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1st Bryan Benwitz prevailed over an evenly-matched field where nobody went undefeated (but six players went 2-2), finishing at 3-1 +277. He used up a significant chunk of his good fortune in round one (if we all agree to buy into the concept that good fortune is a finite resource that can be expended over one's lifetime), roundly defeating Richard Lauder 527-282. A significant percentage of Richard's final score came from his bingo of ORGASTIC, while Bryan threw down MORTARED, GOLDENLY, and ENSNARL. Bryan got another sizable win in round two, this time against Dennis Lloyd, 427-342, playing PERSONA to Dennis' STANCES. The "1" of Bryan's 3-1 record reared its head in the next game, as Bryan lost to Andy Bohnsack 317-429 (it seems like I have to describe a match of theirs every single week so I'm refusing to write any more on the subject). Bryan bounced back with a 414-355 win against Steve Hartsman, bingoing with MUSTANG and PATCHER.

2nd Andy Bohnsack went 3-1 +196, with an Andy-esque statline of 400 points and 2.25 bingos per game. He started things off with his sixth straight win over familiar foe Lynda Finn, 406-336, bingoing with BEGALLS and SPINATE while holding Lynda to a grand total of zero bingos. Andy repeated that feat in round two, locking down Steve Hartsman for a 370-292 victory. Of note in that one was Andy's TRASHMEN, which, if changed slightly to TRASHMAN, becomes the anagram of Steve's last name. Andy continued the name-calling with an additional find of DETRITUS. In round three, Andy got a win against Bryan Benwitz 429-317 (enough said), but was stopped short of an undefeated record by a 395-459 loss to Thomas Reinke in the final game. Andy can point to his acceptance of Thomas' phony INOSITIC* (INOSITE has no adjective form) as a potential game-loser.

3rd Thomas Reinke used his extra game to prevail over the teeming horde of 2-2 finishers, ending up at 3-1 +110. It was a rough start for Thomas as he elected himself the lucky recipient of a 2-on-1 game, only to lose both of them, 392-396 vs. Charles Reinke and 395-489 vs. Mark Kenas. Thomas hit on bingos of YAUTIAS, OILSEED, and ASTEISMS# (sadly, never extended to the more familiar CASTEISMS) in those games. Taking the first step on the long road towards recovery, Thomas won his next game, beating Lynda Finn 392-375, finding SPONGER to Lynda's AREOLES and REMAILED. He then got major revenge on Mark, triumphing in their rematch by a score of 486 to 359. Thomas' bingo mojo (bojo?) returned with INHOLDER, CASITAS, RELEARNT, and ARROZES. Round four saw Thomas complete his comeback (or whatever you would call it) with a 459-395 victory over Andy Bohnsack, getting down REFERENT and the previously-noted INOSITIC*.

Sara's BIGWIGS was word of the week, beating out Charles' SHOPGIRL (SHOPBOY and SHOPMAN are also good, but SHOPWOMAN# is only good in Collins).

1st Andy Bohnsack fully dominated from start to finish, ending at 4-0 +558 and holding his opponents to an average of 317 per game. He made easy work of Steve Hartsman in round one, winning 428-287 thanks to ARIDNESS and GLIMMER. In round two, Andy upped his winning margin, beating Dave Kinzer by 185 points, 512-327. Andy got down TERRIES, VENDERS, and PELICAN, but at least Dave found word-of-the-week WAVELETS for style points. Another big win came against Carol Ormand; STRAFING, SCALPERS, and the nine-letter ALIENATED (more style points!) were Andy's bingos in that one. Cementing Andy's undefeated evening was a 429-383 victory against Bryan Benwitz, wherein Andy took a slight break from bingoing (playing just one: KNEELING) but took no breaks at all from his general inclination towards winning games of Scrabble.

2nd Thomas Reinke averaged 490 points per game (which seems cool until you look at the stats and see that he averaged 503 two weeks ago) and went 3-1 +411. Utilizing the tried-and-true tactic of "sandbagging", Thomas lost his first game of the night, 454-459 against Mark Kenas. Mark had two nice finds of PONYTAIL and CIRRIPED; sadly, CIRRIPED was never extended into CIRRIPEDE. Thomas came back from that loss to defeat Lynda Finn 534-323, bingoing with ATTAINED, SEXTAINS, and TEMPORAL. In round three, Thomas evened things up with Mark, winning their rematch 513-431 with bingos of RESCALE, LINOCUT, and GRANFERS#. The bingoing continued unabated into the final round, as Thomas found three more bingos (CAROTENE, UNEASILY, SALLIES) to take down Sara McLaughlin, 459-336.

3rd Bryan Benwitz continued his streak of strong play by again finishing at 3-1, this time with a +221 spread. He outdueled Lynda Finn in round one, finding ERECTILE and MATURATE vs. Lynda's ALIENERS and FANCIEST for a 432-373 win. He picked up another win in round two, making good use of power tiles in his bingos (ANXIETY, JAROSITE) for a 456-328 victory against Helen Flores. The worrisome upward trend in Bryan's scores continued as he downed Steve Hartsman by a score of 470-390, getting RACINOS, TRASHIER, and DINETTE to Steve's SEDARIM and VIBRATES. That worrisome upward trend mentioned in the previous sentence was abruptly halted by Andy Bohnsack in the final round, as Bryan lost 393-429.

1st Charles Reinke was the only undefeated player, going 4-0 +319 and averaging 473 per game. He prevailed in round one against Andy Bohnsack, 497-343, holding his bingo-oriented opponent to just one bingo (the awkward-looking DIGITISE) while getting three for himself: REREMIND, FONDLERS, and SOBRIETY. Switching to the Collins lexicon, Charles took advantage of all the extra words by playing STOITER#, UNLOOKED#, and AMUSETTE# to beat Mark Kenas 542-424 (Mark had LOITERS and MASOOLA#+). After that point, Charles turned down his bingo output just a tad (to his opponents' relief), but this didn't interrupt his winning ways (to his opponents' non-relief): he beat Lynda Finn 430-386 and Mark (again) 424-421, playing one bingo in each game (ENDPOINT and ATEBRINS#).

2nd Dave "King Kinz" Kinzer followed up his 2-1 performances each of the previous two weeks with a new-and-improved 3-1 +147 outing. Holding three of his four opponents below 300 points, Dave had by far the lowest opponent average of the night at 327. In the first round, Dave had a nice game against second-timer Ed Nawrocki, winning 415-292 thanks to a bingo of DISTRACT (Ed found GREATER to counter). The next game saw scoring levels take a precipitous drop, and while we can all agree that scoring more points is more fun than scoring fewer points, there's still some minimum amount of fun to be had in a winning effort, fun which belonged to Dave as he pulled out the win over Helen Flores, 309-278. Dave faced off against Andy Bohnsack in round three, and sadly let Andy's Halloweenish phony of DEMONIFY* slip by him in a 316-447 loss, dashing hopes of that elusive perfect record. Happily, two bingos (TOUSELED*, TILAPIA) led to a big win against Carol Ormand, 413-327, enough to vault Dave ahead of other 3-1 finishers for second place on the weekly standings.

3rd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +140 against some of the toughest customers that the club has to offer. He dropped into the losers' bracket quickly with a 338-450 loss to Mark Kenas, who casually dropped CENTAGE#, EXPANDS, and DIABETIC to Thomas' singular RENNASE. Collins-lexicon tendencies didn't quite wear off in time for round two, as Thomas scored a 464-393 win against Bryan Benwitz partially thanks to a phony-but-exceptionally-wordlike PLIOSAUR* (good in CSW). His other bingos of DUALITY, LEMONIER, and BANTIES were perfectly valid. The bingo frenzy continued with four more bingos (JEOPARD, NITHERED#, FUNNIEST, LINGIER) to get a revenge win against Mark, 463-401 (for his part, Mark found AMASSER and the nice GLUTAMIC#). A productive night of Scrabble ended with Thomas being Andy Bohnsack 510-391, laying down IVORIES and PEYOTLS to Andy's INTERNEE, PIEHOLES, and STONIER.

Helen's GUNWALES was word of the week because bingoing with a U and a W is always commendable. (Ron Malzer's UNBOWED back in early August is the next-most-recent UW bingo)