1st Charles Reinke enjoyed his lofty view from the top of the heap with a 4-1 +361 record. Most of his damage, by far, was done against Mark Kenas, where their two-game series went strongly in Charles' favor, 502-372 in game one and 541-417 in game two. That second game saw Charles get down four bingos (BEDEMAN, HARVEST, CERESINS, OLOGOAN#) while Mark had two (STAMNOI#, COLUMNEA). Charles was held to somewhat lower scores in his other three games, but still saw success, beating Lynda Finn 445-380 (with VITIATES and OPTIONEE) as well as Sara McLaughlin 425-373 (getting SKINNERS and CERMETS). His single loss was a closely-fought 396-406 loss to Bryan Benwitz where a significant bingo advantage for Charles (RESMELT, EUPNOEAS, and OVERRATE vs. a single STAGGERY for Bryan) didn't quite convert into a win.

2nd Bryan Benwitz finished 3-1 +225 and had an impressive-but-somewhat-commonplace-at-this-point average of 469 points per game. Game one against Richard Lauder was a barnburner, but Bryan held on for a comfortable win, 515-422, thanks to CREOLIZE, TREENAIL, and HORNBEAM (this writer will not mention the phony he always sees when trying to unscramble ABEHMNOR, for fear of sowing more confusion with that difficult set of letters). Bryan's single loss came in round two as he lost a close one to Sara McLaughlin, 441-448. Sara had not won a game against Bryan for a few months, so this is surely the start of an extended period of revenge. Sara had ERASION and SINFULLY (helpfully anagrams to SULFINYL) in her win, while Bryan had ATROPINE, OUTRIDE, and SERMONIC. Bryan recovered in the next round by getting three more bingos (ATONIES, MISDOUBT, SEAMOUNT) to vanquish Lynda Finn 513-384, then wrapped things up with the aforementioned 406-396 win over Charles Reinke.

3rd Thomas Reinke went 2-2 +110 to prevail over the other 2-2 finishers. He lost two games against Mark Kenas, 378-439 and 423-442, which accounted for the entirety of his losses for the evening. In those two games he had "just" three bingos, which is rare in the Collins lexicon: AVENUES, MATINEE, and ALERIONS#. A 486-442 win against Richard Lauder was more Thomas' style, as he found three bingos there: CITHERN, ROSOLIO, and TURNABLE. A low-scoring 378-331 victory over Ron Malzer, with ORATORS and the high-probability IDEATES providing much-needed scoring, ensured that Thomas didn't slip into sub-.500 territory.