Thomas Reinke Inches Closer to Club's Top Spot and with it, Immortal Glory

1st Thomas Reinke put together a strong, but not entirely unprecedented (for him) 5-0 +545 record. This is his second time going 5-0 this year after also doing it in early January. His first round match saw him playing two at once, but Thomas was not fazed in the slightest; he beat Helen Flores 443-332 and Dave Gilligan 533-264 while playing six total bingos between the two games. This strong start was followed up by a closely-contested, high-scoring game against Bryan Benwitz which ended with a score of 448-441 in Thomas' favor. Bryan got down PALINODE and NOXIOUS (for 59 points, one thinks that the X must have been a blank), while Thomas had REDDENS, LINTERS, and HOTTEST. After the game, Bryan immediately began to plot his revenge, given that he has lost ten of the last eleven games to the elder twin. A win over Aaron Bader (described in gruesome detail in the following paragraph) gave Thomas the coveted 4-0 record, but he still had one game to go, and he used that extra game to beat the snot out of his brother Charles Reinke, 502-377. Charles had NEGATION and RELIEVOS, which ensured that he retained some of his snot, but much snot was lost when Thomas got down ZIPPERS for 131 points (along with his other bingos, PROTEASE and WOODIEST).

2nd Aaron Bader faced a tough lineup of opponents, but succeeded in the face of pairings-borne adversity, going 3-1 +375. A 442-349 victory against Lynda Finn saw a rather unexciting collection of bingos get played (IDEATES for Lynda; ATONERS, ANERGIES, and RELENTS for Aaron), but there is no stipulation in the rules that bingos have to be exciting to get the fifty-point bonus. Aaron built upon that strong start by downing club leader Charles Reinke 461-336, playing NEROLIS (lame bingo alert! [sirens]) and SAPOTAS to Charles' TEASING [additional sirens]. The bingos continued to effortlessly flow out of Aaron's rack in a game against Thomas Reinke, but even a 3-to-1 bingo advantage (CENTAURY, ESCALATE, and GLORYING vs. word-of-the-week PURLIEUS) could not secure the win for Aaron; he lost 381-421. Denied the chance to go home after the third game, Aaron then took out his inner rage on Bryan Benwitz with a 499-307 win.

3rd Mike Johnson made the long trip from Decorah, Iowa, and his trip was definitely worth it as he finished 3-1 +131. After being informed that players from Iowa are not allowed cheat sheets, he got creamed by Bryan Benwitz, 281-453, but Mike rebounded from that loss to win the next three even without the aid of any cheat sheets. His biggest game was a 533-327 victory over Dave Gilligan, and he was also the proud recipient of five entire US dollars for his triple-triple of TABORINS for 149. Somehow, that play wasn't the highest of the night, as Dave himself played AVOIDERS for 176 in a later game (in other news, the club is now bankrupt). Mike's second win was against Betty Hasselkus, 412-334, but it was tainted by Mike's creatively-spelled, but ultimately phony, play of QUAESAR (QUASAR is what he was looking for). Meanwhile, Betty's DICTIONS was perfectly valid. No bingos, phony or otherwise, were needed in a 419-400 win over Gail Salm. Technically, this 3-1 performance gives Mike the top spot in the club's yearly standings, so way to go Mike!