Charles Reinke Undefeated in 2014 Calendar Year

1st Charles Reinke made good on his new year's resolution of not losing any games of Scrabble by going 4-0 +337.  Try as he might, he couldn't quite break 500 in any of his games, coming closest in a 499-408 victory against Peter Schmiedicke.  DORMIENT (adj. dormant) was Peter's attempt to stay in the game, but Charles' NATTERS, TRIFLED, and SWEATILY were too much.  His biggest win was by 123 points, 486-363 against Lynda Finn.  Lynda got UNDREST to take an early lead, but eventually succumbed to two bingo salvoes from her opponent: NONTIDAL and ALLOCATE.

2nd Thomas Reinke had an identical four wins to his brother, but had an un-identical one loss, leaving him in second place with a +267 spread.  For the tenth time in a row, he lost to his brother, this time by the score of 374-435, despite outbingoing him (ACCOUNTS and RIPENESS for Thomas, OESTRIN for Charles).  He got his (misplaced) revenge by crushing Peter Schmiedicke 509-376, thanks in part to the triple-triple of SLATTERN for 131 points.  One triple-triple is bad enough, but Thomas played another one, STUDIERS, against Bryan Benwitz.  Thus, the club treasurer is regretting his decision to start paying $4 prizes for triple-triples.

3rd Bryan Benwitz lost his first two games, but made a quick recovery and ended the night at 2-2 +116, just five spread points ahead of fourth-place finisher Andy Bohnsack.  Easily capturing bingo king honors with 12 such plays, a crown with 12 embedded rubies is currently being forged by the club blacksmith and will be presented to Bryan at our next meeting.  The highest scoring of his wins was against Helen Flores, 525-370, a lofty point total that contributed to his game average of 432.  If you're thinking "nobody could possibly score that many points unless they had three or more bingos!", your hunch would be correct.  Bryan played RONTGEN, AVODIRES, and CAREENED; Helen played SATRAPS, a great find which got her Word of the Week.  A satrap is a governor of a province in ancient Persia; SATRAPY is also a word meaning "the domain of a satrap".

Sue Goldstein Has Only Two Losses in All of 2014

1st Sue Goldstein went 2-2 +19 to snatch first place in a diminished intermediate group.  Both of her wins (and one of her losses) came against June Scott, the highest scoring being 344-272 in Sue's favor.