"TILES FOR THE TILE GOD"

1st Thomas Reinke unloaded an impressive fourteen bingos in five games, with the plethora of bonus plays leading him to a 4-1 +627 record. His low game of 446 is a good indicator of how well his night went. That 446 came against Helen Flores as part of a two-on-one match; the other half of that two-on-one was a 495-280 victory against Barb Besadny where Thomas got down four bingos: LAVATERA, DETRITAL, ATTACKED, and PENSION. Somehow this winning margin was improved upon in the following game versus Bryan Benwitz, a game which was being played for all the marbles (not just some of them or even a majority of them). Thomas squelched the hopes of the usually high-scoring Bryan, forcing him to score a lowly 280 (sound familiar?) compared to Thomas' lofty 498 (reached with the aid of BOGARTS, COEDITOR, and EUGENIAS). Even Thomas' loss was high-scoring; so high-scoring, in fact, that it tied with two other games for highest loss of the year at 481. Aaron Bader, the winning party, scored 497. Both players had three bingos: DEMONIST, TOWERING, and IDEATIVE for Aaron, INWARDS, PLUMULE, and the triple-triple AUSPICES for Thomas.

2nd Lynda Finn also had a successful night in regards to bingos, filling up her scorecard with twelve such plays on her way to a 4-1 +372 record. Like Thomas, she was involved in a barn-burner with Aaron Bader, but, unlike Thomas, she prevailed, 497-436. The tiny little box in which to write her bingos was barely large enough to fit them all, but in the end they were all recorded: LIBRATED, NAIVETE, SECTION, and FOAMERS. Aaron contributed MARLIEST, HANSELED, and ANDROGEN to the bingo party. Lynda then cooled down slightly, playing only three bingos (TIERCEL, DIASTOLE, and RETUNES) and scoring only 483 points in a win against Peter Schmiedicke. Her 311-409 loss against Charles Reinke was the only game in which she didn't score 400 or higher, as well as the only game where she failed to bingo multiple times (PEERIES was her lone bingo in that game).

3rd Bryan Benwitz continued his recent run of strong play (no finish less than 3-1 in over a month), going, you guessed it, 3-1 with a spread of +40. His spread after three games was a more-impressive +268, but the previously-described loss to Thomas undid much of that good work. A 477-288 win over Betty Hasselkus was Bryan's high score of the evening. Bryan had a double-double DISLIKES and a nine-letter INSTARRED (v. INSTAR, to adorn with stars) as his bingos in that one, but those two bingos disappointingly accounted for half of his bingo output for the night. In a matchup against newcomer John Wedgewood, Bryan had a slightly tougher time, but came out of the fray with a 413-376 victory firmly in hand. Each combatant had just one bingo: John's POISONER and Bryan's VERSION. John honed his Scrabble chops at the club in Winnipeg and even played a few tourneys, so his final record of 2-2 -119 should come as no surprise!