1st Bryan Benwitz found himself at the top of the heap with a 3-1 +242 record on a night where only three out of ten players ended with a positive point spread. Bryan dominated his first two games, beating John Bialek 434-274 in round one and then felling Dave Kinzer 461-307 immediately after. INDURATE, ENDNOTE, CASTERS, and NEURITIC were his bingos in those games. He got his comeuppance when Thomas Reinke flattened him in round three, 518-392, but Bryan came back strong against the other Reinke, playing DILLWEED, NEONATES, and SOLVATE en route to a 461-407 win over Charles.

2nd Mark Kenas ran the Reinke gauntlet as he does every week, but came through it relatively unscathed, going 3-1 +170 in his series of Collins-lexicon games. His high-water mark was against Thomas Reinke, with an easy 481-375 win which saw him play GRECISE#, TARNISH, and ROTUNDS#. An earlier game against Charles Reinke ended in Mark's favor, 468-417, despite losing the bingo battle three to two. One of Charles' bingos there was the Madison-appropriate nine-letter find of BELTLINES, which makes one ponder, how chaotic would Madison traffic be if there was more than one beltline? Mark's only loss was against Charles, 423-441.

3rd Richard Lauder was the third and final player to finish with a 3-1 record, but his woeful -44 spread put him well back of the two other 3-1 finishers. Richard enjoyed success against players surnamed "Bialek", defeating John Bialek 402-308 (with bingos of SWAMPERS and HOLSTER), and then beating Wendy Bialek 391-306 (playing PRESIFTS and HEALABLE). A match against Sara McLaughlin was somewhat low-scoring, but still a win for Richard, 344-318. Sadly, all those wins were negated by a single loss to Thomas Reinke, 240-490, where Richard's bingo of RAINOUTS barely made a dent in Thomas' frightful bingo-driven assault.