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1st Thomas Reinke celebrated Halloween by dressing as the best Scrabble player in the whole world (himself) and winning all his games. He, not without controversy, beat David in the first 489-297, with bingos of ERGOTIC, GLIADINS, and the phony UNGLADLY*. Maybe if he had realized that UNGLAD* isn't even a real adjective he wouldn't have played the even unrealer adverb form of it. He then beat Bryan 455-419 with the help of the nine-letter MEATINESS (n. the state of being really super-duper meaty to the max, anagram AMNESTIES). He also played PARTIERS. PARTIER has the normal definition, but also a secondary abnormal definition, "more PARTY, divided into different-colored parts". Which means that PARTIEST is also good. Against Dave in the third round, both players faced a crisis as a vast majority of the E's were played early in the game. Dave's EUSTELE and Thomas' SEEDBED had a lot to do with the shortage of the most important vowel. In the final game, he faced (who else) Charles, and won 420-340 with bingos of BAREGES and DROWSES. Their combined three bingos seems like a low total for them; perhaps they were regretting not partaking in the tradition of pilfering free candy from unsuspecting households simply by uttering the incantation "trick or treat".

2nd Bryan Benwitz, like Thomas, came dressed as the best Scrabble player in the whole world (Nigel Richards) and went 3-1 +158, good for second place. He prevailed in a relatively low-scoring game with Charles, 383-358. The bingo advantage was 3-0 in his favor, with him playing ANEARED, ENNEADS, and SOLDERS and Charles playing nothing but dinky little plays. His game with the other twin ended 419-455, a result that would've been different had the blank on his final rack not been accompanied by three I's. Relatedly, remember to vote in the upcoming club referendum to remove two I's from the game and replace them with one E and one S. In the third round, he was victorious against Richard 417-283. Richard played ZOSTERS early, but then watched the tiles dry up with squinted eyes as Bryan played SQUINTER. Similar to PARTY, SQUINT is also an adjective in addition to its normal usage, which means SQUINTEST is a word. For the final game, he won a close one against Gail 380-345. Gail played COSTERS (n. a hawker of fruits or vegetables, but not both apparently) while Bryan played THINNEST. Something we are definitely not going to be after gorging on leftover Halloween candy.

3rd Dave Gilligan notched a 3-1 +44 record, his second straight 3-1 performance. He started off with a 307-269 win over Sue where he was slowed down by some sort of phony combination of SIGNORE and SEIGNIOR. There are a lot of ways to spell that set of words, but he eventually got down the normal-but-similar SENIORS. He then beat Gail 371-341 with Gail playing DETAINED and himself playing RENAILED. Against Thomas, he got down the fancy EUSTELE (n. a type of siphonostele, in which the vascular tissue in the stem forms a central ring of bundles around a pith, duh), but lost 281-427. His big game of the night came in the finale, as he slapped down three bingos against Richard and won 445-323. His bingos were SOLDIERY, PARTNERS, and CAULINE (adj. pertaining to a stem). That last one, combined with EUSTELE, makes me think he took the advice to study "stem bingos" a little too literally!

In bingo news, the club is now two unique bingos away from achieving 25 percent bingo coverage. The bingos page on the site currently states that we are already there, but that's due to a rounding error. Who do you believe, your trusted club writeup person, or a computer?

1st Thomas Reinke returned from a myserious 1-week absence with no evidence of having taken such a long break (probably because he played a tournament in the interim), going 4-0 +594. He beat Gail 478-405 to start his night, playing ESTROGEN followed by IONOGEN, the last hooking his previous bingo for OESTROGEN. Gail got down DEPICTS and DIRTIER, as welling as challenging off his phony OUTCLEAN*. Only CLEANOUT is acceptable. In the second game he scored 546, playing CONTUSED, BALLGAME, ATHEROMA (n. a disease of the arteries), and TSARDOM (swap the first two letters for the similar concept of STARDOM). His bingo-ey ways continued against James, who started things off with a double-double RENATURE. The next four bingos were all Thomas, RESEATED, ALEHOUSE, RAINDROP, and AGENTIAL. The final total after the onslaught was 518-323 in Thomas' favor. For the final game, he played a game of Collins with Mark, but didn't get to use his (extremely limited) British word knowledge while playing CYANINE, MENIALS, and LENITIES all in a row early in the game. He used that advantage to hold on to the win, 431-393.

2nd Charles Reinke went 3-1 +489 to capture second place. He won 454-328 against Mary in the first game, playing BELLOWER (not to be confused with BELLFLOWER) and NOTATES. Here's a tip about NOTATES: if you have that rack, don't even bother looking for 8s, because no letter goes with it to make another word. In the next game, he lost to Dave 347-412, failing to bingo while watching Dave play SENNETS and EVENEST. Dave has won 3 of the last 7 against Charles, a much better win rate then he had in the previous dozens of games. Charles got back to his winning ways against Bryan, 441-359. He bingoed late with ESTRONE (which, like ESTROGEN, takes an O in front for OESTRONE), and Bryan's promising ADEHORT rack yielded no winning bingos. In the final game, he notched the club's highest game of the season with a 628 against Helen. The main reason for such a high score was his nice find of BIVOUACS through the U for 185 points. Add three more bingos, and you get a lot of points.

3rd James Frankki made the trek from Milwaukee to play some Scrabble with us, ending up in third place with a 3-1 +186 record, barely beating out Dave G. Versus Bryan in the first round, against one of the best Madison has to offer, he won 400-380, playing DEFECTOR (for 98 points somehow) and ORIENTED. Against Helen, he scored 482 with bingoes of NONBASIC (adj. not basic, what a definition) and PINHOLES. NONBASIC drew a challenge, which is understandable, because we don't have enough of a dataset on James to know if he plays phonies or not. In the next game, he faced the full brunt of Madison's fury, taking four bingos to the chin and losing 323-518 against Thomas. In the final game, he faced the undefeated Dave, and had to win by 100-ish points to surpass him in the final standings. He did just that, countering Dave's FATUOUS with his own EROSION and winning 469-345.

1st Bryan Benwitz edged out the #2 finisher by fifty spread points, going 4-1 +482. A first-round matchup against Richard Lauder ended squarely in Bryan's favor, 409-301. There were just two bingos total played in that game, but both of them were impressive finds: Richard's SYLVITES to Bryan's word-of-the-week SAYONARA. The next game, against Charles Reinke, was not quite as favorable for Bryan, as he recorded his only sub-400 score of the night, 355-389. The pairings ensured that Bryan had a chance for redemption, as he was pressed into an emergency two-on-one (something about desperate times calling for desperate measures) and won both matches by large margins. A game against Helen Flores ended at 508-282, while a game against Dennis Lloyd ended 471-327. Bryan's bingos in those games were CHOICES, EPILATE, RELIEVED, and a monster 123-point ACQUITS. The two-one-game also opened the door for a first-place performance thanks to the additional game, and Bryan seized the opportunity, beating repeat opponent Charles Reinke in the fourth and final round, 431-393. His bingos in that one were INERRANT and the 98-point double-double DIARIST, while Charles had OUTSMILE and OVERSIZE.

2nd Charles Reinke was tantalizingly close to the glory of the first paragraph, but fell slightly short, going 4-1 +433. He opened up the action with a two-on-one match, which, like Bryan's, was an unqualified success; 464-376 was the score against Dennis Lloyd (who played LOUNGES to Charles' BITTERER, FOLIOED, and DATABASE), while 459-267 was the final against Gailm Salm (Charles had EMETINE to Gail's CONGERS). The winning ways continued in a 389-355 win over Bryan Benwitz (again with just two total bingos, Charles' SAINTLY and Bryan's ENLARGE). After a 472-315 triumph over Richard Lauder which saw Charles play a trio of bingos (ATISHOO, PROBERS, and HAIRLESS), he would have been smart to duck out early and keep his 4-0 record intact, but in his foolhardiness, he elected to stay, and that proved to be his downfall. A 393-431 loss to Bryan Benwitz ensued, and the shards of his perfect record lay sundered and irreparable at his feet.

3rd Dave Gilligan made a difficult but wise decision that the player above him in the standings was unable to commit to, leaving after the third round to maintain his solid 2-1 +7 outing. His first game was, if not an unmitigated disaster, then a disaster of the commonplace kind, as he lost a bingoless contest to Helen Flores 251-338. After that disappointing showing, many players would have abandoned ship right then to join the Magic the Gathering players at the adjacent table, but Dave persevered, winning his next game against Dennis Lloyd 433-397. Dave had three bingos in that one: MANNERS, OUTLEARN, and OBVERSE. Dennis got down MONITOR and the phony OUTAWED (OVERAWED is good). Dave then took down Gail Salm in what would end up being his final game, 429-371. HANDILY and SERIALS were Dave's two bingos (he still is incredulous that RESAILS is a valid anagram of SERAILS - wait til he hears about SERAILS), while Gail had AEROBES.