Peter Schmiedicke Steps Back into Scrabble Arena

1st Peter Schmiedicke returned from a month-long absence to absolutely dominate all who dared step in his path, going 4-0 +426 and averaging 479 per game. His total of fourteen bingos in four games ties a club record as far as anybody can remember. Any rust remaining on Peter's Scrabble skills was not made evident in his first-round contest against Dave Gilligan, a game which ended decidedly in Peter's favor, 512-355. Playing EMBARKED, EPIDOTE, ORALISTS, and NONPLUS, it was the first of Peter's four-bingo games. The second came against current club leader Charles Reinke, and again, it was Peter's win, 521-436. When the fists ceased their flying and the dust settled, seven bingos had been unleashed upon the board; Peter's were VIOLATE, BIRETTA, INSULAE, and word-of-the-week ZACATONS. As the evening drew to a close, Peter took part in the Ultimate Battle of Immortal Glory (i.e. a matchup between two undefeated players) along with Dennis Lloyd. It was a close-fought game, with Dennis getting down a nice UPSTREAM for 82, but Peter ended up bingoing out with MOLESTED and catching Dennis with the Q to cement the final score at 468-363. And so it was that Peter Schmiedicke attained glorious immortality by appearing in the first paragraph of the writeup.

2nd Charles Reinke went 4-1 +544, and while his per game average didn't quite match Peter's, it was close, at 473. Charles had racked up a hefty 389 spread points after the first round thanks to a two-on-one match against Gail Salm (479-305) and Mary Becker (536-321). A total of six bingos were played by Charles in those two games: EARSHOTS, PLANNING, REFUGES, DRAWINGS, TINKLIER, and the new word TEENDOM (DEMETON was previously the only word in those letters). A tough loss (described above) against Peter set Charles back a little bit, but he won his final two games to ensure that his winning percentage of 79.6% would see a slight uptick. Charles extended his winning streak against Aaron Bader to nine in a row with a 447-369 victory; Aaron only got down NITRIDS while Charles had a trio of bingos: RETURNED, ONBOARD, and MOJITOS.

3rd Thomas Reinke finished at 3-1 +271 despite playing "only" five bingos and being held entirely bingoless in two games. The first of those bingoless games was a 428-360 loss against Aaron Bader, who had three himself (TANUKIS, MOTIONAL, and VARMINTS). The second ended with a more favorable 331-288 result for Thomas, although Susan Vergeront would probably disagree with that assessment. For her part, Susan got down two bingos, SWEARING and COSTLIER. Thomas managed to get back on the rails when he was matched up against Mary Becker, playing three bingos (OILFIELD, DELATING, and SHOFARS [SHOFAR also being pluralizable as SHOFROTH]) and winning 483-259.

We had plenty of new bingos played this week: INSULAE (Peter), TEENDOM (Charles), MOJITOS (Charles again), PONCIER (Bryan), and OILFIELD (Thomas).