26 More Unique Games of Scrabble Added to the Universe's Total

1st Aaron Bader, as he is prone to do, out-Scrabbled all the other assembled Scrabblers, going undefeated with a 4-0 +297 record. His night was not without fault, however: he won his first game against Gail 454-381 aided in part with the phony of FELICIA*. While it may be good in certain other English-language Scrabble dictionaries that he may or may not have also studied from, it is sadly unacceptable here in the States. He ran into no such problems in his next game against Thomas, where he won easily 508-334 after successfully challenging off Thomas' phony SOOTLIKE* and sending him (Thomas, not Aaron) into a tailspin of failed fishing attempts. Aaron played TANGELO (n. a hybrid of a tangerine and a pomelo) and BRAINIER (how appropriate) in that one. He only got down one bingo against Charles, SUFFERS, but used a large early lead as insurance to win, 402-355. His final test was a game against the 3-1 Helen; he passed, but barely, needing to execute a Q-stick to win by 3, 412-409. I thought QI solved this problem?

2nd Thomas Reinke went 4-1 +617, a huge spread that was, dare I say it, wasted on second place. He picked up all that spread in the first round, where in a 2-on-1 against Mary and Dennis he played 9 bingos and scored 607 and 598 points. A full list of the bingos would take up approximately three extra paragraphs; see appendix A.1: Bingos for the details. His fortunes took a dramatic turn in the second game as he lost by 174 to Aaron, though he did play the appropriate TATTERS (anagrams STRETTA and TARTEST). In the third round, he faced Bryan (who had a two-game winning streak against him), and won 479-372. He played RETASTE, REINSMAN, and the nine-letter INTEGRATE while holding Bryan unusually bingo-less. Finally, he went up against his twin, and wouldn't you know it, the game was extremely close, with Thomas beating Charles 446-444. Thomas' late SPINOSE was the key to victory in that one.

3rd Charles Reinke went 3-2 +275, coming in third because somehow no one finished 3-1. I'm too lazy to check, but I'm just going to guess that that's never happened before. Anyway, he started off with a win against Bryan 423-386, his LETTERED (another appropriate bingo!!!!!!) and MALAISE overcoming Bryan's lone PRIMROSE. In the second round he faced two opponents: he beat Dave 410-269 and Gail 471-325. Unlike Thomas, who played nine bingos in his two-on-one (just in case you forgot I wanted to remind everybody), Charles only played three total: BORNEOL against Dave, and MELOIDS and SEARING (there are eight words in those letters and he chose the lamest one) against Gail. Against Aaron, he played POINTES (as in, the play scored 65 pointes) and TALCIER, but lost 355-402. Against Thomas, he got down the double-double TITRANTS as well as OUTRANKS, but couldn't somehow scrounge together two extra points over the whole game to at least get a tie. Only two points! That's like, putting a one-point tile next to another one-point tile and that's it. Easy.