Take the Top Three from Last Week, Scramble it Up, then Skip the Following Three Paragraphs

1st Thomas Reinke went an undefeated 4-0 +362 in the season's second week, putting him in a temporary tie with his brother for first place in the club standings. His nine-letter WITHDRAWS (played through AW on the board) was chosen as Word of the Week, played against Richard Lauder in the first game. Thanks to an additional bingo of LISTENER, Thomas came away with the victory, 435-414, despite Richard's counter-bingos of PRENTICE and ACTIVATE. In the third round, Thomas was matched against fellow undefeated Betty Hasselkus, and again laid down two bingos (RALLIER and CONINES) on the way to a win, 473-360. Still undefeated, Thomas and Bryan Benwitz were pitted against each other in what would be the final, culminating battle for untold glory and renown. Thomas' STEAMIE and EGYPTIAN (n. a typeface with squared serifs) glared angrily at Bryan's OLEINES and ANTEROOM, and in the end, it was Thomas who was able to put a checkbox in the win column, with the final score being 452-422. Thomas has now won 26 of his last 30 games; his four losses in that span have all been to the player who appears below him in this week's standings.

2nd Charles Reinke finished at 3-1 +428 and averaged 481 points per game, a disappointing mark after his 524 average last week. Charles got his singular loss out of the way quickly, dropping to Bryan Benwitz 371-433. Each player was limited to just one bingo apiece: INBOARD for Bryan, WACKIEST for Charles. Interesting trivia: in Charles' last twenty games, he has scored below 400 only three times, all of them while playing against Bryan. The beard must have defensive powers. In any case, Charles was fully recovered by the final two games, scoring well over 500 in both. He laid down four bingos (PELORIAN, OPAQUELY, INTARSIA, and TEENERS) in the course of a 552-375 victory over Dennis Lloyd, who got down READIED. That level of scoring was not enough for Charles, so he kicked it up a notch for his final game against Richard Lauder and won decisively, 586-299. Richard managed REMOVED and FANTAIL, but Charles was again smiled upon by the tile gods, and got four bingos of his own: ANISOLE, BETAINE, MOOTNESS, and the phony POSTROCK (PREROCK and POSTPUNK are both good).

3rd Aaron Bader again benefited from the absence of a certain Collins expert in going 3-1 +316. He used up all his mojo early with a dominating 549-291 triumph over Gail Salm, reaching that high total despite two relatively small bingos, HORSIES (73) and LAMBERTS (77). Unfortunately, neither player managed to extend LAMBERTS to FOOTLAMBERTS. Both are units of luminance. Aaron also added an entry to the "beat up on Richard" category with a 468-395 win against our esteemed director. Richard sneakily got by the phony of ASTOMAL (ASTOMOUS is acceptable, and AMATOLS is the real word in those letters) as well as the perfectly valid COLONIST, but Aaron's three bingos of AZURITE, AVENGING, and SHITTIER (gasp) were more than enough for the victory. Just like Charles above, Aaron's only loss was to Bryan Benwitz, 324-384. The bingo well ran temporarily dry for Aaron, although it did produce a little something for Bryan, who got HARTALS and RECODES.

We saw three new bingos played this week: STEAMIE (Thomas), HORSIES (Aaron), and WRISTING (Dennis).