1st Charles Reinke valiantly continued his efforts to four-peat as club champion, going 3-1 +504. He scored 553 against Helen in the first game, playing LAITIES, FAINTERS, and GAROTTES. If you think three bingos isn't very many for scoring 553 points, I'm pretty sure he also had a 70-point X play. As punishment (or as a reward) for winning by so much, he faced Thomas in the next match, depairing as his opponent opened with AVERAGE. Charles eventually played REWARMED (v. what you do with your leftover Chinese takeout [ed. note: why is Chinese food never as good the next day]), but Thomas also bingoed with RATIONS and NEITHER and ended up winning 477-376. Things improved for Charles in the next game, or maybe they just got way worse for his opponent, anyway, he won 459-254 against Bryan. The star play of that game was the word-of-the-week CYATHIUM (n. the flower head of certain plants, plural CYATHIA). In related news, the club has a new prize where the next person to name their daughter CYATHIA wins four dollars. In the final game, he got a rematch with Thomas and equalized things by winning 483-311. He played TETHERS, REBUILT, and the back-breaking SHADOOF (n. a device used in Egypt for raising water for irrigation, also SHADUF).

2nd Betty Hasselkus edged out Thomas for second place by three spread points, going 3-1 +109. In the first round, she fought her way through a tough board against Sue, eventually winning 320-307 with neither combatant playing a bingo. After that, she lost 314-411 versus Gail, with much of the margin being attributable to Gail's fancy KAIZENS for 101. For reference, that's the first bingo at our club with both a K and a Z since Thomas's KLUTZES four years ago. The next one will be when Betty plays KIBBITZ three weeks from now. In the the third round, Betty had another bingo-less game, this time beating Mary 364-329. Her scoring picked up a lot in the final game, as she won against Helen, 444-286. She played ASSURED and NEITHER early in the game, and must have done some other stuff too because 444 is a lot of points.

3rd Thomas Reinke failed to find three extra points over his four games, and thus came in third at 3-1 +106. He beat Bryan 493-367 in the first round by way of his 100-point double-double out-bingo CITADEL, which turned a close game into a blowout with the addition of Bryan's unplayed Z. Thomas' scoring went down in the next game (and it continued to go down the whole night), but he still beat Charles easily, 477-376. Against Gail, he won 440-389, bingoing with GALLEINS and THEREBY, outdoing Gail's double-blank HEREINTO. His streak of high-scoring wins came to an abrupt end in his rematch against Charles, but that's okay because the extra sympathy he elicited for scoring only 311 points made up for it. Just kidding. No one ever feels bad for Thomas no matter how few points he scores.