1st Thomas Reinke, a few tiles at a time over the course of dozens of turns, scored enough points to go 4-0 +486, good for first place. In the opener against Helen, he faced an early bingo-sized deficit after she opened with NODULES, but didn't let that fact daunt him as he ended up scoring 574. His bingos were TAMENESS, ANTIRIOT, ETESIAN, and ALFORJA (n. a saddlebag), which would have been way more points had the J not actually been a blank. His game against Charles ended 388-355 in his favor, a relatively low scoring game for those two. The most notable thing that happened was Thomas' word-of-the-week SIXPENCE (n. a former British coin worth six pennies). TWO-, THREE-, FOUR-, and TEN- PENCE are also accetable. And if you're playing Collins, the rest of the numbers up to nine are also good. His bingoing took another 50 percent hit as he only did so once against Dave, but managed to eke out a 390-364 win. Dave played JAUNTIER while Thomas eventually got down KEYLESS after pulling KXQ?S on a five-tile draw. Power tiles are good, but they can be a little overwhelming all at once. In the final game, he supposedly played a game of "Collins" against Mark, but since all of the bingos played were acceptable in the normal dictionary it's hard to tell. Thomas' bingos were LITOTES, ANAPAEST, GRAFFITO (n. just one graffiti, no word on whether the S front-hook SGRAFFITO was played), and DOILIED. That last one was an out-bingo, and he caught Mark with 40 points worth of goodies, so the final was 508-385.

2nd Aaron Bader went 3-0 +265, beating Mark three times in their three-game Collins series. His night got off to a great start as his first fourt tiles were LLWX and he played MAXWELL (n. a unit of magnetic flux) for 98. He ended up using all of those points to win 467-386, countering Mark's PORCINE and CORSETED with FEMINISM and DORTIEST*. DORTY is good as an adjective in our dictionary, but it doesn't compare because of reasons. In the second game of the set he won 516-393, highlighted by his double-double find of PENUCHLE (n. a card game derived from the older game BEZIQUE, also spelled PENUCKLE, PINOCLE, and PINOCHLE) for 98 points. Since we know his final record, we can surmise that he probably won his third game as well, and a thorough examination of the scorecard reveals that to be the case, 459-398. Mark played JEALOUS and TAINTING, while Aaron got down DAMIANAS and RENNASE. There was no fourth game for him; he left, taking his precious dictionary with him, leaving Mark and Thomas to just guess at what words were good for their last game. Knowing Collins, it was every pronouncable combo of vowels and consonants.

3rd Richard Lauder went 3-1 +75, following up a (presumably) successful day on the golf course with a successful Scrabble evening. He missed the first round due to golf-related reasons, so he played two in the second round, Mary and Dave. He bingoed with SASSING and squeaked by Mary 356-346, Mary's final clunky rack making the difference. He wasn't so lucky against Dave, as he lost 308-406 and watched his opponent play TONIEST, EASIEST, and ENTERON. He then faced Charles (who was also occupied with Helen) and won 421-387. Richard pulled off a rare feat, getting a phony bingo, IODISER*, past the normally perfect word-recall machine. IONISER was added in the latest dictionary update, which may have been the source of confusion. He saved his best for last against Gail, winning 454-325 and bingoing three times. He bingoed with both the Q, with QUEEREST, and the Z, with ZINGERS, which is not something that I can recall happening before but am too lazy to check. Gail did play a nine through disconnected letters, BRAINIEST, but style points, sadly, count for naught under our current rule regime.