East Side is the Beast Side for Thomas

1st Thomas Reinke overcame the intoxicating aroma of Domino's pizza which threatened to overwhelm his brain and went 5-0 +404. In the first round, he was tasked with dispatching two opponents at the same time, which he did. He beat Bryan 425-399 by drawing two late bingos, ELASTIN and TAPERING, while at the same time beating Helen 432-276 with ANTIGENE and JOWLIER. Next on the docket was Andy, himself coming off a mondo 625 5-bingo game. Feeling neither fear nor intimidation, Thomas won 484-351, playing FULMINE and EVERTING (later extended to REVERTING by Andy's RETURNS). Against recurring foe Charles in the third round, Thomas used a 101-point double-double ELYSIAN (adj. heavenly, delightful, referring to the Elysian Fields, the concept of afterlife in ancient Greece) to seize control. The game would've been much more of a blowout had Charles not slapped down RETACKS for 116 right at the end. In the last round, he faced visited Iowan Mike Johnson and showed him traditional Wisconsin hospitality, beating him but not beating him by too much. 436-413 was the final, with Mike playing MIAOUED, word-of-the-week ELUVIATE, and STRANDER, and Thomas playing BOSSING and DECURION.

2nd Lynda Finn came in second with a 3-1 +186 record. Her night got off to a slow start against Mike, as she won 352-283 but played no bingos, a fact she indicated on her scorecard with a ":(". Bingos again eluded her against Charles, and this time she couldn't overcome the deficit, losing 360-402. The sad faces ended for her in the third round, as she got two bingos facing off against newcomer Robin. She played RETILES (one of the more famous phonies before it was finally added in one of the earlier dictionary updates) and BLASTIE (n. an ugly little creature, the perfect word for insulting your foes!). Robin did get down the nice find of NIDATION, but Lynda's total of 445 was hard to top. In the finale she triumphed in a low-scoring battle against Dave, 364-335. Dave got down SLANDERS against Lynda's FROSTED, and if anything else exciting happened in the game, I didn't hear about it.

3rd Charles Reinke went 3-1 +153, missing out on second place by 33 spread points (only one or two extra turns over the whole night) and having to settle for third. He opened things with a 383-309 win over the other newcomer, Peter. Kind of like me walking into the Madison chess club and having to play Magnus Carlsen right away, so Peter did a good job to not get crushed into oblivion. Against Lynda, he faced a strange rack containing three S's and two blanks, fished off one of the S's, and drew the fourth one. No wonder Lynda couldn't get any bingos down with him hogging all the power like that! Charles notched his only loss of the night against Thomas despite the 116-point RETACKS (STACKER, RESTACK, TACKERS, and RETACKS are all good, as well as RACKETS) mentioned previously. He recovered in the final round against Bryan, winning 459-356, overcoming Bryan's RANKNESS and CATALOGS with his own UNDERLIT and ENVIERS.

The club's first meeting at Misty Mountain Games seemed to be a success. The plan is to play there once a month, we'll let everyone know when the next time is going to be.