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1st Jeff Clark, an itinerant wanderer from a faraway realm known as "Michigan", paid a visit to our club and showed us how it's done, going 4-1 +187 and coming in first place. He started off with a decisive 492-375 over the reigning club champ, Charles, playing bingos of CAROTIN, JOUSTER (for 114 points, accounting for almost the whole difference), and ODONATES. His hopes of defeating both Reinkes were quickly dashed when he lost 318-458 to Thomas, able to do naught but watch the person across the board draw all the good tiles. In the third round, he was introduced to the common club challenge of playing two at once, and passed the test with flying colors, beating both opponents. He had his high game of the night against Gail, winning 506-336 with bingos of RINGERS and SANTERA. Simultaneously, he beat the still-slightly-rusty Andy, 413-386, passing up AVOIDER for the fancier AVODIRE (n. an African tree). In the final game, he withstood Richard's triple-triple EGESTION and eked out a 451-438 win. UNDRAPE and NIDUSES helped, as did his phony of ADOPTAGE*. All told, his 80 percent win rate should be enough to become the new club champion, so if we don't see him again, now we know the reason.

2nd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +506, best among all Wisconsinites in attendance. He scored 585 in his opener against Gail, playing CABOVER (n. a truck with the cab over the front axle), ISLANDED, TINNERS, and NOTARISE. Against Jeff, he opened with MODERNE (later extended to MODERNER), later added TALESMAN (n. a person summoned by a tales (a writ to fill jury vacancies)) and LIERNES, and cruised to a 458-318 win. Normally when Thomas is 2-0 +427, he gets to play Charles, but tonight, Helen was next up. Things went slightly better for her than Thomas' other opponents, but it was still a 426-331 victory for Thomas. Again, normally, when he is undefeated and hasn't yet played Charles, the fourth round is the time for the weekly twin matchup, but it just wasn't meant to be as he ended up playing Bryan instead. It was a high scoring game, with five bingos combined, but Bryan managed to win 455-439. The key play was Bryan's QADI for 50+ late in the game, a possibility that was not spotted by Thomas because Thomas is world-renowned for his inability to track tiles. Relatedly, Bryan is world-renowned for his perfect ability to track tiles. Seriously. Does he ever mess up?

3rd Bryan "Perfect Tile Tracking God" Benwitz tallied a 3-1 +129 record, edging out Mark for the final coveted paragraph. Things didn't get off to a great start for him as he lost 288-390 to Helen. Details are scarce, but analysis of his scorecard indicates that he didn't play any bingos. That's gonna be something he needs to work on if he wants to beat Helen ever again. After that game, though, things immediately got a lot better for him, starting with a 490-295 win versus Dave. He played BONUSES, ENURETIC, and OWLIEST (which Dave then played in his next game). After that, he squeaked by Mary 422-402, despite Mary's bingos of ORANGES and RELATION and her bingo-like JOSH for lots of points. We already know about his 455-439 win against Thomas, but what you don't know is that he played three bingos while executing it: ANNUALS, GUTSIER, and DESTINE.

Good luck to everyone playing in the Wisconsin Dells (but actually located in Middleton) tournament this weekend!

1st Thomas Reinke topped a trio of 3-1 finishers with his superior +328 spread. He started off on the right foot, but also sort of the wrong foot, with a first-round victory over Richard Lauder, 387-340. Richard had two bingos (ALIBIED and CORONATE), while Thomas had none (that's where the "wrong foot" part comes in). Footing was regained in the second round, when Thomas took down Mary Becker by a score of 454-311. The proverbial tables were flipped as Mary was held bingoless while Thomas got down RADIALE and ELEGIES. In round three, Bryan Benwitz faced the full extent of Thomas' wrath, and since "wrath" in a Scrabble context means "scoring lots of points", it's no surprise that Thomas won that one as well, 529-349. Supplying many of those points was Thomas' 140-point triple-triple ABUTILON (a flowering plant), in addition to bingos of PLEADING and LANGSYNE (Bryan had HOARSELY and WINIEST). Thomas' quest for a perfect record was rudely interrupted in the final game of the night as he ran up against his brother Charles Reinke and lost 408-450. The brothers stayed on the high-probability end of the bingo spectrum: Thomas had ROUNDER and BEANIES to Charles' OUTVIES and CORANTOS.

2nd Dave Gilligan averaged 402 per game, well above historical norms, on his way to a 3-1 +172 record wherein every win was comfortably above the 400-point threshold. His first game was a 414-328 win over Helen Flores, made possible in part by a 104-point BLANKETS, his tenth-highest scoring bingo ever in club play. He also played COTERIES for some extra scoring punch. The following game, against Bryan Benwitz, was less kind, and Dave was handed his only loss, 327-434. Order was restored to the universe as a third-round game against Mary Becker resulted in the desired outcome (a win, unless you're a masochist), 412-359. The combatants had one bingo apieced: CROONED for Dave, SIFTING for Mary. Dave went into the last round knowing that a paragraph in the writeup was on the line, and he didn't disappoint, toppling club stalwart Richard Lauder 454-314. Richard had ROSIEST to turn a "blowout" into a "not quite as much of a blowout", while Dave had REBOOTED and ANERGIA.

3rd Bryan Benwitz followed the same pattern as Dave, scoring above 400 in all his victories as he finished at 3-1 +158. The first victory came against Charles Reinke, 468-470. Bryan played MARRING, FADDISH (given the placement of the blank, Bryan could have played CADDISH, KADDISH, LADDISH, or MADDISH as well), and APPRAISE (which can be extended to APPRAISEE). Charles had NONWHITE and LITTORAL in his losing effort. Bryan then defeated Dave GIlligan 434-327 despite the bingo tally being even (UNEARNED for Bryan, EDITION for Dave). The third round brought a spread-destroying 349-529 loss against Thomas Reinke (the gory details of which can be relived above), but Bryan's ship righted in the fourth round when he defeated Dennis Lloyd 456-323. Dennis had the nice find of COYOTES (anagram: OOCYTES), but Bryan outdid him with TWASOME and STEROID, the latter for 97 points (somebody explain to me how STEROID could ever score 97 points).

Mark Kenas' SYNTAGMA was chosen as word of the week. SYNTAGM is also a word.

1st Thomas Reinke, a few tiles at a time over the course of dozens of turns, scored enough points to go 4-0 +486, good for first place. In the opener against Helen, he faced an early bingo-sized deficit after she opened with NODULES, but didn't let that fact daunt him as he ended up scoring 574. His bingos were TAMENESS, ANTIRIOT, ETESIAN, and ALFORJA (n. a saddlebag), which would have been way more points had the J not actually been a blank. His game against Charles ended 388-355 in his favor, a relatively low scoring game for those two. The most notable thing that happened was Thomas' word-of-the-week SIXPENCE (n. a former British coin worth six pennies). TWO-, THREE-, FOUR-, and TEN- PENCE are also accetable. And if you're playing Collins, the rest of the numbers up to nine are also good. His bingoing took another 50 percent hit as he only did so once against Dave, but managed to eke out a 390-364 win. Dave played JAUNTIER while Thomas eventually got down KEYLESS after pulling KXQ?S on a five-tile draw. Power tiles are good, but they can be a little overwhelming all at once. In the final game, he supposedly played a game of "Collins" against Mark, but since all of the bingos played were acceptable in the normal dictionary it's hard to tell. Thomas' bingos were LITOTES, ANAPAEST, GRAFFITO (n. just one graffiti, no word on whether the S front-hook SGRAFFITO was played), and DOILIED. That last one was an out-bingo, and he caught Mark with 40 points worth of goodies, so the final was 508-385.

2nd Aaron Bader went 3-0 +265, beating Mark three times in their three-game Collins series. His night got off to a great start as his first fourt tiles were LLWX and he played MAXWELL (n. a unit of magnetic flux) for 98. He ended up using all of those points to win 467-386, countering Mark's PORCINE and CORSETED with FEMINISM and DORTIEST*. DORTY is good as an adjective in our dictionary, but it doesn't compare because of reasons. In the second game of the set he won 516-393, highlighted by his double-double find of PENUCHLE (n. a card game derived from the older game BEZIQUE, also spelled PENUCKLE, PINOCLE, and PINOCHLE) for 98 points. Since we know his final record, we can surmise that he probably won his third game as well, and a thorough examination of the scorecard reveals that to be the case, 459-398. Mark played JEALOUS and TAINTING, while Aaron got down DAMIANAS and RENNASE. There was no fourth game for him; he left, taking his precious dictionary with him, leaving Mark and Thomas to just guess at what words were good for their last game. Knowing Collins, it was every pronouncable combo of vowels and consonants.

3rd Richard Lauder went 3-1 +75, following up a (presumably) successful day on the golf course with a successful Scrabble evening. He missed the first round due to golf-related reasons, so he played two in the second round, Mary and Dave. He bingoed with SASSING and squeaked by Mary 356-346, Mary's final clunky rack making the difference. He wasn't so lucky against Dave, as he lost 308-406 and watched his opponent play TONIEST, EASIEST, and ENTERON. He then faced Charles (who was also occupied with Helen) and won 421-387. Richard pulled off a rare feat, getting a phony bingo, IODISER*, past the normally perfect word-recall machine. IONISER was added in the latest dictionary update, which may have been the source of confusion. He saved his best for last against Gail, winning 454-325 and bingoing three times. He bingoed with both the Q, with QUEEREST, and the Z, with ZINGERS, which is not something that I can recall happening before but am too lazy to check. Gail did play a nine through disconnected letters, BRAINIEST, but style points, sadly, count for naught under our current rule regime.