Peter Schmiedicke Should Start Charging for the Scrabble Lessons He Gives to People

1st Peter Schmiedicke snagged the first place spot despite a blemished 3-1 +414 record, beating out four other players who had the same win-loss record. To do this, he had to rally out of a 90-point hole dug for him by Lynda Finn, who beat him in the first game 463-370. Lynda won the ever-important bingo battle, playing RAMBLED, PTERINS, and RETINOLS, while Peter got WINTERS and COOTIES. Peter followed up that disappointing loss with a pair of 200-point victories, 471-257 against Helen Flores and 531-278 against a certain Dave Gilligan who had just set a new high-water mark for himself with a 544 game. Against Helen, Peter had INSTARS and AILERON, while Dave was forced to spectate as Peter laid down ODORANT, LIPREAD, and MAUNDERS against him. As the 2-1 player with the highest point spread, Peter was matched against the undefeated Thomas Reinke in the last round, and he rose to the challenge, winning a close one, 444-424. Thomas played SPRITZED for 110, but Peter was able to bingo consistently throughout the game, getting down GRODIEST, DREARIES, and COMBINES.

2nd Charles Reinke went 3-1 +397, but, in averaging just 445 points per game, he allowed his yearly game average to fall below 500, perhaps never to return. He took down the always-tough Bryan Benwitz with relative ease, winning 469-345. Bryan found the odd-looking KEENERS, but Charles outdid that with POINTED, FIREHOSE, and the Word of the Week, SCABLAND. Lynda Finn, fresh from kicking butts in Portland, had similar luck or worse against Charles, losing 269-523. While she was forced to stare at unworkable letters the whole game, Charles got down ANNULET and MEDDLES. Not in every game could the tiles be so favorable for Charles; a matchup against archfoe Thomas Reinke ended 404-346 in Thomas' favor. Thomas' sole bingo of MURALIST (anagrams: ULTRAISM and ALTRUISM) was enough to overcome Charles' STRIPED and HANGOUT.

3rd Aaron Bader finished at 3-1 +321, beating out fourth-place finisher Thomas Reinke by seventeen spread points. Aaron started out the evening having somehow secured the favor of the tile gods, as he walloped Gail Salm 627-293. In tribute to those same gods, he played four bingos: VIBRATOR, VERITIES, POUNCES and the phony ORCHELLA (ORCHILLA is new in our dictionary; the one Aaron played is Collins-only). Gail, for her part, played AWAITER and STAINERS. The rest of Aaron's games were not quite as impressive as the first, leading one to wonder what transgression he had committed in order to anger the gods. He did take down Andy Bohnsack, 391-309, thanks to finds of ALANINES and INDITES. Andy managed just a single bingo of BEATINGS [Ed. Note: there has to be way to fit that word into the narrative...nah]. Aaron's loss came against, who else, Thomas Reinke, who showed no mercy in delivering a sound 484-365 defeat.

We had a fair amount of new bingos played this week: FIREHOSE (Charles), LORNEST (Charles again), SUETIER (Gail), DREADER (Barb), and CODINGS (Sue).