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Aaron Dominates the Collins Field

It was a hotly contested night in the church basement where Scrabble scores consistently exceeded room temperature despite how it felt at times. The Brothers Reinke were absent as they were returning from the North American Scrabble Championships. As a result there was a palpable energy in the air from the excitement of the numerous players who thought they might actually have a chance to finish in the top two for a change.

1st Aaron Bader had an unbeatable 4-0 +475 showing against arch Collins Rival Mark Kenas. Aaron averaged 480 points and 11 bingos, 7 of which are good in TWL as well. The other 4 were Collins valid for sure, even though they are marked here as TWL phonies. Aaron not only had the high average, but the high game score of the week with a 480. 

2nd Andy Bohnsack led the TWL pack with a 4-1 +215. Andy's only loss was to Lynda, during which he noted it was the third time tonight that his opponent opened with a blank bingo. Andy fired back with plentiful bingos of his own, including the lovely 5 vowel 8, ETIOLATE.

3rd Lynda Finn with 4-1 -88, showed the 3-1 finishers that if you plan on losing one game and still placing in the top three, you better play 2 at a time, like Andy and Lynda did. Despite her huge loss to Bryan Benwitz, where she was outbingoed 3 to 0 and outscored by 149 points, she mananged to claw out very close wins against all her other opponents. The closest was in the final game against Richard Lauder, where she won by the narrowest of narrow margins. It was a bit of a comedy of errors. Early in the game Richard passed on the valid UNDREST, and late in the game Lynda inadvertently emptied the bag, allowing Richard to bingo out and catch her with a large rack. Memo to scrabblers, count the bag before you play late in the game when only a bingo out could catch you.

Shout outs to Bryan Benwitz for his 150 pt. word of the week ZEMSTVO and his high TWL average of 464 and his 11 bingo bonuses tying Aaron for bingo kingo. Honorable metions to Gail Salm for her lovely ZOISITES, Richard Lauder for his lovely CATTLEYA and Helen Flores for the ever so lovely 158 point triple-triple of BLINDERS. 

This just in from Ft. Wayne IN. CONGRATS go to Thomas Reinke for his 18th place finish in a field of over 400. He finished 17.5 - 13.5 +758. To be reminded of how great a player Thomas is, follow along with his two tight losses here, and see if you can find all the superior moves that he does:

http://event.scrabbleplayers.org/cgi-bin/showgcg.pl?id=/nsc2016/9;turn=0

http://event.scrabbleplayers.org/cgi-bin/showgcg.pl?id=/nsc2016/12;turn=0

CONGRATS go to Charles Reinke for his 30th place finish. He finished 16 - 15 +442.

CONGRATS to Buffy Hogan for her 15-16 showing in a tough division D. 

Charles Reinke Excels on Small Stage Before (Hopefully) Excelling on Slightly Larger Stage

1st Charles Reinke assembled a dominant 4-0 +717 performance, a good omen for possible success at the National Scrabble Championship in Fort Wayne, IN, which starts on Saturday. Charles averaged a splendid 478 points per game (to his opponents 298!) and played three bingos in each of his four games. His highest-scoring game was a 505-283 drubbing of Bryan Benwitz, who, like all of Charles' opponents, got significantly out-bingoed, 3-1. Charles' three bingos were AIRGLOWS, EROTIZES, and DESTINE. That margin of 222 was Charles' best; his second best margin was also the game in which he scored the least, 455-260 against Dave Gilligan. Charles played SHEITEL (new anagram of SHELTIE), SENOPIA, and EMOCORE. EMOCORE (a type of rock music) would have been word of the week except for Dave's later triple-triple of INVEIGHS for 194 points, played against Andy Bohnsack.

2nd Gail Salm continued her recent trend of strong play with a 3-1 +341 record, averaging 434 points per game. Her scores in her wins were 441, 448, and 465. The 465 was unkindly unleashed against Betty Hasselkus, who scored 259. Gail's bingos were HAIRIEST and ATONIES, the latter of which is now tied with AIRIEST for most-played bingo at the club with 24 occurrences each. Gail's sole loss came against Bryan Benwitz, whose 102-point FIERCER was able to withstand Gail's TERTIANS and HINTERS.

3rd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 +232, which, while not exactly being a "good" omen for Nationals, is still a "pretty good" omen. The real good omen was getting five, count-em-five bingos against Andy Bohnsack (TEASELED, SQUIRTED, BANISHES, AUTOMAN, and POTENCES) while cruising to a 521-393 victory. The one black mark on his scorecard was supplied by none other than second-place finisher Gail Salm, who took Thomas down by a score of 448-400 thanks to an out-bingo of WHITENED. Thomas did get to play CONTROLS, LEISURE, and ELEMENT, so he had his fun despite the loss.

Good luck to Thomas, Charles, and Buffy, who will be playing at Nationals. Live coverage can be found here starting Saturday: http://event.scrabbleplayers.org/2016/nasc/build/index.html . Congratulations to Helen Flores and Lynda Finn for their performances at the Word Cup in Phoenix!

As Thomas Stared Into the Scrabble Board, the Scrabble Board Stared Back At Him

1st A furibund Thomas Reinke rebounded from an opening defeat with furious fury, ending up at 3-1 +618. After losing 392-398 to Bryan, he retreated into the darkest corner of his mind. What demented things he saw there, no one will ever know; all we know is that he returned, stony faced, to unleash bingo fury on his next two opponents, winning those games by a combined 500 points. First, against Darcy, he played SURFERS, ANTIROCK (adj. opposed to rock music), DIORITE, BURIALS, and SEAPLANE (anagram SPELAEAN) while scoring 611. Then, against Dennis, he played four more rack-clearers: DOZIEST, SONSIEST, ACCENTED, and PRONATED. This torrent of bingos must have had a calming affect on him; he only bingoed once against Charles, but still managed to win comfortably, 441-349.

2nd Charles Reinke came in second at 3-1 +174, failing to narrow the already narrow gap between him and his brother in the yearly standings. He started off with a 453-372 win against Gail, playing GAYNESS and the word-of-the-week, MOVIEOLA (n. a device for viewing and editing film, more commonly MOVIOLA). Gail, for her part, played two nice bingos added in the last dictionary update, DEMENTI and LORNEST. In the second round against Dennis, Charles got out-bingoed 3-1, NAUSEATE, SPLURGER, and INDICTER thrown down on the board in front of him while all he could manage was NACELLE, but still earned a close win, 398-391. Against Bryan, in the process of winning 524-346, he played the "why-the-hecking-heck-is-that-a-word" of-the-week, GOADLIKE (adj. resembling a goad, seriously, what the heck?).

3rd Bryan Benwitz, in typical Bryan fashion, went 3-1, but in non-typical Bryan fashion, only played 4 bingos while doing so, far beneath his average. His feat of toppling two formidable opponents with only a bingo per was impressive: He beat Thomas with only BORNITES for 60, and then beat Andy with only LODESTAR for 59. After losing to Charles, he beat Helen 473-332, playing OAKIEST and GREENER. In the end, he proved a known Scrabble truism: the only thing that matters is scoring more points than your opponent, and there is more than one path to doing so.

Good luck to Helen and Lynda as they venture to Phoenix (great time of year for it, am I right?) for the Word Cup, which starts on Saturday. Live coverage will be available here: http://director.victoriascrabble.org