Reignke of Terror

1st Charles Reinke exploited the intricacies of the standings protocol to come in first with a 4-1 +578 record. In the first round, against Helen, he got down AMIDONES, then quickly followed it up with AMIDINE. A third bingo of something like AMIDASE or AMIDOLS would have been cool, but his TONTINE ended up being totally unrelated. Also in the first round, this time against Mary, he played the nice EXORABLE, but was defeated 401-414 by Mary's late SHOCKERS. Charles recovered from this loss with three straight wins against tough competition, the first against returning Iowan Mike Johnson, who he beat handily with the help of TABANIDS and NOOSING. Even more handy was his win against Bryan, 623-278, made possible due to his triple-triple of AVENGERS for 140, as well as some other good fortune. As he said, "It's great when you can draw the remaining esses and bingo with them, killing all the remaining lanes while your opponent is trying to bingo." I think we can all agree with those wise words. Against Thomas, he won 413-390, a somewhat low-scoring affair (for them) that would have been a win for Thomas had he not foolishly missed a bingo late in the game. I guess you could say it was... Tom-foolery! HAHAHA! HA. Ha...

2nd Aaron Bader didn't lose any games, going 3-0 +519, but still came in second because the website's standings programming discriminates against people who only stay for three rounds. Even the perfect computers of the future are not free from bias! Anyway, he won his first game, against Richard, 489-331, playing GRAYISH and LOCUSTAE, while his opponent played PEEWITS and LARIATED. Those two bingos by Richard ended up being the only bingos played against him on the night; neither Sue nor Mary could do anything against his stifling defense, as he won those games by a combined 400 points. After this undefeated night, he is jetting off to Korea for a bit. We have encourage him not to wander too far from his hotel, lest he end up on the wrong side of the DMZ.

3rd Mary Becker edged out Bryan for third place, going 3-1 -2. As already detailed, she had an impressive win against Charles in the first game, playing INDEXES and SHOCKERS. In the second round she encountered Dave and, playing no bingos, won easily 406-294. Dave had a bingo himself, CHAPTER, but Mary's time-tested strategy of "just score points" won out. It's a good strategy! Bingoing is something, but it isn't everything. Or, maybe it is everything, because her lack of bingos resulted in a big loss to Aaron. That loss sent her carefully accumulated spread into the negatives, but she regained most of it against Mike, beating him 400-310, playing ROILIEST and SOUPIER.

Word-of-the-week honors go to Thomas, who played CORNPONE, which, depending on context, means "cornbread" or "something or someone stereotypically southern". He also wins phony-of-the-week with his challenged-off attempt of BIGCOCK* against Bryan. Funny, right? Turns out he was probably thinking of BIBCOCK.