Blog

The Cake is Not a Lie

1st Thomas Reinke, fresh off a victory at this weekend's Madison tournament, continued his winning ways by going 4-0 +269. Always the model of consistency, he bingoed exactly twice in each game, an amount of bingoes that experts have quantified as being "absolutely the most perfect amount without a doubt" per game. In the first round, against the soon-to-depart Joe, he got down ANLASES (n. ANLAS, a medieval dagger, also ANLACE) and DEISTIC to counter his opponent's CTENOID (adj. comblike) and ALERTING. He followed those up with MAIDANS and STOMODEA against Gail, HAGDONS and the word-of-the-week DEJEUNER (French for "lunch", but English for "a breakfast", funny how that works out sometimes) against Aaron, and NONLIFE and SOLATED against his recurring foe Charles. For those curious, the head-to-head record for those two is 78 wins for Thomas, 73 wins for Charles, and 1 tie... only 1 tie? Shouldn't it be all ties?

2nd Aaron Bader shook off the mental rust accumulated from attending a tournament but not playing (thanks for doing the data entry!) by going 3-1 +291. A bingo-sparse 410-329 first-round matchup against Betty gave way to a slightly more bingo-laden matchup against Charles, where he won, 500-420. OVERLATE, FRETTING, and STEAMIER where Aaron's rack-clearers; Charles played the status-lowering DECLASSE as well as RENEGADO. Do not be fooled by his "close" 340-360 loss against Thomas. Scores can be deceiving. Only a foolish bag-emptying play by Thomas followed by an out-bingo allowed  a seeming blowout to become close. In the final game, he defeated Bryan 459-314, aided by his opening HEMITIC*, a presumed misspelling of HEMATIC. It is hard to blame Aaron, or anyone else who plays a phony; there are a whole lot of words in the dictionary. Like, a LOT. Hundreds, or even thousands of them. How is one supposed to keep them all straight?

3rd Richard Lauder went 3-1, the only person to do so on this night, so his -79 spread mattered not. The progress accomplished with a trio of close-ish wins by 84, 17, and 24 was wiped out by a 309-513 loss to Charles. Perhaps it is not well known to club members, but Richard, as the venerable director/founder of the club, has powers granted to him by the club charter that should make players leery of defeating him by too much. Charles, and others, should be thankful that Richard does not often exercise those powers.

In other news, it is time to update your mental list of "famous phonies", including such words as LIST REDACTED, to remove GUILTED, which, as Lynda sadly found out against Betty, is now acceptable. Also, big thanks to Lynda for directing last weekend's tournament, the many Madison-based winners of which were honored with a delicious cake.

Scrabble is Hard, But Bryan Makes it Look Easy

1st Bryan Benwitz made it 6 straight weeks placing in the top 3, coming in first at 4-0 +322. Those present all agree that Bryan's first-round win against Dave was very impressive; however, that accomplishment was quickly surpassed by his achieving of the "Double Reinke Perfecto", beating both Reinke brothers in back to back games. He first defeated Thomas 530-326 by playing RANDIEST, TAUNTERS, and ADAMSITE (n. a lung-irritating gas), compared to his opponents' DESTRESS (a word which anagrams to the palindromic pair of STRESSED DESSERTS). Charles fared a little better against him, but a late-game post-bingo seven-consonant draw guaranteed the Bryaniac's 383-377 win. His perfect night was concluded with a 392-343 win over newcomer Darcy, spoiling her own perfect (albeit shortened) night in the process.

2nd Charles Reinke bingoed (editor's note: only BOINGED is good) a lot, finding 13 rack-clearing plays en route to a 3-1 +472 night. When typed out, it really is quite an impressive list: DEXTERS, SLICERS, AKINETIC, UNITIES, HEXANES, ARRAYED, LINGERIE, ARGININE, ASSERTER, EDITION, LISTERS, RADIUSED, and HOSTAGE. How are people even supposed to compete against such bingo prowess? The club should probably consider a limit of 2 such plays per player per game to level the playing field a little bit.

3rd Lynda Finn "Finnished" off her competition, going 3-1 +250. A lesser competitor than she would have crumbled after an opening loss, letting their despair carry them to a winless night. But Lynda, showing indomitable strength of will, took the loss and used it as fuel for the next three games, winning them all. Such impressive resolve will certainly be useful as she attempts to corral and direct 40-ish rowdy Scrabblers at this weekend's tournament. Good luck to all participants, and a big thanks to Lynda for bringing multi-day Scrabble to Madison!

"TILES FOR THE TILE GOD"

1st Thomas Reinke unloaded an impressive fourteen bingos in five games, with the plethora of bonus plays leading him to a 4-1 +627 record. His low game of 446 is a good indicator of how well his night went. That 446 came against Helen Flores as part of a two-on-one match; the other half of that two-on-one was a 495-280 victory against Barb Besadny where Thomas got down four bingos: LAVATERA, DETRITAL, ATTACKED, and PENSION. Somehow this winning margin was improved upon in the following game versus Bryan Benwitz, a game which was being played for all the marbles (not just some of them or even a majority of them). Thomas squelched the hopes of the usually high-scoring Bryan, forcing him to score a lowly 280 (sound familiar?) compared to Thomas' lofty 498 (reached with the aid of BOGARTS, COEDITOR, and EUGENIAS). Even Thomas' loss was high-scoring; so high-scoring, in fact, that it tied with two other games for highest loss of the year at 481. Aaron Bader, the winning party, scored 497. Both players had three bingos: DEMONIST, TOWERING, and IDEATIVE for Aaron, INWARDS, PLUMULE, and the triple-triple AUSPICES for Thomas.

2nd Lynda Finn also had a successful night in regards to bingos, filling up her scorecard with twelve such plays on her way to a 4-1 +372 record. Like Thomas, she was involved in a barn-burner with Aaron Bader, but, unlike Thomas, she prevailed, 497-436. The tiny little box in which to write her bingos was barely large enough to fit them all, but in the end they were all recorded: LIBRATED, NAIVETE, SECTION, and FOAMERS. Aaron contributed MARLIEST, HANSELED, and ANDROGEN to the bingo party. Lynda then cooled down slightly, playing only three bingos (TIERCEL, DIASTOLE, and RETUNES) and scoring only 483 points in a win against Peter Schmiedicke. Her 311-409 loss against Charles Reinke was the only game in which she didn't score 400 or higher, as well as the only game where she failed to bingo multiple times (PEERIES was her lone bingo in that game).

3rd Bryan Benwitz continued his recent run of strong play (no finish less than 3-1 in over a month), going, you guessed it, 3-1 with a spread of +40. His spread after three games was a more-impressive +268, but the previously-described loss to Thomas undid much of that good work. A 477-288 win over Betty Hasselkus was Bryan's high score of the evening. Bryan had a double-double DISLIKES and a nine-letter INSTARRED (v. INSTAR, to adorn with stars) as his bingos in that one, but those two bingos disappointingly accounted for half of his bingo output for the night. In a matchup against newcomer John Wedgewood, Bryan had a slightly tougher time, but came out of the fray with a 413-376 victory firmly in hand. Each combatant had just one bingo: John's POISONER and Bryan's VERSION. John honed his Scrabble chops at the club in Winnipeg and even played a few tourneys, so his final record of 2-2 -119 should come as no surprise!