1st Thomas Reinke stood head and shoulders above the rest of the field with a 4-0 +509 record. He started with a solid 462-460 win against Ron Malzer, getting down the appropriate WORDAGE as well as PRETENDS. Against Mark Kenas, Thomas again scored 462 and again prevailed, as the precepts of mathematics inform us that Mark's 354 points was the lower of the two totals. Thomas had THEELINS, DOVECOTE, and LEGLENS#, while Mark had DROPSIED and ENSOULED. Thomas' closest game came in round three when he came away with the win against Andy Bohnsack, 407-387. Both players reached into the list of new words, as Thomas got NAMASTE, while Andy got CRINGER (CRINGEST is also a word in addition to CRINGERS). But those initial three wins were impotent when compared to the monster win Thomas had in round four, when he rematched against Mark Kenas and completely blew him out, 651-372. Thomas' six bingos didn't really fit in the box on the scorecard, but they definitely fit here where there is effectively unlimited space to type them: NIOBITE, PORTIERE, SOLVING, SCERNED#, COTIJAS (another new one, as previously COTIJA did not take an S), and MOULAGE. That 651 is the highest game score yet this year, beating Mark Kenas' previous 650 by one point.

2nd Richard Lauder bingoed exactly twice in all of his games and ended up at 3-1 +42. In round one, a 92-point TEAZLES (in addition to the much lower-scoring DETAINER for 59) was instrumental in squeaking past Bryan Benwitz, 360-353. His defensive abilities were on display again when he tamped down the high-scoring habits of one Andy Bohnsack, winning their match 428-307 thanks to bingo finds of BIFORATE and TARDIES. Richard's opponents continued to have little luck in the scoring department as Richard casually defeated Lynda Finn by a score of 410-303, this time finding GLORIAS and SALTILY. Unfortunately, Richard's good fortune ran out right at the cusp of a 4-0 record, as Charles Reinke handily beat him in the final round, 474-281. Richard's MURIATES and phony NEOGENIC* (NEOTENIC is a word) were exceeded by Charles' AERATION and DRAWEES, the latter for 104 points.

3rd Charles Reinke bingoed fourteen times en route to a 3-2 +367 finish. His first game against Mark Kenas was a 451-496 loss despite three bingos of PLENISH, INERTIA, and SIDEMAN; Mark had STODGED, SALARIED, and HETEROS to neutralize Charles' presumed bingo advantage. A rematch later in the evening contributed another checkmark to the loss column, as Charles lost to Mark again, 462-466. Again, Charles had three bingos (ALDERMEN, VANADIUM, and RESPROUT) but couldn't pull out the win. Charles made up for those two losses with a pair of wins in the second round, when he took on Dave Kinzer and Bryan Benwitz simultaneously. The game against Dave was somewhat close, 407-373, but the game against Bryan was not close at all, ending 569-380 in Charles' favor. Charles phonied with the reasonable TRIAXAL* (TRIAXIAL, BIAXAL, and BIAXIAL are all good), in addition to OVERNICE, PLEASANT, and REDBONE (Bryan had ALEHOUSE and POSITIVE). Charles' 474-281 win in the final round secured his third-place finish.

Thomas may have stolen the show with his 651-point game, but Bryan wanted to put another entry into the leger of the 600-point club, this time with a 610-338 win over Lynda Finn. Sadly, his 600-pointer was marred by the phony BOOGIERS, and was not only marred but desecrated by the 212-point phony triple-triple MARZAPAN* (correctly spelled MARZIPAN). This takes away "highest scoring phony" honors from Charles Reinke, who played the phony triple-triple REACCESS* for 185 points back in 2015. Also notable was Dennis Lloyd's phony nine-letter word TWEENAGER, which should totally be a word.