Thomas Reinke Gave You Dictionaries and He Can Take them Away

1st Thomas Reinke, blessed provider of dictionaries, further entrenched his place in Scrabble legendry by going 4-0 +340. Dave Gilligan was treated to an extra-large helping of Thomas' fury when their contest ended 471-304 in Thomas' favor. Dave played BATTLES to Thomas' VANITIES and ISLANDS. Thomas found that low number of bingos to be unacceptable, so against his brother Charles he upped his output to four: TRIBUTE, REFIGURE, VENISONS, and word-of-the-week FILMLAND (n. the motion picture industry, also FILMDOM). However, despite his opponent's singular wimpy bingo (AROINTS for 61), Thomas "only" won by a score of 427-372. Then, in the battle of the undefeateds, fighting for glory and pride, Thomas beat Richard Lauder 413-373. That time the bingo situation was even: PIRATING and STARTER for Richard, BINOCLE and LIMITERS for Thomas.

2nd Aaron Bader played a four-game match against fellow Collinser Mark Kenas and proved once again the higher-scoring nature of that dictionary by averaging 471 points per game and going 3-1 +273. Even better, his entire scoresheet was decorated with bingos that the rest of us would find in our own dictionaries. Aaron initiated the bloodshed with a 541-424 win where he played LOOPIEST, REBORING, and BLIGHTER. He later got another 500-game, winning 505-338 with just two bingos: RENTALS and DATIVES. Mark wrenched the broom out of Aaron's hands and prevented the sweep by winning the final game of the night, 471-374. Aaron had VERSINS to Mark's PRENTED#, ETRENNE#, and CONCHAE.

3rd Bryan Benwitz topped two other players with 3-1 records by amassing a superior spread of +250. He would have had a larger spread but a 2-point win over Lynda Finn, 397-395, didn't help him much in that area. GOUTIEST and PARDINE (adj. pertaining to a leopard) were his bingo efforts in that one. The real spread-killer was a 494-340 loss to Richard Lauder in which Bryan allowed two phony bingos to remain unmolested upon the board, EXIGETES (just EXEGETES or EXIGENT) and TEENAGES (just TEENAGE, TEENAGER or TEENAGED). Bryan's valid bingos of MANDRELS and WAISTERS only served to turn a not-very-close game into a still-not-very-close game. However, Bryan exacted revenge (and regained all that negative spread) by clobbering Mary Becker 622-283. This is Bryan's highest-ever score by an almost fifty-point margin, as well as just the fourth 600-point game this club season. A 122-point phony triple-triple of ORALIZES was the key to hitting the elusive 600-point threshold, but three other bingos of ACAULINE, INVESTOR, and FONDLED didn't hurt either.

Gail Salm played the only new bingo this week, EENSIER.