1st Charles Reinke won the final session of the club statistical year, going 4-1 +296. In the first round, he beat Richard 492-379. Richard bingoed with OUTLINED and INTERCUT, and Charles played EMERSION and PENSIONI (plural of PENSIONE, a boarding house). He played two in the second round, one of those games being a 473-307 win over Betty. He played the fancy OOGENIES in that one, but what would've been even fancier is if he put the Z on it for ZOOGENIES. In the other game, he beat Dave 419-322, only bingoing once with PUTTIERS. Against Thomas in the next round, he won a close one, 415-407. He had bingoes of LOITERER, PLICATE (adj. pleated) and EYEWEAR. Thomas bingoed late with HOSANNA (v. to praise) to make things close, but he still came up just short. In the final game, things got off to a bad start (or good, depending on whether you are Team Charles or Team Bryan) when Bryan played a double-double GATEWAYS for 106 through Charles' opening play. Bryan then quickly added LUCERNE and IMPULSE to put the game out of reach, though Charles did get OXTAILS for 97 to partially soothe his wounds.

2nd Dave Gilligan had one of his better nights as a Madison Scrabbler, coming in second with a 3-1 +392 record. He had a fairly substantial win against Sue in the opening game, 412-304, helped by his bingo of SEEPING. Most of that positive spread was taken away in the second game, as he faced Charles and lost 322-419. He did out-bingo his opponent, playing IDEATION (anagrams to IODINATE and TAENIOID) and the word-of-the-week TRIMARAN, and was stopped from bingoing again by the closed-ness of the board. Knowing that he had to finish with a +392 spread to make sure the prewritten writeup (it saves a lot of time for these things, I've got like three months worth written up already, if you want to see how you're going to do in a few weels just hit me up and we can negotiate... payment) was factually correct, Dave got to work, beating Richard in the third round 427-246. He bingoed with TOILETRY and AIRIEST. AIRIEST has now been played 32 times since we started keeping track, more than any other bingo, beating out ETESIAN which has "only" been played 31 times. His final win was even more impressive, a 200-point win over Helen, 456-256. His final play of HEARTENS for 80 was a big part of him coming in second place over the three other players at 3-1.

3rd James Frankki went 3-1 +355, his number of wins coincidentally aligning with his paragraph placement. He lost a close contest in the first round, falling 366-378 to Bryan, the difference in bingos (63 for RESTATED for for James, 68 for URINATOR for Bryan) accounting for nearly half of the difference. After that, things went better for him, starting with a 439-291 win against Richard in the second round. In that game, he bingoed with REASONED and SIXTIES (new rule: any time you play a number, that's how many points you score for the play. Suddenly the letters for GOOGOL and GOOGOLPLEX became a lot more valuable!). His biggest win of the night came against Betty in the third round, as he scored 488 and bingoed with LEPTONS and UREDIAL (adj. pertaining to a UREDIUM, a spore-producing organ of certain fungi). Against Thomas in the last round, he opened with SUITERS, and rode that advantage to a narrow 388-380 win. His non-bingo play of AQUAVIT (n. a Scandinavian liquor, also spelled AKVAVIT) was instrumental in the win, even if he claims that aquavit is to expensive to be consumed on a regular basis in the United States.

Congratulations to Thomas Reinke for claiming the title of "Club Champion" for this club season! His winning percentage of 75 percent edged out Charles' 74.1 percent. Charles had won the last few years, so it's nice to see a new face as champion (even if the face is basically the same as the previous ones).