1st Thomas Reinke ran roughshod through a field of 14 Scrabblers, ending the night with five wins, zero losses, and 800 points of spread. He got off to a quick start in the first round, facing both Gail and Betty in a two-on-one and winning both games by large margins. Against Gail, he played bingos of CERATES, ABSEILER, NABBERS, and CRAVENER. Semi-fun fact: he had played the then-phony CRAVENEST in a game a few years ago, before it was added to the dictionary. Against Betty, he was held to only a single bingo, VOYAGED. That game would prove to have his lowest bingo total of the night, as he eventually ended up with 15 rack-clearers, an average of three per game. Against Mary, he opened with BLADERS, then added EATERIES, INERRANT, and VIRAGOES (n. VIRAGO, a domineering woman) on his way to a 517-point game. In the third round, he faced Bryan, who saw as his first two tiles two W's. Not a good omen, because even though he opened with WOWING, Thomas underlaid it with ANEMONE making five overlaps. He then quickly added a double-double SPIELED (SPIELED and SPEILED are both good, but only SPIELER) for 90 and in the end won 495-322. In the final game he faced a familiar (literally) opponent, and bear Charles 428-350. It would have been a bigger win, but Charles went out with AREOLES to cut a large amount of spread.

2nd Bryan Benwitz went his usual 3-1, coming in second as he was the only person to finish with that record on the night. In the first game he faced Dave K., winning 444-292. His bingos in that game were EARSTONE (a fancy way of saying OTOLITH), GUANINE, and NUPTIALS. Against James in the next round, he won 438-334 with bingos of HOLARDS and FAIREST. James played NUTTIEST and PENDANT, the second of those right in front of a triple-word score. An extension to DEPENDANT or APPENDANT would have scored a fair amount, but neither were played, probably because DEPENDENT is the more usual spelling and APPENDANT isn't a very common word. Also, no word on whether an extension to PEANUTTIEST was considered. He slogged though a tough game against Thomas as detailed above, eventually getting down RASSLED but losing 332-495. In the final game, he beat Barb 451-382. After a slow start for both players, they both played two bingos, SEQUOIA (one of 39 seven-letter words with five vowels) and GREEDIER for Barb, and INOSITE and PURLINS for Bryan.

3rd Helen Flores returned from a fun (remember, fun can be had at tournaments in ways other than winning games) Phoenix tournament to play yet more Scrabble and had a successful night, ending with a 2-1 +361 record. Her first game (which was in the second round due to her tardiness which has been noted) was a close 387-392 loss to Barb; both players played OUT- bingos, OUTWEAR for Barb and OUTRATES for Helen. That part was equal, but Barb also played ZESTIEST which helped tilted the game in her favor. She got one of her highest scores ever in the next game against Dave, as she scored 527 in a big win. She only played two bingos, BOOMIER and STARTING, so I'm assuming that she also had some big power-tile plays. In the last round she held Gail uncharacteristically bingo-less and won 497-309. For her part she bingoed with VIOLINS and UGLIEST.