1st Charles Reinke played some Scrabble well enough to win all of his games, his 4-0 +373 record good for first place. His closest game of the night came in the first round, where he beat Gail 444-412. Gail played REMISING and RESTORE, while Charles played the nine-letter RENDITION as well as DISCANTS. He then proceeded to drop a 500-burger on Bryan, winning 511-314. His bingos in that game were typical Charles fare: FETERITA (n. a kind of sorghum), ONEIRIC, and CASITAS. Would it hurt for him to play some normal -ERS or -ING bingos once in a while? After that, he came out ahead in a relatively low-scoring 412-340 contest against Thomas. Wins against that familiar opponent have been in short supply lately for him (except, it should be noted, in tournament settings), so this had to feel good, or at least slightly better than neutral. In the final game, the game for all the marbles, the game to see who would earn the prestigious first paragraph in the writeup, he faced Dennis and won 431-359. Charles' defense near the end of the game ensured that Dennis' bingo-prone racks didn't fit on the board.

2nd Bryan Benwitz returned to his usual 3-1 record after a two-week absence, earning second place as the only person with that exact amount of wins and losses. He started off strongly by ending Thomas' 12-game winning streak, 437-347. His play of ORTHICON (n. a type of television tube) for 97 big points near the end of the game was the key in that victory. Things took a dramatic turn south against the other twin, but the good news is that things took a re-turn back north against Gail in the third round, where he won 440-379. He played MANDATED and QUARRIES, while Gail got ACERATED (adj. needle-shaped, also ACERATE, ACEROSE, and ACEROUS in case you ever find yourself short on adjectives to describe your needle collection), SPEERING, and ENSERFS. Bryan held on one of those (not sure which) for a long time, but eventually made the right decision to let it go, since all of them are acceptable, and it doesn't usually pay to challenge Gail anyway. Bryan concluded his night with a 405-308 win over Betty, countering her WARMEST with VERSION. No word on whether the A, E, IN, RE, SUB, PER, AMBI, RETRO, CARDIO, or SEROCON extensions were put on the front of that last one. No, I don't know what SEROCONVERSION means.

3rd Thomas Reinke went 3-2 +511, sneaking into third ahead of Dennis. His dreams of yet another undefeated session were quickly thwarted by Bryan, as he lost 347-437. He played WARINESS and AREOLATE (adj. just absolutely covered in areolas) in that game. He got right to work on another streak, because in the second round, he faced both Helen and Betty, and held them both bingoless as he won both contests. His new streak came to a much quicker end than his last one when he lost 340-412 to Charles. The biggest game of the night, and of the club year so far, came in the last round, as he scored 691 against Gail. PANTOFLE (n. a slipper), ELATERID, EPIDOTE, BEDIZENS, and VENULOSE were his bingos.

Aaron played the word-of-the-week, QUEASILY, as a triple-triple worth 239 points. That's the second highest scoring bingo played since we started keeping track, and it helped him beat Mark 509-469.