1st Thomas Reinke began the process of wearing out his welcome at the top of the weekly standings, this time going 5-0 +338 and single-handedly ushering in the era of steroid testing in Scrabble. His perfect night began with a win (who would have guessed?) over Charles Reinke, although at a slightly lower score than expected, 413-371. In round two, Thomas dropped three bingos (ANCESTOR, BURDENS, RESTYLE) on Ed Nawrocki and successfully repelled Ed's TRANCED for a 439-319 victory. A two-on-one opportunity was foisted upon Thomas for the third game, and all went smoothly for Thomas as he cast down Bryan Benwitz 457-355 and came away with a slightly closer win against James Rollins, 409-380. The "all went smoothly" claim was rendered inaccurate as further review revealed that Thomas needed a phony METTLING* to beat James. METTLED is valid, but it means "having spirit", so no METTLING*. Switching to Collins for the final game, Thomas scored another win over Charles, 461-416, getting REALTIE#, RAVINED, and SPRENTED# to Charles' CLARINET, LEGATOS, and FLANNIES#.

2nd Bryan Benwitz continued his trend of strong-but-not-as-strong-as-Thomas finishes, going 3-1 +297 in the latest installment. After a one-point loss to Steve Hartsman the previous week, Bryan came storming back with a vengeful 436-365 win this week, bingoing with FEMALES and BANDITO vs. Steve's PINTLES. For the next game, Bryan went up against James Rollins for the fourth straight week (although for James it might feel like longer than that), and scored another win, 466-337. A loss to Thomas Reinke, 355-457, prevented Bryan from gaining any ground in the yearly standings, but he recovered quickly, punishing Helen Flores 477-278 with bingo finds of ETESIAN, JESUITS, and EPIMERS ("fun" quiz: find the other six bingos in EEIMPRS).

3rd Charles Reinke went 3-2, or more accurately, "3-and-brother", with a +396 spread. His games against non-Reinkes were all convincing victories. A two-on-one match vs. Dennis Lloyd and Ron Malzer saw Charles come away with a 398-325 win against Dennis and a 454-285 win against Ron. In the latter game, Charles got MOFETTES, ANELING, and AERATES, which was a seven-letter underlap underneath ANELING (some other letters were in play, as GS* is clearly not a word). Upping his bingo output even further, Charles played four of them (HEADIER, PHOEBUS, NAILERS, COXALGIC) when defeating Helen Flores 518-277. COXALGIC was a strong contender for word of the week, had Dennis not found DWARFISM with two blanks in a separate game.