1st Thomas Reinke recovered from two straight weeks below .500 and went 4-0 +224. He opened the night with a game against the returning Aaron, who hadn't played Scrabble for a month. That rust manifested itself as a 4-point loss, as Thomas won 440-436. He played TEENAGE (takes a D and an R, but no S), and REFUTING, while Aaron's late BEGRIMED wasn't quite enough to get the win. Thomas had another close game in the second round, beating Bryan 425-407. He had bingos of FOLIATED, TEENIEST, and ENERGIDS, but his game-winning play was PLOTZ for a whole bunch of points. Against Dennis, he won 417-328 despite playing only one bingo, ENRAGED. His big win was against Charles in the final round, 458-345. He bingoed early and often with SPALLED, COLUMNEA (n. a bushy tropical plant, note the "bushy" part of the definition which is very important), and UPROUSE. Thomas is pulling ahead in the lifetime series against Charles, which is now at 112-104 in his favor.

2nd Bryan Benwitz went 3-1 +292, his fifth straight 3-1 performance. He kicked Charles' behind in the first game, 473-390, with the score only being as close as it was because of a late surge by Charles. Bryan's big play was the word-of-the-week-quality QUADRICS for 113; he also played BOODLES and OVERMAN (no word on whether they put a Y on the end of that one). He had bingos of ATOMICS and SARCENET (n. a silk fabric, also SARSENET and SARSNET) against Thomas, but lost 407-425. After that, there were no more Reinkes to play, so he faced Betty and won big, scoring 430 and playing COOLIES and DETENTE. His final-round match against Dennis was close throughout, but he managed to eke out a win by bingoing with DEPORTED to finish the game.

3rd Dennis Lloyd returned from an extended hiatus to come in 3rd with a 3-2 +42 record. He started off with a two-on-one, and set himself up for a good night by winning both games. He beat Dave 409-364 despite Dave's high-scoring TOPAZES, and he beat Gail 438-350 while playing CAROUSED and RULINGS. In the next game, he beat Helen despite her challenging off his phony of (not going to put it here so as not to sully the malleable minds of our youth with easily rememberable phonies). He eventually did get down LENGTHS to win 360-314. Now sitting at 3-0, he faced tougher competition the rest of the night, facing what ended up being the two players who finished ahead of him in the standings.

As everyone noticed already, next week's session falls on July 4th. An email will be sent out soon to figure out if we are going to meet. If we don't, don't forget to eat lots of hotdogs! Or even if we do, actually. There's no club bylaw that says you can't eat lots of hotdogs while playing your games.