Madison Scrabble Club Lives Up To Its Name, Scrabbles in Madison

1st Charles Reinke, for the second week in a row, made a clean sweep through the ranks of Madison's best Scrabblers (admittedly, perhaps slightly compromised on this night), going 4-0 +402. He made his lone bingo count against Mary in the first round, playing the 9-letter AIRSPACES en route to a 150-point win. The bingos flowed more freely in his 464-378 win against Bryan, where Charles opened with a natural EYEWEAR and later added LIFTERS and JETLAGS. Now is the time to talk about his third game against Aaron, but I won't because they only played one bingo apiece and I think that's really lame by their standards. Charles won, anyway. That's all you need to know. In the final game, Dennis had a chance to overtake Charles for the club crown (the weekly one, not the yearly one), but fell short 359-422. Charles got down MORPHINE for 101 as well as EMANATOR for not 101, against Dennis' DEADENS.

2nd Thomas Reinke went 4-1 +268, good for second place. He perfectly executed the strategy of "lose your first game so you can avoid Charles for as long as possible or maybe entirely", strategically losing to Bryan in his first game, 360-485. Onlookers were in awe of his cunning. Thomas then rattled off 4 straight wins against non-Charles competition, starting with a win against Susan, 434-344, featuring bingos of SHINNIES, MONILIAE, and REUSING. In the third game, Mary kept the game close the entire way, only to lose by 13. Thomas' extension of PITIES to OUTPITIES on a closed board helped seal the deal. Sitting at 2-1 but still with a negative spread, Thomas went out at gained 280 points of it by playing two at once, Helen and Dave.

3rd Peter Schmiedicke came in third with a 3-1 +243 record. He won big against Barb in his opening match, 497-288, playing RENAILS and the somewhat-appropriate-given-current-events-and-that's-all-I'm-going-to-say-about-that phony VOTINGS*. As Aaron would say, "It's good in Collins!". Speaking of Aaron, he defeated Peter in the second game with the aid of the night's highest-scoring bingo, ENQUIRES for 122. The 537-400 end result of that game is the second highest combined point total this year. After an unusually low-scoring 377-334 win against Bryan, he dropped 496 on a unsuspecting (actually with Peter involved she probably was suspecting plenty) Gail, playing RECITED and HATREDS.

Dennis played the word-of-the-week, UNDELETE (v. to undo the deletion of), as well as phony-of-the-week, CRAISIN* (n. a dried cranberry). If you ever find yourself with CRAISIN* on your rack, look for an open M for MINICARS or an open S for NARCISSI. Don't look for a 7-letter word, because you won't find one, or any other 8-letters words because there aren't any others.