1st Bryan Benwitz ended the Scrabble year on a high note with a flawless 4-0 +161 record. His undefeated evening will serve as practice for his next test, which is to win every game of the upcoming club season. He initiated his perfect night by taking down Mary Becker 409-364, playing LIGATES and MISRELY (not just a misspelling of MISERLY but a word in its own right) while Mary got down STUNNED. A very similar game score-wise was played against Charles Reinke, where Bryan won 400-364 to extend his winning streak against Charles to two games. Bryan's bingos were PARDONER and the clunky-looking URAEMIAS; Charles had LARRIGAN (also LARIGAN) and DOTTIER (also DOTIER, though it means something else). Brimming with confidence after one Reinke win, Bryan went toe-to-toe with the other one and was victorious again, defeating Thomas 455-437. EGOTIZE and RUTILANT were Thomas' bingos, but Bryan did him one better by getting down three bonus plays: COUNTIES, RELAPSE, and DISCERN. In the fourth and final game, Bryan was able to put a fourth winning checkmark on his unblemished scorecard as he triumphed over Helen Flores in another high-scoring game, 470-405. This time, Helen won the bingo battle (playing REFUNDER and DETAINS to Bryan's OCTUPLE), but Bryan found enough other ways to score to overcome the bingo deficit.

2nd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +200 to close out the club year, where he finished third in the club standings. His first game was not as closely-fought as his opponent probably wished it was; Dennis Lloyd was on the losing end of a 445-285 final score. Thomas had FASHION, TETRADIC, and COLLAPSE (anagram ESCALLOP), while Dennis eased the pain a bit with a bingo of EARLIEST. Helen Flores made things a bit closer, with Thomas "only" winning by a score of 422-368. Thomas had IRONMEN and SPINATE to Helen's METERING. Sitting at 2-0, Thomas had visions of a perfect night, but his third round loss to Bryan Benwitz (detailed in the previous paragraph) crushed those dreams like so many ants underneath a boot. Still, Thomas pressed on. His fourth game, a close 473-469 win, reversed a four-game losing streak he had been maintaining against his brother Charles. Thomas feasted on high-probability bingos, playing TREELINE, GROUTIER, and TAURINE. Charles similarly stuck to the more common range of the dictionary, playing IBOGAINE and DESTREAM.

3rd Aaron Bader played his customary four-game Collins series against Mark Kenas, going 3-1 +113. He overcame significant odds in his first game against Mark, winning by one point (378-377) despite getting outbingoed 0-to-3 (Mark had RAGTIMES, TOLANES, and MEUNIERE). A five-point penalty for a lost challenge ended up costing Mark the game. Aaron then regained his bingoing mojo and took the next one as well, 410-376. He played GERARDIA and PORRECT (which is an adjective in ours and a verb in theirs) while Mark had LANITALS. Mark took the first step towards an even 2-2 match by winning their third game 421-384 (getting RIPARIAN and LINGERS to Aaron's ZONULES), but was unable to close it out as Aaron dominated the fourth and final game, 491-376. Mark was held bingoless while Aaron had LOONIER, UNGREEDY, word-of-the-week NAGWARE, and a 114-point QUAINTER. All told, the two Collins experts played four games in that dictionary but didn't manage to play a Collins-only bingo, so I've got all these extra octothorps that I didn't get to use: ###########.

It was the last session of August, which means that next week brings with it a new club season. Charles Reinke was champion for the 2017-18 season, winning 71.3% of his games and averaging 434 points per game (a significantly lower average than past years, so there's still hope). Aaron Bader broke up the Reinke hegemony by coming in second on the yearly leaderboard, winning 69.5% of his games with a 425 per-game average. Thomas Reinke, in third place, had the highest average in the club at 437, and won 66% of his games.