1st Thomas Reinke inaugurated the 2024 club season with a spotless 5-0 +330 record, guaranteeing that if an asteroid were to obliterate the earth right at this very moment, he would be the 2024 club champion by default. His customary two-game match against Mark Kenas, played using the Collins dictionary, went relatively smoothly: he won the first game 450-410, then faltered in the second but still eked it out, 406-402. In the latter game, Mark bingoed just once with DANEGELT, but made it close when faced with Thomas' REORIENT, PEATIEST, and HOGWEEDS. Thomas got the highest score of the year's first club session when he beat Karl Armstrong 521-374, thanks to a triple-triple of COLORISE for 149 points in addition to OVERBITE and ENTOZOA. Karl found SUITERS to take some of the sting off. The perfect record was clinched in a well-fought 396-361 game against Richard Lauder, where Richard's finds of PINOCLES and HEAVINGS* (just SHEAVING) were countered by Thomas' BITCHERS and DEXTRINS.

2nd Charles Reinke starts this year in the same position he was at the end of last year, that is, behind his brother in the standings, with a 4-1 +129 record. He started off strong with a victory over last year's club champ, Bryan Benwitz, with 399-352 being their final tally. Atypically, both players had just one bingo: ARMADAS for Bryan, HEMATIC for Charles (in addition to taking an S for HEMATICS, HEMATIC also take an R or T in front for RHEMATIC or THEMATIC). A Collins-only triple-triple of YARDINGS# for 169 points doomed Charles in his first game against Mark Kenas, which ended at 426-520. In round four, Charles got a chance at payback when he played a two-on-one against Mark as well as Lynda Finn. The game against Mark was a comfortable win, 482-339, thanks to bingos of TOPLINED#, HERNIATE, and SANTERIA, but the game against Lynda was a nailbiter decided by just one point, 420-419. Lynda got down ANIMATER and PASTERN, while Charles had PILFERED and OUTVIES.

3rd Sara McLaughlin topped a bundle of three 3-1 finishers with her 3-1 +345 record. She used a bingo of DEARIES to cruise to a 414-304 victory in round one. Round two saw her matched up against newcomer Milly, and while Milly was able to get down some nice plays, she couldn't overcome Sara's decades of accumulated Scrabble wisdom, and it was Sara's win, 382-196. Sara's winning ways were temporarily disrupted in a low-scoring 318-325 loss to Richard Lauder, but she completely turned it around in the final game, where she deployed three bingos (BEGOTTEN, WRANGLED, and DETAINER) en route to a 450-394 win over Dennis Lloyd, who did get down the word of the week, HELPLINE.

4th/5th Wendy Bialek and Richard Lauder also finished with 3-1 records.

We welcomed two new players, Milly and Matthew, to our fellowship of tile-flingers, and our total turnout of 17 players was the longest we have had in quite some time. The future looks bright indeed for competitive, yet friendly, Scrabble play in Madison, Wisconsin!