1st Thomas Reinke started off the new club season right with his 4-1 +420 record. He opened with a two-on-one versus Betty and Richard where he played three bingos in each game and also won each game (which is a secondary fact to the amount of bingos played). He also played three bingos against Bryan in the second round, in a game where he won 459-438. He got down ARROZES (ARROZ is the Spanish word for rice, don't ask me why it's in the dictionary because I don't know), CATTAIL, and ANDESITE, while Bryan played CRENELS and FRIGHTEN. In the next game he had a close match with Charles, and ended up losing 387-401 while staring at a second consecutive rack of AEGINST. There are 8 bingos in that rack, 7 of which have been played at club, and 0 of which fit on the board. Thomas' luck returned in the final round against Mary, where he scored 475 and played VAMOOSE and TORRENT.

2nd Bryan Benwitz's goal this year is to go 3-1 every night, so it's a good thing that he went 3-1 +342 to prevent his goal from being ruined on the very first week. He had his highest game of the night in the first round, beating Dave 491-341 and playing COURIER and GRODIEST (anagrams DIGESTOR and STODGIER). He came up short against Thomas, 438-459, but did put a scare in his opponent with a late FRIGHTEN. Get it? A late scare? FRIGHTEN? Hah. Continuing on, he played Betty in the third round and won 404-326, countering her bingo of FIRMNESS with IDOLISE. He similarly played only one bingo against Helen, STRAYED, but who needs bingos when you can score a bunch of points in other ways? Remember, the point of Scrabble is not to out-bingo your opponent,  the point is to outscore them. Bingos are pretty fun, though.

3rd Charles Reinke went 3-1 +127, stealing third place from Richard in the final game. He got his loss (presumably his only one of the season) out of the way quickly, losing to Mary 347-440 in the first game. She opened with a double-blank FAINTER, and he never recovered. Well, he did recover, but it took him until after that game was finished to begin doing so. He beat Helen 510-332 in the next round, playing the fancy double-double PLAYLAND (like at McDonald's) for 99 as well as UDOMETER (n. a rain gauge, how appropriate considering all the ones in the area have long since overflowed). Against Thomas, he played COASTING and a defensively-minded CUPELED and won 401-387, preventing his brother from bingoing with his last four bingo-ey racks. In the final match, versus Richard, things were looking grim for him as Richard played MIRAGES and BROADEST and began blocking the board. However, in typical Charles fashion, he pulled a miracle SOFTEST making a bunch of overlaps and won 389-361, seizing third place from Richard and earning this glowing paragraph.

Mark played the word-of-the-week, the incredible nine-letter AUTOCLAVE through an LA on the board. Has anyone told him that he could've played VACUOLATE instead? In other bingo news, the club has now played over 14,000 unique 7/8-letter bingos since we started keeping track 7 years ago. The 25 percent bingo coverage mark is within sight, with only 167 words to go.