1st Aaron Bader went undefeated in his games against Mark in their weekly "Collins Goofball Dictionary Featuring Words That Make No Sense" battle, ending up at 3-0 +441. He won the first one 424-354 with totally normal bingos of NANOWATT, TERMINAL, and PEROXID. In the next round, Mark played SERJEANT for 95, but Aaron ended up scoring 546 points anyway. He was helped by two Collins-only comparatives, DOCILEST* and ORNATEST*, as well as "real" bingos of HOBNAILS and IMPAIRED. In the third round, he held AAEEDMT on his first rack. A nice set of letters if you know what to look for, and Mark gave him an O on the center star so he could play OEDEMATA for 92. Things snowballed from there, as he added VIOLONE, REIFYING, RESHONE, and KATSURAS (n. KATSURA, a deciduous tree of China and Japan). The final of that game was 574-442, which is the first game this club season surpassing the 1000-points combined threshold. And before I forget, thanks go out to Aaron for not playing too many Collins-only bingos so that I don't have to risk polluting the minds of our readers with British oddities.

2nd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 +186, continuing his streak of top-two finishes. He had a very close game again Dave to open the night, winning 386-380 with his sole bingo being BARGUEST (n. a goblin, also BARGHEST). Dave played LATHERS and ANESTRI, the last of which was an out-bingo. There are 9 words in that rack; only one, NASTIER, would have given him the win. Against Thomas in the second game, Bryan won 469-399. Thomas opened with SCARIFY, and later added MEUNIERE (a word which his brother also played in the same round), but Bryan bingoed an extra time for the 70-point victory. He played INCITES (don't forget about the Z-hook for ZINCITES), CHASTEST, and DILUTORS. In the next round, he faced James and won by 200-ish points, playing VEERIES and ESTRONE. He faced a similar situation against Charles that he did against the other Reinke, as Charles started off with an opening AMBOYNA (n. the mottled wood of an Indonesian tree, also AMBOINA) against him. He fought valiantly against the unfairness of an opposing opening-rack bingo, but ended up losing 386-473.

3rd James Frannki made a pit stop on his way home from work to play a few games of Scrabble, and finished in third place with a 3-1 +178 record. He had a big game against reigning club champion Charles, winning 446-404. He put on his best poker face while playing the phony GEARLIKE* and managed to get it past his opponent, and also played the very valid THEREON. The rest of his games were blowouts in one direction or another, starting with a 420-266 win over Sue where he got down FORETELL. Against Bryan he seemingly couldn't get his racks to make words (a common problem often rectified by flipping over the table) and lost 234-431. In the final game, he won 429-250 against Helen despite her playing a bingo (AURICLES) while he didn't. He must have been doing some serious scoring with the high-point tiles; in any case, it's the highest no-bingo game of the club season.

Honorable mention to Sue Goldstein, who went 2-1 +23 including a 462-point game against Dave, which is tied for her highest game ever since we started keeping track.

In other club news, the new dictionary is going into affect for tournament play starting in February. We think we will start a few weeks early, so cheat sheets will be provided starting next week that include all the new words up to 8 letters, with the idea of starting to use the new words the week after that. Don't worry, it's only about 250 words. And if we can get it, we will also have the list of words that has been removed. Again, don't worry, most of them were pretty stupid anyway.

If you want to get an early start, the new 2's and 3's are EW, OK, and ZEN. That's it. None of them take an S.

In other other club news, next week we will be trying a new location, First Congregational Church at 1609 University Ave, Madison. An email will be going out containing details, and we will also update the club website with the needed information as well. Hope to see you all there!