Dave Gilligan is Not to be Stopped

1st Dave Gilligan shocked the Scrabble world by going 4-0 +440 and eclipsing his yearly average by some seventy points, averaging 417 per game. Meanwhile, he held his opponents to a stingy 307, proving once again that strong offensive game + strong defensive game = plentiful wins. Dave started his enchanted evening by trouncing Sue Goldstein, 484-315, playing the plausible DEAFENER as well as a perfectly-valid TREATING. A matchup against Andy Bohnsack didn't quite reach "trouncing" territory, but Dave still earned a solid win, 369-300, playing MESSAGES to Andy's NUTRIENT. To secure his undefeated record, Dave was paired with the similarly-undefeated Charles Reinke in the last round; after much bingoing on Dave's part (LINEATE, UNDERPAY, and ERASION), and no bingoing on the part of Charles, Dave emerged victorious, 407-313.

2nd Aaron Bader finished up at 3-1 +299 for second place. He used up most of his luck in the first game (because luck is a finite resource which can be depleted) when he roughed up Bryan Benwitz, 544-377. Bryan got down DEBONER and ENACTORS to make the score respectable, but he truly had little chance against Aaron's quad-bingo onslaught of UPRATED, ANSWERS, AUTOMEN, and word-of-the-week CYLICES (plural of CYLIX). Andy Bohnsack fared little better, falling 385-456 to the Aaronator. Andy found the only word in EEIORTT? (answer at the bottom), as well as RELEASER, but again, Aaron outbingoed his opponent with INFERIOR, STOPING, and ACCRETE. Aaron's third win was a 397-271 victory over Richard Lauder, with his UBIETIES and LAMINAE outscoring Richard's BONEFISH.

3rd Charles Reinke also went 3-1, but fell slightly short of second place with a +272 cumulative. He made progress in evening up the lifetime series against his brother when he rudely hogged all the good tiles in a 533-322 victory. Thomas had the double-Z GRIZZLES, but Charles had four bingos in response: LEANEST, UNDERLIE, INFERIOR, and INSECTAN. Aaron Bader didn't face such lopsided tile distribution, but still had to place a checkmark in the loss column when Charles downed him 473-408. Aaron had OGREISM and AIRSIDE, with Charles getting BANTENG, CREASES, and ROTATIVE. A rundown of Charles' singular loss against Dave can be found above.

New bingos this week were AIRSIDE (Aaron) and UNTONED (Helen).