos of BIOCIDE (81), INWEAVES (80), and SHOUTER (90) were more than enough to trump Charles' DIESTRUM (84). After a prosaic 388-317 game against Helen Flores where Aaron's INTERNE was the only bingo on the board, Aaron defeated the previously-though-to-be-undefeatable Lynda Finn 404-339. It was another sad day for bingo fans, as there was only a single bingo on the board (RETURNED for Lynda) before the last two plays. Lynda bingoed with FUMIEST for what she thought was enough to squeak out the win, and instantly Aaron says "you aren't going to like this" and bingos out with APNOEAS for the win.

3rd Charles Reinke finished at 3-1 +357, some 100 spread points ahead of some other guy who shares his last name. Charles lost to Aaron Bader in his first game (the gory details of which are outlined above), but rebounded quickly with a 457-250 win against Sue Goldstein, made possible by bingos of ACETATE, IMAGINED, and INDICTED. Gail Salm managed to get a bit closer to defeating Charles with a 363-425 final score in their matchup. She even outbingoed him, playing two (GLANDERS and SINCERER) to Charles' one (ENTRAPS). Another three-bingo output for Charles, in the final game of the night, resulted in another 200-point victory; Charles played ELOIGNED, ANODISE, and TOREADOR to beat Richard Lauder (who got down ASSURED) 518-303.

With the last session in August comes the end of the club season. Charles ended the year strong and finished with the club's highest winning percentage at 75.8%, a comfortable 1.2% ahead of Thomas at 74.6%. Aaron rounded out the top three with a 67.5% mark. Charles also averaged a lofty 450 points per game, easily tops among regular players.

Charles Reinke Gets Tenth Straight, is Denied Glory of Eleventh

1st Charles Reinke went 3-1 +274, leading the clump of players who finished with just one loss. He won his first two games of the night to reach the enviable "ten wins in a row" milestone, thus earning a cool five bucks to spend on dictionaries. The first was a convincing 450-341 win over Lynda Finn, propelled by bingos of SHEREEF, OUTRODE, and INLAYERS> The second was not quite so convincing, with Charles winning a tense one against Mary Becker, 381-375. Then Richard Lauder came along and decisively snapped Charles' winning streak, thus earning a cool five bucks to spend on golf clubs. That game ended with a final score of 402-342; Charles' low score could be attributed to the fact that the bingo box on his scorecard was utterly blank. Richard, meanwhile, got down TONIEST and BUMPERS. Charles did redeem himself in the fourth game by creaming Aaron Bader, 530-311.

2nd Bryan Benwitz finished at 3-1 for the third straight week, but his +231 spread indicated a performance that was not quite as dominant as past excursions had been. His big game was a 480-276 victory against Betty Hasselkus. Betty did get down SPOUTING as a bingo, but otherwise struggled to score while Bryan played RESTRING and UPSTART. That good fortune continued into the next game against Aaron Bader, and Bryan won again, 403-343. Bryan's inexplicably dismal head-to-head record against Aaron is now somewhat less dismal, at 6 wins, 16 losses, and a tie. In sadder news, Bryan's chance to go undefeated was thwarted in the final game by none other than third-place finisher Thomas Reinke by a score of 348-437. An 80-point SCREENED was Bryan's lone delegate to the bingo summit; Thomas sent REIFIES, SAINFOIN (anagram: SINFONIA), and UNBALED.

3rd Thomas Reinke's +158 spread was the lowest among the 3-1's, and he averaged under 400 for the second straight week, but he gets a paragraph anyway. Things got off to a promising start when he thoroughly outscored Dennis Lloyd, 474-304. In that game, Dennis got down TENNIES, his only bingo of the night; not too bad since he went 3-2 himself! Unfortunately, Thomas also outbingoed Dennis in addition to outscoring him, playing REASCENT, GLOBATED, and LINGUISA (a type of pork sausage, usually spelled LINGUICA). Fortune then discontinued smiling upon Thomas in order to frown upon him, and the result was a soul-, mind-, and body-crushing 263-525 loss to Aaron Bader. Aaron played SOFTENS, STINKERS, STUIVERS, and TORTURED for his bingos; some of those words are appropriate to the circumstances under which they were played. Thomas did redeem himself somewhat in the next game with a 417-256 win over Helen Flores.