Charles Reinke Takes First...Again...

1st Charles Reinke continued his recent trend of titanic spreads, going a perfect 4-0 with a spread of +645.  He averaged a staggering 484 points per game while only allowing 323 on average.  Out of all his opponents, only Richard Lauder was able to put the fear of the tiles into him: that game ended 411-381, with one bingo apiece - EULOGIES for Charles and WADDIES for Richard (WADDY is a verb meaning "to strike with a thick club").  Charles' high game was a 562 against Gail Salm, featuring the bingos GUANASE, UPSTARE, and HORNETS (all good bingos to know, as they are quite high-probability).  UPSTARE anagrams to PASTURE, UPTEARS, and UPRATES, while HORNETS anagrams to SHORTEN and THRONES.

2nd Bryan Benwitz overcame a rough start, losing his first game 306-408 against Peter Schmiedicke but winning his next three to finish 3-1 +313.  It is interesting to note that the bingo deities only saw fit to give Bryan the chance to play seven-letter bingos - his one eight-letter attempt, TEMPORAS, turned out to be phony (it is a creative mashup of the words TEMPORAL and TEMPURAS).  Bryan achieved his second-highest club game ever when he beat Richard Lauder 545-252, pummeling our poor club director with words such as SPLURGE, URINOSE, and LENDERS.

3rd Peter Schmiedicke also went 3-1, with a smaller spread of +118, to grab third place in the expert division.  He saved his best for last, dropping a 500 game on Mary Becker, 501-372.  Peter landed DISRATED, BOSSIEST, and AGENTED while Mary hit DEPLORED.  Thomas Reinke proved to be his downfall, as he lost that matchup 311-505 despite the opening-play bingo ELUANTS.

Honorable mention to Thomas Reinke for almost scoring 600.  He fell one point short of that mark when he beat Mary Becker 599-325.  He had four bingos: GAIETIES, POLITEST, a 3x3 OVERMINE, and word-of-the-week ANTHELIX (defined as "the inner curved ridge on the cartilage of the external ear").  As part of fate's continuing agenda against the Reinke brothers, Charles Reinke also played the word OVERMINE in the same round, but didn't get nearly as many points for it.  He probably should have played VOMERINE to avoid the twin jokes.  Richard Lauder also got a triple-triple of his own: INGRATES for 140 points against Helen Flores.

Sue Goldstein Triumphs in Quadruple-Header

1st Sue Goldstein played four games against regular opponent June Scott, the series ending 3-1 in Sue's favor.  All of the games were close: her biggest win was 346-300.