1st Charles Reinke swept through the field with a 4-0 +371 record, his second undefeated outing of the year. Round one saw him escape with a 435-415 win against Mark Kenas, getting down BUTANES to Mark's NOSTRIL and ILEUSES. Charles turned up the heat in the next game as he clobbered Lynda Finn 550-336 with a trio of bingos: OUTWAITS, TRIGONAL, and INNARDS. Lynda got down INDOORS to minimize the damage to the extent possible. Matched up against Mark Kenas again (because who else is Mark gonna play?), Charles prevailed once more, 459-380, thanks to bingo finds of DEEWANS, ENSLAVED, and PRONOTUM (the last of which pluralizes to the more useful PRONOTA). Sitting at 3-0 after three games, Charles faced the other 3-0 contender, John Bialek, for the final game, and duked it out to an uncommonly low final score of 340-282. Charles had the only bingo in the game, INFAUNAE.

2nd Thomas Reinke recovered from the previous week's 1-3 showing to go 4-1 +469, much more in line with his yearly results. Things were a bit dicey in the first game against Steve Hartsman, but Thomas took a 406-397 victory despite being outbingoed (CONNATE vs. MOISTEST and UNDEREAT). A loss to Mark Kenas, 430-484, put a quick end to Thomas' winning ways; the bingos there were MEDRESA# and DIORITES for Thomas, NEUROPIL# and TENDENCE for Mark. Thanks to the immutable mathematical properties of odd numbers, Thomas spent the third round playing two players at once; his game against Dennis Lloyd was uncomfortably close at 383-366, while his game against Helen Flores was quite comfortable indeed, 569-294. Thomas finished the night with another supremely comfortable win, dominating his rematch against Mark 554-332, finding HATFULS, TILERIES#, and CIDERIER. (HATSFUL is also a word. If anybody has a way to remember that things like HATSFUL, JARSFUL, HANDSFUL, and TEACUPSFUL are words, but not PALMSFUL* or POTSFUL* or TINSFUL*, please let us know.)

3rd John Bialek went 3-1 +119. He came out of the gate strong with a 402-331 victory over Carol Ormand, getting a bingo of INSERTS in the process. His bingo output doubled (if only it could double every game...) as he got down SOUTANES and the high-scoring PRETAXED (98 points) to beat Dave Kinzer 382-326. Dave had STREAMER, which is the anagram of John's REMASTER from last week. John's highlight win came in round three as he finally defeated Bryan Benwitz for the first time ever, 441-391. John used a balanced scoring attack, supplemented by a bingo of GRISTLY for 88 points, to achieve his long-awaited victory. One could even say that John was at his...'Witz end! Sadly, John was unable to convert that momentum into an undefeated night, as he lost to Charles Reinke in the final, 282-340.

Helen's AFFIANCE was word of the week, narrowly beating out Richard's COPYEDIT in the voting.