Bryan Benwitz Leaves Opponents Cryan' (I Think That Joke has been Made Before)

1st Bryan Benwitz cruised to his first undefeated performance in several months, going 4-0 with a sizable but not utterly outrageous spread of +460 and a mildly outrageous average of 459 per game. His scoring engines were fully revved up by the second game as he supplied some serious Scrabble-style schooling to Dennis Lloyd, 473-315. Dennis played the super-high-probability TRAINEE (anagrams: RETINAE and ARENITE), but Bryan responded with a high-probability bingo assault of POGONIAS, SANTERA, and DETINUES. His next opponent, Thomas Reinke, had marginally more success in the bingo department (OARLIKE, NUTSEDGE), but Bryan still won in a landslide, 524-361. His scorecard alleges that he only played three bingos in that game: GALOSHES, SMEARED, and MARLITE. Flush with confidence after that convincing victory, Bryan then went on to secure his lossless night with a more closely-contested 460-416 win over Charles Reinke. Surprise of surprises, Bryan again played three bingos (OUTLINE, GASSIER, TATTIES), but Charles did find the word-of-the-week BIOETHIC (pertaining to BIOETHICS, ethics in biology) as well as RELUCTS.

2nd Charles Reinke went 4-1 +435, and while he didn't quite maintain his yearly average of 478, he didn't lower it too much by averaging 441 over his five games. His most convincing win came against the previous week's 4-0 finisher, Mary Becker; Charles dashed her dreams of a repeat performance with a 427-277 win. Later, he would further pad his spread totals with a two-on-one series against Susan Vergeront and Helen Flores. Both games were 100+ point victories (491-366 against Susan, 451-328 againast Helen) despite just three bingos total for Charles in the two games: SORDINI, GOWANED, and METEORIC. The total for his opponents was identical: Susan played PASTRIES and SLANTED, while Helen got down DISTORT.

3rd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +205 and was co-bingo king with Richard Lauder, both players having eleven bingos. Other than the unfortunate loss against the guy in the first paragraph, all of Thomas' scores were in the mid-to-high 400's. Against Andy Bohnsack in the first round, Thomas did not delay in throwing down bingos, getting RAVINES, PALETTES, and UNBITTER in a 471-360 victory. Semi-newcomer Cal Wiederholdt got his first taste of the terrible twins' bingoing prowess, witnessing Thomas play OWLIEST, ENTRAPS, and AMNESIA, plays that turned a close game into a 467-305 win for the bingoer. Thomas' final win was also his closest, 470-375 versus Dennis Lloyd. Dennis collected a nice 99 points for his play of DESCENT, but Thomas used raw word power to prevail, playing WHINIEST, MAINTOPS, and VENETIAN.