Charles Reinke Excels on Small Stage Before (Hopefully) Excelling on Slightly Larger Stage

1st Charles Reinke assembled a dominant 4-0 +717 performance, a good omen for possible success at the National Scrabble Championship in Fort Wayne, IN, which starts on Saturday. Charles averaged a splendid 478 points per game (to his opponents 298!) and played three bingos in each of his four games. His highest-scoring game was a 505-283 drubbing of Bryan Benwitz, who, like all of Charles' opponents, got significantly out-bingoed, 3-1. Charles' three bingos were AIRGLOWS, EROTIZES, and DESTINE. That margin of 222 was Charles' best; his second best margin was also the game in which he scored the least, 455-260 against Dave Gilligan. Charles played SHEITEL (new anagram of SHELTIE), SENOPIA, and EMOCORE. EMOCORE (a type of rock music) would have been word of the week except for Dave's later triple-triple of INVEIGHS for 194 points, played against Andy Bohnsack.

2nd Gail Salm continued her recent trend of strong play with a 3-1 +341 record, averaging 434 points per game. Her scores in her wins were 441, 448, and 465. The 465 was unkindly unleashed against Betty Hasselkus, who scored 259. Gail's bingos were HAIRIEST and ATONIES, the latter of which is now tied with AIRIEST for most-played bingo at the club with 24 occurrences each. Gail's sole loss came against Bryan Benwitz, whose 102-point FIERCER was able to withstand Gail's TERTIANS and HINTERS.

3rd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +232, which, while not exactly being a "good" omen for Nationals, is still a "pretty good" omen. The real good omen was getting five, count-em-five bingos against Andy Bohnsack (TEASELED, SQUIRTED, BANISHES, AUTOMAN, and POTENCES) while cruising to a 521-393 victory. The one black mark on his scorecard was supplied by none other than second-place finisher Gail Salm, who took Thomas down by a score of 448-400 thanks to an out-bingo of WHITENED. Thomas did get to play CONTROLS, LEISURE, and ELEMENT, so he had his fun despite the loss.

Good luck to Thomas, Charles, and Buffy, who will be playing at Nationals. Live coverage can be found here starting Saturday: http://event.scrabbleplayers.org/2016/nasc/build/index.html . Congratulations to Helen Flores and Lynda Finn for their performances at the Word Cup in Phoenix!