Club Struggles Through 4 Games Without Snacks

1st Thomas Reinke slammed down 13 bingos en route to a 4-1 +469 night, good for first place. Playing two in the first round, he experienced two very different games. Against Betty, he drew all the good tiles (just reporting the facts) and won easily, but against Helen, the good tiles were more evenly distributed. Helen fought until the very end, eventually losing 430-431, tying the club record for closest loss. Defense was the name of the game against Bryan, until a flurry of bingos in the second half led to a 420-316 win for Thomas. In the third round, Thomas bingoed early with JADEITE and OUTRANK, but was overcome by Charles' P-and-Y-containing bingos, DRAPERY and PODIATRY. How is a guy supposed to win a game when his opponent draws BOTH P's and BOTH Y's? The bulk of Thomas' spread came in the final against Aaron, where he won 571-275.

2nd Charles Reinke is the topic of the second paragraph of this writeup, so he must have come in second place. Right? I think that's how this works. Anyway, he played the nice WEBINARS against Andy in his first-round 477-419 win, along with PREFACE and MOTIONED. The bingos dried up against Gail, with him only getting down ACETINS (poll: is it spooky or not spooky that his twin played the same word in the same round?????? i'm going with spooky on this one) but he was able to get other high-scoring plays to earn the win, 440-368. Against Thomas, he hogged all the P's and Y's and, given that fact, won easily, 463-367. Charles' contest against Bryan in the last game featured only one bingo, RESTAGES for Bryan. Bingos are usually needed for high scores, reflected in the 322-345 final score.

3rd Bryan Benwitz outwitzed his opponents, going 3-1 + 71, but if you take out his games against the Reinkes, he went 2-0 +144! He and Dave had a high-scoring opening game, with Bryan prevailing, 469-398. Bryan got down TIMEOUS (adj. timely) and COREIGN, while Dave played CHANGED and ASTILBE (n. a flowering plant, also known as "false goat's beard", which has a much nicer ring to it). Angered/enraged (a fitting anagram pair) by his second-round loss against Thomas, he vowed to obliterate whoever his next opponent would be. That opponent turned out to be Helen, who took her certain defeat gracefully. His anger somewhated placated, he took it easy on Charles, only winning by 23 points and only playing one bingo.

Gail played the word-of-the-week, EGOTIZES for 107 big points in her win against Aaron.