Thomas Reinke Returns From Dominating Reno to Find That His Appetite for Domination is Insatiable

1st Thomas Reinke took no breaks after this impressive seventh-place finish at Nationals, going 4-0 +360 in his first games back on Wisconsin soil. By his second game he had fully hit his stride, vanquishing Gail Salm 454-308 with the help of two bingos, TAILRACE and ANGINAL (played to Gail's UNDERSEA and TIDIEST). Peter Schmiedicke did not fare any better; his game against Mr. 7th Place ended at 505-371. Peter got down SEMINAR and LACERTID (n. a type of lizard), but three is always bigger than two, and Thomas had three bingos: OUTFISH, BOBTAILS, and COLLEGER. Thomas' greatest challenge proved to be the deceptively unassuming Bryan Benwitz; nursing stomachs distended by unhealthy amounts of delicious cake, the two players fought to the very end. Only one point separated their scores at the conclusion of their game, 405-404 in Thomas' favor. For his bingos, Bryan played REFASTEN and the phony JEMINDAR. JEMIDAR and ZEMINDAR are both good, but don't blame Bryan; Thomas played the same phony back in 2012. This time around, Thomas played only good words, AMBRIES and OUTLETS.

2nd Mark Kenas recovered his mojo after a few tough series against Aaron Bader, this time going 3-1 +357 and averaging 487 per game. The one game Mark lost was coincidentally the only one where he did not get at least three bingos; playing TRIAGED to Aaron's LEACHATE, the final was 379-395. After that injustice, Mark exerted his veteran status, winning the next game 566-401 with four bingos: STUNTED, SUDORAL, SHONKIER#, and the nine-letter ARGENTITE. Another 500-point game followed that up, a 523-427 win for Mark. TARDYON for 117 turned out to be the highest-scoring bingo of the evening, but Mark added SALUTING and ASTERIA to his list just to make the victory complete.

3rd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 for the second week in a row, this time with a sizable +254 spread that put him ahead of two other players with 3-1 records. Against Charles Reinke, Bryan flexed his defensive muscle a little bit, holding the normally bingo-prone player to a zero-bingo performance. With TRAMLINE for 71 and ANXIOUS for 112, Bryan took the win easily, as candy from a baby's clutching hands, 397-361. The next two games would further showcase Bryan's ability to completely stymie his opponents as he beat Lynda Finn 371-313 before crushing Dave Gilligan 472-311. In the latter game, Dave got down a 93-point play of BECAUSE, but was otherwise unable to generate any forward momentum as Bryan scored relentlessly, getting down TUTORIAL and TOLANES along with multiple other high-scoring plays. Sadly, Bryan's night ended with a 1-point loss against first-place finisher Thomas.

We had a few new bingos played this week: TRANNIE (Peter), BROADWAY (Andy), ARSTIES (Richard), NEARISH (Dennis), and SATINED (Aaron, although it doesn't really count since SATINED has been good in Collins for a while now). Helen Flores reached deep into her bag of bingos to pull out the low-probability VICINITY as word of the week.

We welcomed new players Terry Hope and Warren Bergmann from the Oshkosh area. Both of them got one win out of three games. Hopefully they don't expect cake at every club session.