1st Thomas Reinke once again snagged the top spot in the weekly standings with his 4-1 +405 record. He suffered a minor setback in the first round, losing to Richard Lauder by a score of 375-380, but encountered no other obstacles on his way to the proverbial gold medal. By the third round, Thomas' bingoing abilities were fully warmed up, as demonstrated in a 466-405 win over Helen Flores where he played NUTRIAS, SIMULATE, and UPBOILED. Helen did have a nice play of BOARDERS for 94 in that one. Thomas put the final gem in his crown by conquering his fraternal foe, Charles Reinke, by a score of 502-368. Charles got down RECOUNTS and PARADING, but Thomas played SALSAED#, SERMONIC, DENTURAL, and GALLERIA in a high-scoring slugfest typical of the international Collins lexicon that they were using.

2nd Charles Reinke trailed slightly behind his brother with a 4-1 +284 final record. A pair of 500+ point games buoyed his average for the night to a lofty 461 points per game. The first 500 game was against Sara McLaughling, 517-367. Sara found FEISTIER to keep the game mildly competitive, but Charles's bingos of DRAGROPE, REGIONS, and SUBATOM put the score well out of reach. Charles continued the bingoing rampage by playing four of them (FORTIFY, EVASION, OLDNESS, and PREUNITE) against Richard Lauder, who, to his credit, found a 167-point triple-triple of ESTOPPED. The final in that one was 531-430.

3rd Sara McLaughlin made her club first appearance of 2023 and made the most of it, finishing 3-1 +391. All three of her victories (and, for that matter, her singular loss) were by more than 100 points. She defeated newcomer Francesca Lazio by a score of 408-283, with each player getting down a single bingo: REMARKED for Sara and GENDERS for Francesca. Sara built on that success by vanquishing Helen Flores, 435-279, this time getting down two bingos, ATRESIA and WEANERS. Helen, sadly, was held bingoless by some unholy combination of Sara's defensive prowess, the vagaries of the tile bag, and possibly the (mis-)alignment of various celestial bodies.

Bonus fourth paragraph: Dave Kinzer also went 3-1 with a spread of +123. Paradoxically, his best game was a 399-457 loss to Thomas Reinke where he got an 89-point bingo of LOCATED.

We welcomed two new players, Matt and Francesca Lazio. While they didn't have much immediate success in winning games (new players rarely do...), they both demonstrated considerable ability to play all seven tiles at once in the form of a bingo, which bodes well for future victories.