1st Thomas Reinke fully dominated the competition, going 5-0 +163. Usually when Thomas goes 5-0 his spread is in the +bazillion range, so maybe "fully dominated" isn't the correct phrase. In any case, Thomas adequately dominated all his foes, starting with a 436-429 win over Mark Kenas where his bingos were RENNASE and TUNICATE. Thomas improved on that seven-point margin, but just barely, when he met Mark for a rematch and won 503-495. Extra style points were awarded for the three-A PANATELA (also spelled PANETELA) and the nine-letter CLARITIES (ERISTICAL would have been cooler). Continuing the trend of Thomas' opponents scoring over 400, Thomas defeated Richard Lauder 473-415, matching Richard's LOUNGEST and FILMIEST with PANELING and TARRIED. He also allowed Charles Reinke to score entirely too many points, but won anyway, 440-420, playing AREOLAS, DESMOID, and ARRIERO# vs. Charles' FANCIERS, CRAALING, and POGONIAS. Thomas wrapped up his perfect night by beating Steve Hartsman 394-324, despite Steve's Word-of-the-Week find of GUAIACOL.

2nd Dave Kinzer went 2-1 +190, good enough for second place on a night when most players finished at 2-2. Round one could have gone better, as Dave found himself on the losing end of a match vs. Richard Lauder, 374-396. Dave got down BRACERS, but was outdone by Richard's GANDERS and RENDIBLE (which anagrams to the tough-to-find BEDLINER and LINEBRED). Dave followed that up with a notable win against Bryan Benwitz, 359-354, notable because it was Dave's first win against Bryan since 2017. For those who might have forgotten, 2017 was a long time ago. Now that the curse has been broken, Dave will (hopefully) not have to wait another nine years to get another win. Dave saved his best for last when he beat Lloyd Stohler 449-242 in the last game, getting OUTPACE and GROUTERS.

2nd Mark Kenas finished 2-2 +418 with a 502 per-game average, quite a high average game for a .500 record. He lost to Thomas Reinke in two close games, 429-436 and 495-503 for a grand total of -15 spread. He more than made up for those two losses in his two games against Charles Reinke, where he racked up +433 spread. The first was a 581-349 affair where Mark bingoed four times: SQUIRTED, CHLORATE, OBELION#, and PEERING. The second was a bit more restrained, but only a bit, as Mark landed the one-two punch in a 502-301 victory. The prosaic GOATIER and OUTEARN were Mark's bingos in that one, hardly exercising his deep knowledge of the Collins dictionary.