TRY SAYING POLYNYI THREE TIMES FAST

1st Thomas Reinke averaged one win per game, going 4-0 +371. He prevailed in a low-scoring game against Lynda, 353-327, playing FENTHION (per Wikipedia: an organothiophosphate [break out your Super Scrabble boards!] insecticide) against Lynda's FLANNELS. His scoring picked up in the second game, as he dropped 518 on a not-happy Helen, with his bingos being REGRATED, STICKIER, and RAVINING. Thomas' third-round matchup against Bryan was close until the end, when Bryan drew a horrid combination of V's, W's, and Q's and was unable to shed them from his rack in time. I thought QI was supposed to fix this? In the fourth round, against Eternal Foe Charles, he overcame an early 100-point deficit (caused by Charles' CHAINSAW for 110) to win by 100, 517-414. EUROLAND (n. the area formed by countries using the euro, apparently not capitalized?) started the comeback, followed by the phony JESTERED*, ANISOLE, and ATRAZINE.

2nd Bryan Benwitz played a really cool word, which pretty much overshadows his other accomplishments of the night. He went 3-1 +390, but who even cares? He won his first game, against Betty, 446-304 by playing BURNOUT and SAUTEED, then beat Gail 417-318 with the aid of VERITES (n. VERITE, the technique of filming so as to convey candid realism, and here I was thinking it was a chemical compound or something). His late-game clunkers sunk him against Thomas, but he recovered quickly in the fourth round. Very quickly, as his opening play was a natural (as in, no blanks) POLYNYI! POLYNYI is the plural of POLYNYA, a loanword from Russian meaning "an area of open water surrounded by sea ice". Lynda had no choice but to challenge; can't let people play random strings of letters all willy-nilly like that, but it was good, and Bryan rode this advantage to 525-333 win.

3rd Charles Reinke got out-bingoed in every game, but still cruised to a 3-1 +128 record on the back of his 468 average. He beat Helen in the first round 488-410, despite getting outbingoed 3-2. In his next game, he beat Aaron 467-402 despite getting outbingoed 3-2. Against Gail, he won 502-414 despite getting outbinoed 3-1. And, in the final round, his bingo deficit finally caught up with him, as he got outbingoed 4-2 and lost. The above paragraph looks pretty weird until you realize that I'm trying to get Miriam-Webster to put OUTBINGO* in the next dictionary update and they really wanted some citations. Here's your darn citations, you stodgy lexicographers!