1st Charles Reinke sat loftily upon his throne of victory, savoring his unblemished 4-0 +305 record in much the same way that a king savoring the ever-present sensation of immense power that one feels when one is king. He reeled off a pair of victories against Thomas Reinke that were eerily similar in their final scores: 418-361 in the first round, then 418-365 in the fourth round. Both games were played with the Collins dictionary, but all bingos played might be familiar to players of the American dictionary: SAWFLIES, RAISONNE, SOLATES, and MOSSIER for Charles, TRANGAM, PEISING, and MENSTRUA for Thomas. In just one game was Charles held to a single bingo, but that game turned out to be his most successful of the evening as he took down last week's champion Helen Flores by a score of 459-329. Helen had nice finds of VAMPIRES and TUTELAGE in that one, thus leaving the battlefield with her dignity full intact.

2nd Sara McLaughlin took advantage of a 2-on-1 opportunity in the final round to vault herself to second place with a 3-2 -86 record. In that 2-on-1 she turned away both Dennis Lloyd (415-345) and Helen Flores (358-314). An 80-point PAINTERS in her game against Dennis was a major boon to her victory chances. Sara also had a nice find of GIAOURS (n. GIAOUR, a non-Muslim) in a 374-269 win over Sue Goldstein. However, her hopes at a positive point spread were severely diminished when she ran headlong into the brick wall that is Thomas Reinke: the 311-551 loss did 240 points of damage to her cumulative point total.