1st Charles Reinke stood at the vanguard of a tough field of 11 competitors with a 4-1 +342 record. He stumbled in round one as he was bested by his brother, Thomas Reinke, by a score of 430-485; in typical Collins fashion, both players had three bingos: UNSTABLE, AREFIES#, and GREISEN from Charles, WAREHOU#, RIPIENI, and RELOANS from Thomas. The pain of the defeat was lessened as Charles was fortunately playing in a two-on-one and easily took the other game, 508-332 vs. Mark Kenas. Charles unleashed four bingos in that one: ACROTER#, NUTGRASS, RAPESEED, and ILEITIS. Charles crested the 500-point mark for a second time when he pummeled Lynda Finn, 525-344, and almost reached it a third time in a high-scoring rematch against Mark Kenas which was another win, 495-461. Charles finally slowed down the scoring (and bingoing) in the culminating matchup against Bryan Benwitz, which ended just barely in Charles' favor, 376-370. Bryan's sole bingo was the low-scoring PERINEA, while Charles was held to a remarkable zero bingos and had to score his points in other ways.

2nd Thomas Reinke missed out on a first-place finish by 17 spread points, going 4-1 +325. Early wins against Charles Reinke (485-430) and Mark Kenas (486-347) got him off to a good start, but problems arose in round three when he took part in a two-on-one against Richard Lauder and Bryan Benwitz. The game against Richard was a relatively painless 484-359 win for Thomas, thanks to bingos of SEMILOG and SERIATE (versus Richard's UTERINE and UNDERATE), but the game against Bryan ended as a 383-412 loss, despite a 104-point play of COAXINGS. Bryan found REWAKED and REVISION in his winning effort. Thomas bounced back for the final round and defeated Mark in a reprise of their round-two encounter, 434-399. Mark found the somewhat topical CORONAE (we hope it becomes less and less topical over time), but was outdone by Thomas' VITALITY and DESPISED (passing up the flashier DEPSIDES).

3rd Helen Flores significantly outperformed her yearly averages with a 3-1 +229 record and a 397 per-game average. She got the closest win of the evening when she squeaked past Dave Kinzer, 362-360. Dave got the only bingo of the game with his find of ENDORSE. Against Richard Lauder, Helen regained her bingoing mojo with REALITY, but Richard's bingos of FINDERS and TRYPSIN proved to be too much firepower, and she lost 366-377. In round three, Helen deployed the stylish two-U bingo of UNCURLED en route to a 414-274 triumph over Sara McLaughlin. The final feather in her proverbial cap was a solid 444-346 win over Ron Malzer, good for her seventh-highest score this year. Ron found the nice WIPEOUTS, while Helen had the more pedestrian RUINING.

4th Bryan Benwitz also went 3-1, with a +50 spread. He is still at the top of the club standings with one week to go in the year, but Thomas is still in striking distance if things go his way. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion to the 2023 Madison Scrabble Club season.