Hail Mary

1st Mary Becker went 3-0 +194, notching her first undefeated night in over a year, and was rewarded for her efforts with first place and all the glory associated with it. She started her night off with with a bang, decisively beating Thomas 400-303. She played ROADIES and EXTOLLS (I think EXTOL is the usual spelling but in Scrabble it doesn't matter!) to get her third consecutive win against him. A nice streak to counter the 14 straight he had previously won against her. In the second round she faced Helen, and despite getting out-bingoed 2-1, she won 435-353. Helen's high-scoring bingo pair of FILTERER and FAINTEST was no match for Mary's REVISERS and... presumably some potent power-tile plays? The next round featured a battle of the undefeateds, Mary and Gail, with Mary edging out a close 349-334 win. Her late-game double-blank rack didn't yield any bingos on a closed board (probably because it also had a Q on it), but sometimes the best part about having a blank is that it means your opponent doesn't have it. How's that for profundity? Mary sealed her undefeated night by walking (more like strutting) out the door before the final round.

2nd Thomas Reinke came in second at 3-1 +435, recovering well from his 1-4 performance the previous week. The recovery took a while to get going as he was crushed by Mary in the first round, getting held bingoless. Aaron was the recipient of his misplaced revenge in the next game, as Thomas won 539-316, playing MISBIAS (v. to bias wrongly, tell me, does that make any sense at all?????), INTONATE, and the triple-triple RESTROOM. The bingoing continued in his third-round 504-306 win against Richard, as he got down AGITATES, TITLIST (n. a sports champion, if you're having trouble figuring out the pronunciation), AREOLAR, and EIDOLONS (n. EIDOLON, a phantom, it also pluralizes EIDOLA). For the finale, he faced a familiar (get it? FAMILIAR! hahaha...) opponent in Charles. He started off with a bingo-bongo of RADIANS and RETINOLS, and that was enough to propel him to a 470-359 win. Charles did play the nice EVERYMEN (n. EVERYMAN, a typical or ordinary man) to win word-of-the-week, an award that counts for approximately a thousandth of a real win.

3rd Gail Salm went 3-1 +274, averaged 436 per game, and edged out Charles for third place. Her big game came in the first round, as she beat Dave 537-358, playing RECITED and GREETING. Dave, for his part, did get down two bingos, CLAIMER and REUNITE. After that, she managed to win a close one against Richard, 402-392. She successfully challenged off his attempt of MINIFIER* (n. the opposite of a magnifier), which probably made a big difference in such a tight game. Other difference-makers in that game included her bingo of RAINIER, and her other bingo of UNCAGES. Just like everyone else who played her tonight, Gail lost to Mary, 334-349, but she didn't let that get her down, and she responded with a 470-370 win against Helen. Gail played ENQUIRE, GRAINERS (which drew a challenge from a vocally disbelieving Helen) and LENITES in that game, giving her 8 total bingos for the night, slightly above her average.