Who Came Up With The Overdraw Procedure Anyway?

1st Thomas Reinke extended his winning streak to 8 games, after losing 7 of his previous 8, with a 5-0 +579 night. He faced two in the first round, James and Aaron. Against James, in an attempt to win the "High T" prize, he bingoed four times with T's but failed to outdo Dave's 87-point NATTILY in another game. Against Aaron, he won 454-379, correctly passing up SHOOTED* to play SOOTHED, and also added WEAKSIDE (n. the side of a basketball court with fewer players). In the next game he faced Bryan and won 463-369, playing GENEROUS, GLIOMAS, and DENOTIVE. Bryan successfully played the only bingo with the pattern TRI?ERS as his opponent tried to figure out what the heck the blank was going to be (hint: it was an M [that was actually more of an "answer" than a "hint"]). For the third round he was paired against Charles, and he won a close one, 465-353. That may not sound like the score of a close game, but his outbingo of UPDOMING (n. the upward deformation of a rock mass into a dome shape, so no UPDOME* or UPDOMED*) on a closed board made the final score more lopsided than it perhaps should've been. Against Lynda in the final game, he won 401-362 despite having a blank rudely taken from him on an overdraw. In a bit of karmic justice, Lynda ended up with that blank, unplayed, on her final rack as Thomas went out. Actions have consequences.

2nd Charles Reinke went 3-1 +120 against the toughest field possible, good for second place. He started off with a 443-394 win against Lynda, highlighted by his fancy play of TOMATOEY. In case you're wondering, no, TOMATOEY does not compare. Neither does ONIONY. But CARROTY does. It is important that you know this. Facing Aaron in the second round, he won 430-342 with the bingos of BEGLOOMS, DYSTOCIA (n. difficult labor and delivery in childbirth), and AUDITORS. Aaron got down VENETIAN, but probably should have tried to bingo four or five more times. You already heard the sad tale about how he lost to Thomas, but you didn't hear about his two bingos that game, DINKIEST (talk about self-descriptive!) and RATOONER. Against Bryan in the last game, he drew both blanks on his opening rack, played AMBIENT, and then didn't bingo the whole rest of the game. He still won, 420-325, but those double-blank opening ranks are just so depressing. It's like the fun-ness of the game automatically goes down 50 percent.

3rd Lynda Finn came in third as she went 3-0 against people whose surnames aren't "Reinke". She played BEADIER and AUNTIES against Charles but lost 394-443 in the first round, but then got two wins against Dave and Dave in a two-on-one in the second round. Against Dave G, she won 441-406, letting him play the phony DEBLURS* as it let her respond with REWINDER. Versus Dave K, she countered his SEVERING with RETINTS and won 405-326. She then faced Aaron, who represented his lack of bingos in the game with a ":(" on his scoresheet. Lynda played STELLAR, TEREDOS (n. TEREDO, a bivalve mollusk, plural TEREDOS or TEREDINES), and ASCENDS to win 416-335. She fell to the second Reinke in the final round, 362-401, which might seem sad until you are informed of the fact that she STOLE a BLANK straight from her opponent's rack using some obscure loophole in the rules.

Helen won word-of-the-week with a monster 110-point ASHRAMS. She also won phony-of-the-week with PIROGIE*. PIROGIES is acceptable as a plural of PIROGI. As a reminder: PIROG PIROGI PIROGHI PEROGI PEROGY PEROGIE PIEROGI PYROHY. There will be a quiz on the material next Wednesday.