There's a New Sheriff in Town

1st Thomas Reinke cobbled together a perfect 5-0 night, a night sweetened by the fact that he had overtaken his brother at the top of the yearly standings. After somehow overcoming two opponents at the same time in Dave and Gail while playing no phonies, he brought out a timely fake against Peter,  with DISHABLE*, to earn the win. It turns out that Aaron had played that word (which doesn't mean what you think it means) against Mark a while back in a Collins game, so while it wasn't a total fabrication on Thomas' part, it remains a glaring indictment on his word knowledge. Seriously glaring. Really, really glaring. I don't know how we'll ever be able to trust him after this. Feeling a combination of shame and embarrassment, he went phony-less the rest of the night. He beat Charles 433-386 in round three, and then opened with a bingo-bango-bongo of LORDING, GREEDILY, and DRENCHER against Richard in the final round. Richard made it close with CATIONS and STABILE, but Thomas ended up pulling away with an avalanche of high-scoring non-bingos to secure his undefeated session.

2nd Charles Reinke went 3-1 +174 to come in second place, coincidentally the same place he now resides in the yearly standings. He opened with a 418-350 win against Dennis, playing ENFRAMED and RIBOSOME. He then ended Betty's 1-game winning streak against him, winning 458-338 with the aid of SEINERS and RANKLERS* (n. one that rankles, except not really, because it's not a word and thus has no reasonable definition). Against Thomas, he must not have realized that the top spot on the standings was at stake; otherwise, he definitely would have played more than one bingo, right? Someone needs to work on their situational awareness. Charles did end up winning his final game against Peter, but it was too late; he is now doomed to an eternal fate of coming in second to his brother.

3rd Gail Salm came in third at 3-1 +114. She recovered from an opening loss against Thomas to win three straight, the first against Dave, 377-340. Of note: she played STONIER in that game, and then played it again in her 419-338 win over Bryan. If she had played it for a third time on the night, I think we would have had to make a prize for that occurrence and then award it to her. As it stood, she had to be content with a decisive 455-389 win versus Lynda.

Richard played the word of the week, DIURESIS for 122 points. As it was a triple-triple, and it won the high-D prize, he was awarded 9 green-gray rectangles for that play alone.