Mark Kenas Beats Up Aaron Bader for Lunch Money

1st Mark Kenas played three games of Collins against Aaron Bader and was victorious in all of them. He has now won eight of the last nine against Aaron. They fought to a high-scoring finish in the second game, with Mark winning 471-458, thus perpetuating the stereotype that all Collins games feature obscenely high point totals. Mark played DIMPLIER, DANCERS, and the collins-only ROTTENS# (anagram for us plebs: STENTOR); Aaron had SLOTTER, GASTRAEA, and METAIRIE#. Their final matchup somehow ended with nobody reaching the 400-point mark, a feat which should be impossible when you can play words like ZO, JA, and ETAERIO. A disappointing final score of 397-371 was due to only one bingo for each player: TEMSING# for Mark and AUCTION (now there's a normal word) for Aaron.

2nd Charles Reinke finished at 3-1 +330. He got off to a blazing-hot start, with his record after two games being 2-0 +377, but was unable to finish the job. In the first game, he took down Chris Vergeront 475-304. Chris had EGESTION, but Charles had a trio of bingos that trumped Chris': OCTROIS, INLAYERS, and UPDRAFTS. An even larger win was in store for Charles in the next round, when he faced birthday girl Helen Flores. Again, the bingo count was 3-1, and again, Charles was on the higher side of that equation. Helen played TEARIEST; Charles found ATTAINER, BEDPANS, and OVERTIME.

3rd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 +260 and averaged a cool 457 points per game in the process. He had two valid bingos in all of his games, but one phony marred the perfect symmetry of the evening. Not for the first time, he achieved the rare anti-Reinke by beating both Reinke twins, this time back-to-back. First, he took down Thomas Reinke 474-361 on the back of his bingos RETIRES and TENSILE (Thomas had EARINGS and DRAGONET). Then, amped up from that victory, he went into his game against Charles with all guns blazing and came out with a huge 545-414 win. That was the game where he phonied, playing OVERRIGS to go with the valid ASTHENIA and TONIEST. Charles let OVERRIGS go because it gave him a spot for his triple-triple LOCUSTAL (n. LOCUSTA, a type of flower cluster) for 149 points. Charles also had SECTILE in that game for far fewer points. Lynda Finn was the one who stepped up to the challenge of preventing a perfect night for Bryan, with Lynda getting a 412-369 win.

Peter Schmiedicke played the word of the week, PLANKTER (the singular of PLANKTON, although PLANKTONS is still a word).