1st Bryan Benwitz ran roughshod over a hapless assemblage of Scrabblers with his immaculate 4-00 +341 record. The normally unbroken brick wall of his word knowledge showed a small crack in it as he played, and got away with, the phony EMEUTIC* in a 442-374 win over Lynda Finn, seemingly combining the words EMEUTE and EMETIC. His other bingo that game, FURCATED, was perfectly valid, as were Lynda's LEANERS and ANNOYER. Bryan ramped up the scoring with a 456-336 victory against Richard Lauder, playing NETIZENS, GAMELIKE, and NOVATES. The scoring and bingoing was kicked up one more notch (how many notches are there? hopefully not too many) when Bryan won big against Dennis Lloyd, 508-362. Dennis found FOLIATED, but was buried by Bryan's MIAOWED, LEATHERN, NORITES, and NESTLED. The most valiant challenge to Bryan's indomitable mightiness came in the last round, but Bryan pulled it out, 418-411. In a clash of phonies, Bryan had BEASTIES and UNWEAVED* (INWEAVED, REWEAVED, and UNWOVE are good), matched by Charles' SPINALLY and GOADABLE* (the similar-ish GOADLIKE is a word for some reason).

2nd Richard Lauder bounced back from an unlucky string of 1-3 sessions to go 3-1 +111. He found himself in the winners' bracket early with a 364-326 victory against Sara McLaughlin, finding OUTSHINE to counteract Sara's SPENDER. Sadly, Richard was quickly dispatched in round two by none other than club leader Bryan Benwitz, 336-456, although Richard's bingo of PASTIER prevented things from being even worse. A third-round matchup against another one of the club's top players turned out better for Richard as he felled Thomas Reinke, 437-379. A hard-hitting YESTERN for 96 points, plus another bingo of ELONGATE, were enough to take down the club's third-winningest player. Richard finished strong with a lopsided 436-303 win against Dennis Lloyd, getting OUTREAD and TIMBERS to pad out his bingo list a bit.

3rd Thomas Reinke averaged 462 points per game, best among all attendees, and crawled into third place with a 3-2 +478 record. A five-point loss to Dennis Lloyd in round one, 390-395, was a setback from a wins perspective even if it wasn't so bad from a spread perspective. The loss was made up for, and then some, in the second round, where Thomas clobbered Mark Kenas 549-332. Thomas bingoed with MESTESO, TISSUAL, and FAIREST, while Mark had the Collins-lexicon-only AEROTONE# and ENCAGED. A 379-437 loss to Richard Lauder was another setback, but again, Thomas made up for it by soundly defeating Lynda Finn 496-275 in the simultaneously-occurring two-on-one game. Thomas closed out the evening with a repeat win over Mark Kenas, 494-391, getting a triple-triple COMPENDS for 167 points to coast to victory (Mark's JANTIEST# for 95 looked positively puny in comparison).

We welcomed new player Mathias to our club. While he did not win a game (most new players don't), he did find two bingos in his three games: NOODLES and STORIES. We hope to see him back soon!