Charles Reinke Finds 1st Place Throne Very Comfortable

1st Charles Reinke went undefeated for the first time since early November, finishing at 4-0 +599. Most of his spread total came from a pair of 200-point victories. The first came against the always-amiable Dave Gilligan, with a final score of 469-263. Dave played STRIDERS, one of the four bingos he got on the night, but was outgunned by Charles' OCTANES and SIDERITE (n. a mineral, not related at all to SYBARITE). Then, in the final game of the evening, Charles crushed Andy Bohnsack 533-315. This was payback for Andy's similarly-ruthless drubbing of Thomas Reinke in the previous round. Against Charles, Andy found APPRAISE, but Charles responded with a bingo triad of his own making: ESOTERIC, RIDGELS, and ROTATES. His other two wins came against the players following him in the standings; in other words, he was responsible for the ruining of two players' perfect evenings.

2nd Bryan Benwitz again finds himself in a coveted top-3 position after a 3-1 +488 showing, his beardly presence an increasingly frightening sight for those above him in the standings. In his opening victory against Andy Bohnsack, Bryan played two seasonally-appropriate words, MITTENS and SAUNAED. For his efforts, he gets to play his next club game in a sauna while wearing a pair of mittens. A game against Charles Reinke did not end so favorably, despite a good omen in the form of CONQUERS, with Bryan losing 397-479. A final game against Betty Hasselkus saw a trio of bingos for Bryan, AEOLIAN, which sounds like something you'd play on a guitar, BIOTRON, which sounds like the name of a video game, and OUTKILL, which, well, you know.

3rd Mary Becker, going 3-1 +20, found herself in third place as a large clump of players became stranded at the 2-2 mark. She fell to Charles Reinke in her only bingoless game of the night, 337-430. Charles had the odd-looking but pleasant-tasting GUAIACOL, which is a flavorful chemical. Against Susan Vergeront, Mary sent her opponent packing with a 402-358 victory highlighted by a 90-point DEWIEST. Susan scored just a fraction of that with her play oF FRACTION for 71. However, the real highlight came against Thomas Reinke, who Mary beat for the first time since 2013. It was a true nail-biter, with both players' fingernails gnawed to bloody tatters as Mary squeaked by, 406-403. Her bingo of RUMORED is rumored to have been the cause of her triumph.

We welcomed newbie Michael Siebers to our ranks last night. Hopefully he comes back to throw around more words with us. Andy Bohnsack got word of the week with the nine-letter ABASHEDLY, played through disconnected letters. According to second-hand reports muddled by interminable layers of hearsay, the two letters were the first A and the S. Also, in other bingo-related news, Aaron played the triple-triple GORAMIES# (only a word in the British dictionary, although we do have GOURAMIS and GOURAMIES in ours). It was decided among the inner circle of club elite to give him the four dollars anyway.