Stats for August 24, 2022
1st Thomas Reinke took undisputed first place honors with his flawless 4-0 +432 performance. He also led all players with nine bingos played. Three of those bingos (HAMULOUS, GUTTIEST, and OUTSEEN) came against Peter Schmiedicke in a solid 468-303 victory. Not every game was so easy for Thomas; in two games against Mark Kenas, Thomas won both, but not by very large margins. The first was won by a score of 440-419, despite Mark outbingoing Thomas three to two: GOONIER, HOLDING, and INVESTOR for Mark, STENCIL and RUDDIES for Thomas. The second was 448-434 in Thomas' favor, thanks to Thomas' high-probability finds of TEENAGE and ORDINES.
2nd Charles Reinke went 3-1 +293, coming in second despite scoring below 400 in three of his games, a feat for a player who averages 445 per game. A 380-270 win against Sara McLaughlin, while looking impressive on the surface, was sullied by a phony bingo of EPISCIAE*. An episcia is a type of plant, and only pluralizes the normal way with EPISCIAS. Sara played the perfectly valid ANNUALS in that game, demonstrating once again the pronounced lack of any sort of justice in Scrabble. Charles followed that game up with a dominant 574-366 win against Mark Kenas, getting down MONORAIL and a triple-triple DULCIANS for 169 points. However, Charles' high-scoring tendencies were snuffed out immediately, as he was felled by Richard Lauder in the final round, 339-375. Richard now has a two game winning streak against Charles and surely plans to add to the streak in the coming weeks.
3rd Richard Lauder continued his impressive comeback tour with a 3-1 +64 final tally. His single loss was given to him by Sara McLaughlin, 334-386, despite Richard's nice find of SEAWANT. Sara found a bingo of AIRHOLE to supplement her well-rounded scoring attack. Richard went on to score a pair of 400-point games, both of which were wins for him. Against Peter Schmiedicke, he won 408-385, playing bingos of CRAALING and SECRETS. He then faced off against Dennis Lloyd and pulled deep into his bag of "tricks" (read: "phonies") to defeat his shellshocked opposition by a score of 438-381. Dennis played the valid GRANDEST while Richard deployed nonwords BORNEAL* and QUATROON*. In Richard's defense, BORNEAL* is close to the real word BORNEOL, and QUATROON* is close to QUADROON. But words are either phony or they're not, with no such thing as half a phony, so Richard was credited with two full phonies on the yearly stats despite those justifications.
| Avg. Game Score | 394 |
| Avg. Intermediate Score | 0 |
| Avg. Expert Score | 394 |
| Avg. Winning Score | 433 |
| Avg. Losing Score | 356 |
| Avg. Bingo Score | 74 |
