Charles Reinke in First...Again...

1st Charles Reinke easily commanded first-place honors by going 4-0 +340 and didn't even have to contend with anybody possessing a 3-1 record! His first game was by far his best, a 523-289 win over Dave Kinzer where the three bingos on the board were all Charles': LOATHES, BOSSING, and BEEFIER. From there, it was all downhill, although it wasn't a very steep hill because the subsequent games were all wins. A second-round match against Bryan Benwitz saw Charles pull out the victory, 462-425, thanks to bingos of PONGEES and SLEETIER (Bryan had GAZETTES and OUTSITS). Charles then endured two games where none of the involved parties scored above 400: a 387-338 win against Dave Gilligan, and an even lower-scoring 354-334 against Lynda Finn. Charles' only bingo in those two games was CARROM against Dave, but there's no rule that says you have to bingo to win.

2nd Thomas Reinke's 3-2 +450 record was subpar for someone who wins nearly 75% of their games, but was enough for second place nonetheless. His first round game was actually two games, against Dave Gilligan and Helen Flores. Against the latter, Thomas won easily, 547-307, the large gulf in scores mostly attributable to Thomas' four bingos: GALOSHE, PLICATED, GLINTER, and SUBACUTE. However, the game against Dave had the opposite outcome, with Dave taking the win 422-388. Thomas had just one bingo of EIDOLON to Dave's RATTIEST, DERANGES, and word-of-the-week PREDAWNS. A close loss against Aaron Bader, 365-376, saw Thomas play no bingos (because there's a rule that says you have to bingo to a win), but Thomas made up for the bingo shortage by again playing four of them in one game, this time against Gail Salm. PEDICAB, INSOLATE, TIERCEL, and GASOLINE were more than enough to give Thomas a 487-356 win.

3rd Sue Goldstein left a game early, as she always does, but in doing so, clinched a third-place finish with her 2-1 +75 record. Her single loss came against Gail Salm, 385-357, despite Sue's bingo of MOTIONED for 80 points (Gail had TRANSIT and NAILERS). A 321-260 victory over Helen Flores wasn't pretty from a scoring perspective, but definitely looked a lot better once the "win" box was checked on the scoresheet. The scoring got back to acceptable levels with a 359-317 win over Dave Kinzer, where the deciding play was Sue's 79-point VIOLATE.