Lynda Finn Finishes First for Second Straight Week

1st Lynda Finn's 4-1 +269 record was slightly worse than her four-and-oh performance last week, but it was still good enough forst first place on a night where nobody went undefeated. She was given a chance early to go for the elusive 5-0 record with a two-on-one in the first round, but emerged having split the pair of games with a 418-274 win over Helen Flores and a 344-419 loss to Gail Salm. It was smooth Scrabbling from there on out; Lynda scored above 400 in the rest of her games while preventing all of her opponents from doing the same. Richard Lauder came closest to adding another loss to Lynda's record, losing 398-425 despite outbingoing her (HALITES and SALTING to Lynda's UPROOTER), but Andy Bohnsack was thoroughly bamboozled by Lynda's tile-laying prowess, losing 449-335. Then, in an emphatic display of primal dominance, Lynda squelched Thomas Reinke's hopes of a perfect record by defeating him 402-344. If this seems like a familiar storyline, it is: Lynda trampled upon Thomas' dreams in a similar manner last week. This time around, Lynda got down CETANES and OVERING, while Thomas was only able to muster a lone BEATIFY.

2nd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +314, his fourth week in a row with that exact record. Since his current winning percentage is below 75%, he'd probably be happy (or at least content) if this streak continued indefinitely. His night started off well; for the eighth time in nine tries he defeated Bryan Benwitz, this time by a score of 422-331. He reached deep into his well of bingos to pull out HAULAGE and the word of the week, RATAFIAS (a type of liqueur), but Bryan also got in on the bingo action with SATIRES and DOORMAN. Thomas then got the highest score of the night when he tallied a 530 to Gail Salm's 369. Three bingos of CLEANOUT, TELNETS, and ATABRINE, along with an 86-point KANZU, helped make his lead insurmountable despite Gail's CONCISER and STOGIES. His third and final win before getting Lyndaed was a 443-323 contest with Aaron Bader, who outbingoed Thomas (HATBANDS and BIASING vs. REWINDED) but otherwise found few other ways to score points. Scrabble tip of the day: scoring points is good.

3rd Charles Reinke enjoyed an identical 3-1 record to his brother (gasp) but was relegated to third place with his inferior +271 spread. He amassed a fair amount of that spread in a 415-242 win over Sue Goldstein, a game that so no bingos played from either side. Charles' other wins featured more in the way of bingos: a 459-357 victory against Mary Becker saw the uncaring victor play three of them, all top 200 in probability: AERADIO, ANISOLE, and SONATINE. Mary did play UNCARING for 77 to minimize the damage. Charles followed that up by beating Aaron Bader in a high-scoring game, 467-452. Aaron prevailed in the bingo count, playing ABALONES, ELECTION, and INERTIA to Charles' ABROGATE and ALEXINS, but his demise was brought about by an unfortunate Q-stick, a rarer occurrence in the post-QI era. The one loss which sullied Charles' scoresheet came against Andy Bohnsack in a low-scoring 346-365 game. Much relief was felt by all participants in, and observers of, that game as Andy's HARASSED turned out to be spelled correctly.

Andy also happened to go 3-1 (with a +187 spread) so he gets an entire sentence in his honor. Or two sentences since the editor is feeling generous today. This is practically an entire paragraph! How many sentences do you have to write without breaks before it becomes a paragraph?