A Lifetime of Word-Accumulation Culminates in 4-0 Night for Thomas Reinke

1st Thomas Reinke went 4-0 +613 using (roughly) the entirety of his acquired vocabulary, thus finishing a process started so many years ago when he uttered his first word, "geese". His first game against Andy ended narrowly in his favor, 471-371. We say "narrowly" because Andy had a chance to win at the end using the non-obvious hook for AECIA, AECIAL (adj. pertaining to aecia, duh). Thomas' second game, against Joe, was, despite only a 2-1 bingo advantage, a landslide victory, 539-254. Bingo counts can be misleading, especially when one can play SPAZ for 100+ points. For his next act, Thomas defeated longtime foe Charles, 475-382, playing SCIENCES, SHORTIE, and PARLEYS. Charles had the nice play of RINGETTE (n. a type of ice hockey for girls), another one of those Canadian-isms that got added in the latest dictionary update, but it was not enough to stop his brother's dominance. Perhaps Thomas' greatest achievement of the night was holding the bingo-prone Peter bingoless in his final win, 437-302. Timely finds of ISOLATE and ABIOSIS (n. absence of life) kept the board too closed for Peter to do his usual damange.

2nd Bryan Benwitz made the best out of an opening loss to go 3-1 +411, finding that sometimes getting put in the "loser's bracket" after the first round isn't so bad after all. His first game against Susan resulted in a 333-415 loss, with his TEARGAS no match for Susan's UNITERS and YONDERS (n. the far distance, but I don't see how it can be pluralizable?). He overcame this defeat to win his next two by almost 400 combined points, 495-279 against Mary and 439-265 against David. In his win against Mary, he played the high-scoring QUERIST (n. one who queries) for 94 points. He followed up these impressive wins with a third impressive win, this time against Charles, 485-382, aided by his acceptable-to-everybody-except-the-dictionary play of OFFROAD*. If the club starts a letter-writing campaign right now, I'm sure we can get it added to the next dictionary update.

3rd Peter Schmiedicke came in third, winning his first three and going 3-1 +132. A close win in the first round against Lynda, 415-388, was marked by his creative plays of BITMAPS (n. an array of binary data) and BONELESS (n. the kind of wing you get when you don't want to deal with bones). His second game was notable in that he bingoed with the dreaded "L-N" combo, playing the high-probability LORINER (n. a maker of implements for saddles and harnesses, also LORIMER) against Buffy. This gave way to a big 472-306 against Helen, exacting sweet, sweet revenge upon the player who had beaten him 4 times in a row prior. Peter will deny that revenge is what he sought, but we all saw the smile on his face after he won. A chance to go 4-0 and receive the highest honor of the night, the "first paragraph", was sadly stymied by Thomas, as detailed above.

Three new words (now over a year old!) were played this week: two by Charles, RINGETTE and SHEITEL, and one by Susan, YONDERS. Phony of the week goes to Dave, who played RESEXED. I can think of some funny definitions, but this is a family-friendly blog. He was probably thinking of DESEXED (v. to spay or neuter).

We welcomed three new players tonight, Paula, Basu, and Nancy. We hope that they had a good time; at the very least they all left with the nectary taste of Scrabble victory.