1st Steve Hartsman conquered all with a 4-0 +433 record, having enough spread cushion to grab first place over another 4-0 contender. He started strong with a 461-366 victory over Andy Bohnsack, getting BECURSED as well as a phony TRIBUTED* as his bingos. In round two, Steve wiped the floor with John Bialek, prevailing 486-269 on the back of TROLAND, INSUREDS, and OUTLIER. Colliding with out-of-towner William Barfuss, who was also 2-0 at that point, Steve got another sizable victory, winning 428-317 with bingos of QUERIES, NASTIER, and LEGATOR (William found SEEDING, and Steve subsequently found out that SEEDINGS* is no good). After a run of three large victories, Steve was put to the test by Bryan Benwitz in the final game, but his inner compulsion to go undefeated could not be extinguished, and Steve squeaked it out, 380-370, playing a single bingo of OUTLEAPS to Bryan's MANTUAS and PRATTLED.

2nd Mark Kenas completed the rare twosome of 4-0 players, finishing 4-0 +333, an even hundred spread points behind Steve but with a superior average of 523 per game (!!!). Week after week, Mark uncomplainingly plays an all-Reinke lineup, and his perserverence paid off, giving him an undefeated record for the first time since July 2025. In round one, he deployed Collins-only bingos of TWITTEN# and NANOWIRE# to defeat Charles Reinke 441-419. He followed that with the year's fourth 600-point game, beating Thomas Reinke 604-428 with bingos of DISFAVOR, COGNISE, and a triple-triple LITTORAL for 122. Not content with just one triple-triple, Mark played the monster ORCHISES for 203 points (+5 for the challenge using the international challenge rule) for a 582-496 win against Charles, who had bingos of URANIUM, PANFORTE, and IMEPTIGO. That losing score of 496 is the highest loss this year, and their combined score of 1078 is also a yearly record. Mark ended his night with a more prosaic 465-416 rematch victory against Thomas, finding LATHIER and PONCIEST#.

3rd Andy Bohnsack played thirteen bingos and averaged 455 per game to end up with a record of 3-2 +247. His night actually started quite poorly with a 366-461 loss to Steve Hartsman and a 387-451 loss to Richard Lauder. Andy showed signs of life in a two-on-one match for round three: he fought off John Bialek 399-396 with a bingo of ITCHILY (was it ever front-hooked with a B?), but saved most of his firepower for a 582-333 win against Helen Flores, where his fivefold bingo barrage of ANODISE, VALIDATE, REELINGS, CZARIST, and BACLOFEN left all witnesses (except his opponent) completely speechless. Andy got another entry into the 500-point club when he welcomed the visiting WIlliam Barfuss to Madison with a 540-386 win. His bingos there were RAPTURE, SIDERITE, INHALES, and another triple-triple, DIGESTOR for 149.

As already mentioned, we welcomed the visiting William Barfuss from out west. William went 2-2 against a tough crowd of players and we hope he'll stop by again sometime!