1st Thomas Reinke shook off the ice accumulated over a multi-week absence from Scrabble, and came in first place with a 3-1 +277 record. His first play of the night was a 106-point double-double RAMPANCY, and he used that early advantage to escape with a 475-449 win against Bryan. Bryan managed that many points despite only one bingo, LOUDEST, while Thomas added SERRANO and GAIETIES (the fourth time he's played that word). Against Charles in the second round, he won decisively, 467-336. A seemingly great accomplishment, until you look at the standings for the night and see Charles' name at the very bottom. Thomas bingoed with AVERAGED, PANFRIES, and SNIFTER in that one. After that, he faced the scorching-hot Dennis, and succumbed 380-418. Dennis' early power-tile plays and bingo of GLANCED were enough to outrun Thomas' TENORINO (n. a high tenor, plural TENORINI) and ASSENTER. In the final round, he cruised to a 451-293 win against Helen, who would've put up more of a fight if the blank she drew wasn't the last tile in the bag.

2nd James Frankki came in second with a 3-1 +54 record. He started his night off right with a 413-345 win against Helen. Helen had a nice find of APERTURE, but two is more than one, and James bingoed twice, with VETOERS and EARNEST. Bingoes were hard to come by in the next round as he faced Bryan. Neither player got down all their letters at once, although James did try a phony with both blanks on an extremely closed board. The final in that one was 262-356, and now that I've typed that out, everyone can forget that that game ever happened. Things went better for him in the third match as he beat Charles (who, I might add, is the reigning club champion) 405-385. He played the always-useful AILERON to help him along the way. To complete his evening, he beat Dennis 418-358, with bingos of PANELING and CURTALS (n. an animal with a clipped tail). Dennis did have a high-scoring SITUATE, but it was too little, too late.

3rd Bryan Benwitz earned third despite playing only three bingoes, ending up at 2-2 +232. He scored well even with a single bingo against Thomas, thanks to a steady stream of high-scoring plays. After his 356-262 win against James which I said we could all forget about (I lied), he faced Helen and lost 351-372. Helen played an unusual 3-U bingo, UNUSUAL. There are only six other seven-letters words with that many U's, including MUUMUUS which has 4 of the cursed tile. Bryan didn't end up bingoing that game (probably because he couldn't draw three U's at the same time because Helen was hogging them all), but any complaints ceased when he beat Charles 566-381. Such a high score was made possible by his triple-triple SEAWANTS (n. a form of currency in the form of polished shells, more commonly known as WAMPUM). The 185 points he scored for that are the most he's scored for a bingo since the club started keeping track.

Belated congratulations to Dennis Lloyd for winning the second division of the tournament he played in New York City. He was the bottom seed, rated far below everyone else, but showed his Midwestern mettle and went 6-2 +296 to win. In addition to some cold hard cash, he gained a bunch of rating points that will be redistrubted to the needy.