1st Thomas Reinke spookily attained the exact same record, 4-0 +444, that he attained two weeks ago, making one think that the number "4" has some mysterious cosmic significance, the exact nature of which will remain forever elusive to our underpowered human brains. He began his night with a Collins-lexicon showdown vs. Charles Reinke which he won comfortably, 521-414, benefiting from four bingos: ABOIDEAU, MILITATE, WAGGLED, and RINKHALS (a RINKHALS is an African snake, pluralizing to RINKHALSES - there is no RINKHAL*, but you do get the related RINGHALS and RINGHALSES). Charles got down NOTATES and SOVIETIC#. In round two, Thomas fought off Bryan Benwitz, 410-378, finding FOOTRACE and UNCAGED. Thomas' 570 points in the third game was the highest individual game score of the night, scored against Dennis Lloyd, who finished with 361. The number "4" made a conspicuous reappearance, as that's how many bingos Thomas had: EXPLAIN, FORNICAL, NEGATES, CATENATE. Thomas finished off with a win against fellow 3-0 combatant, beating Sara McLaughlin 435-339 and taking the gold medal in the weekly standings (the "gold medal" is actually just a stale piece of cranberry-walnut scone).

2nd Andy Bohnsack finished strong at 3-1 +127, a perfectly acceptable record despite being a significant step down from the previous week's 5-0. It wasn't a great start for Andy as he was promptly handed a loss in round one: outbingoed by Sara McLaughlin three (SCALING, LOUNGIER, BERATING) to two (OVERLAPS, ROTURIER), Andy just barely fell short, 433-437. Filled with towering fury (or maybe just a twinge of annoyance [or literally no emotion at all]), Andy went on to vanquish two of the club's top players in consecutive games, first beating Charles Reinke 456-414 (with DITCHED and SERRANO) before besting Bryan Benwitz 414-404 (deploying HARDENS and STONIER). Andy completed his heroic comeback from his 0-1 start with a 459-380 victory against Milwaukeeite Steve Hartsman, showing off the rather stale fruits of his long-ago bingo study with OBTUSER, OGREISM, and SPRAINED.

3rd James Rollins' 3-1 +73 record won out against Sara McLaughlin's 3-1 -16 for third place, his first (but hopefully not last) appearance in the weekly writeup. He got off to a good start by taking a close win against Dennis Lloyd, 382-373, withstanding Dennis' PLUNGED and SENIORS, which were countered by James' RESCRIPT. James suffered a setback in round two when he lost to Sara McLaughlin 366-406; for those reading closely, that means Sara was responsible for the single losses of the 3-1 players who finished ahead of her, which feels like it should count for something. James recovered quickly from the loss, defeated Dave Kinzer 422-329, aided by bingo finds of CAROUSEL, INSOLATE, and HAIRTIE*. But the largest and most eye-catching feather in James' cap was a fourth-round victory over the club' leader in win percentage, Charles Reinke, 460-499. James dropped DESTAIN and LICENSE on the board for big scores, while Charles' TOWERIER, PALEOSOL, and INERTIA weren't quite enough.

Charles' MAKEFAST was word of the week, beating out a few of his other bingos (BODYSIDE, PALEOSOL) for the arbitrary honor.