Someone Other Than The Usual Suspects Has a 10-Game Win Streak

1st Aaron Bader played 16 bingos (is that a club record? must be close at least) on his way to a 5-0 +573 record, his strong performance putting him at 10-game winning streak. He got off to a quick start in his opening two-on-one, beating Gail and Betty by a combined 300 points and playing 7 bingos. Gail's early word-of-the-week QUIXOTES (the first bingo played at this club with both a Q and an X, quick, someone work on QUINCUNX) helped her early, but Aaron's DELUGED, ERICOID, and LINOTYPE led to a big win for him. In the second round, he faced Lynda and won, 464-432. He started with bingos of SLEIGHT and DARINGLY, and later added RENNASE, while Lynda played ROUTEMAN and OUTVIES (and I thought I saw SIGNEES on the board but it wasn't written on the scorecard) but it wasn't quite enough. His 400-368 win against Bryan in the third round was marked by the 5-vowel-8 OOGAMETE (n. a female gamete of certain protozoa, and it takes a Z on the front for ZOOGAMETE). His most impressive win he saved for last, a 478-278 drubbing of club champion Charles. Aaron played ERIGERON, EPICENE, ONAGERS (n. ONAGER, a wild ass of central Asia, the other plural ONAGRI is a little less useful), and PLATFORM. Here's the list of bingos Charles played in that game:

2nd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +193, tactfully avoiding the unstoppable Aaron to come in second place. In the opener, he beat Charles 397-390, a low winning total for someone with 3 bingos. He played OTALGIA (n. pain in the ear), CASKETED, and UNSHAPED. That last one was the game-winning play, scoring 86 and going out on a closed board to win by 7. Against Bryan, he lost 301-394, only squeaking above the desired 300 mark by playing SNARLIER. Bryan played ACHIOTE and BURRITOS,  that last one invoking the little-known club bylaw B.IV.4 that states in part "any time a player bingos with a food item, they must bring that food item to the next club session for everyone to enjoy, unless that food item is LENTILS". Thanks for the future burritos! Thomas recovered from that low-scoring loss with a 491-310 win against Dennis, playing GENUINE (which doesn't take any hooks in case you were wondering) and RENDZINA (n. a type of soil) as well as a bevy of other high-scoring plays. In the final game, he got outbingoed 2-1 by Dave, REALISE and PROSIEST to his RACIEST, but won anyway, 432-334.

3rd Bryan Benwitz came in third with a 3-1 +172 record, missing out on second by only a few spread points. He won a close-ish 387-346 game versus Helen to start his night, aided by his successful challenge of BONZERS*. BONZER is an adjective meaning "very good", not to be confused with BONZE, which is a Buddhist monk. In the second round he ended a 5-game losing streak he had against Thomas with a 394-301 win. He played VIRUSES and ROSINED against Aaron but lost 368-400, which doesn't seem fair since one of his bingos had both a V and a U in it. In his last win, a 416-346 win against Mary, he responded to her SCATTER with PRINTERS, then added TEENIEST later to seal the win.

Aside from Gail's QUIXOTES, other bingo news includes Mary's triple-triple of RESPITES against Helen, and Dennis and Lynda's matchup which featured three phony bingos and no valid ones. If they were just going to let each other play fakes, they should've went all out and phony-bingoed every turn. That would definitely set some records!