Blog

Aaron Bader Crushes Shortened Club Session

1st Aaron Bader, freed from the obligation of playing a fourth game through an impenetrable haze of fatigue, swept all his games for a 3-0 +351 finish. He got three bingos (BEERNUTS (new), ANODISE (also new!), and LATTICED) in a 478-342 win over Susan Vergeront. Another bingo trio was unleashed during a game against Barb Besadny that ended 493-302 in Aaron's favor. The three in that game were RECITED, YESTERN, and DERIVES. All good things must come to an end, however, and Aaron was only able to play two bingos (RIGADOON, LAZURITE) when he defeated Andy Bohnsack by a relatively small margin, 430-306. Andy's own GRAVIDAE and TARDIEST couldn't make up enough points to pull out the win.

2nd Peter Schmiedicke went 3-0 +226 and enjoyed the feeling of not having to play a fourth game to defend his undefeated record. He started things off on a high note by beating club leader Thomas Reinke 389-343, finding the high-scoring DITCHERS (101 points) and the low-scoring ETESIANS (58). Thomas played VEGETAL but was unable to break the 350 mark, a feat he accomplishes in over 90% of his games. Against Leslie Seltzer, Peter upped his point output, scoring 428 to Leslie's 290. There, Peter was able to play EASTERN, AIDLESS, and APOCRINE.

3rd Andy Bohnsack came in third but was owner of the largest spread, going 2-1 +365. He forced Charles Reinke into his seventh-lowest scoring game of the modern era (i.e. since we instituted the new stats system), scoring 430 to Charles' lowly 314. Andy played the new word AIRBASE, as well as not-new words FEEDBAGS and STENCILS. This 116-point victory did not sate the twisted desires of Andy's deranged mind, so he went into the next game against Betty Hasselkus and ran away with it, 559-286. Four bingos could be found on that board, all of them Andy's: TALLEST, OUTRIDES, ENTICERS, and BLISTER.

In other news, Thomas Reinke scored exactly 600 against Helen Flores for this year's second 600+ game (Aaron scored 631 earlier in the year).

Charles' FRUMENTY was chosen as word of the week. It can also be spelled FROMENTY, FURMENTY, FURMETY, and FURMITY. It is apparently a type of porridge.

New bingos this week were BEERNUTS (Aaron), ANODISE (Aaron), AIRBASE (Andy), PACINGS (June), and TRANNIE (Gail).

Andy Bohnsack Doesn't Even Care About Snow

1st Andy Bohnsack took the frustration from his opening round loss against Aaron Bader, combined it with the simmering anger that has been building up over the course of his entire life, and unleashed to win his next three games, thus finishing 3-1 +298. Much of his fury was directed towards Thomas Reinke, with Andy meticulously dismantling his opponent 506-368. Thomas was able to get two nice finds of PANCREAS and FETERITA, but Andy had a response for every move made by Thomas, playing CALDERAS, FUNGOES, ANODISE (new word alert!) and SEIGNOIR (SEIGNIOR and PEIGNOIR are good). Helen Flores fared little better; Andy prevailed 453-301 in that contest, despite Helen's bingo of ERASABLE. Andy was able to get two low-scoring bingos for himself, ENTAILED (60) and SOOTIEST (58).

2nd Peter Schmiedicke fell short of first place by just 21 spread points, going 3-1 +277. It was none other than Andy himself who gave Peter his only loss, a 430-360 defeat. Peter's lone bingo of TRAMELS just couldn't keep up with the barrage from his opponent: SLICKED, POSTERN, and HAVERING. Peter's fortunes were drastically different during his game against Susan Vergeront; his score of 559 was the highest of the night, and he was able to get down four bingos: STANDER, IODIDES, ETAMINES, and ESTANCIA. Susan played CAPTURED, but was unable to capture victory.

3rd Charles Reinke's 3-1 +244 record slotted him comfortably in third place. His closest win came against Aaron Bader, 433-390. He proved the accuracy of the adage "more bingos = more wins" by playing three bingos (BRISANT, GIVEABLE, and OVERTAME) to Aaron's two (DIPTERAN and VIEWINGS). Peter Schmiedicke did not find himself at a bingo disadvantage when he matched up against Charles, and thus came away with a 457-396 win. His 101-point JAGGIEST certainly helped a lot, as it withstood Charles' 86-point JAVELINA (a hoofed mammal also called a PECCARY).

Of note was Dave Gilligan's 474-472 win against Thomas Reinke. Both players had three bingos in what would turn out to be Thomas' second-highest-scoring loss ever. His nine-letter, 101-point double-double INDIGENES was chosen of word of the week. We had three new bingos played: ANODISE (Andy), TAJINES (Aaron), and STEAMIES (Gail).

New Words Not So Bad After All

1st Andy Bohnsack lengthened his winning streak to seven as he cruised through a tough lineup of opponents (Bryan, Thomas, Charles, Peter), going 4-0 +439 and averaging 465 points per game. He started off a little slowly with a "mere" 400-332 contest against Bryan Benwitz, a contest which contained nothing but low-scoring bingos: ATTAINS (66) and ISLANDER (60) for Bryan, DIVULGER (62) and STARLING (72) for Andy. After beating up on both Reinke twins, he still had energy left over to run a demolition job on Peter Schmiedicke, 554-376. That game featured SEVEN combined bingos, tied for most this year, with five of them coming from the victor's side: ABLEGATE, SAVARIN, SEAGOING, SAUTEING, and the new TAENIOID, which was chosen as word of the week. It has two anagrams that were present in the old dictionary, IDEATION and IODINATE.

2nd Thomas Reinke went 3-1 with a paradoxical -22 spread. He fought out a low-scoring win against Aaron Bader, 370-339, with just Thomas' ANTIPORN and Aaron's ANYWISE appearing on the board. The fingernails really started to get bitten when Thomas later pulled out a 405-404 victory over the formidable Peter Schmiedicke. Thomas continued the "P Bingo" theme with PASTORS and OVERPAST, but let Peter's phony WELDINGS slip through his usually confident word knowledge. Even more bingos containing P's were played by Thomas in later games: OPEROSE, TAPENADE, and TRIPTANE.

3rd Aaron Bader topped a cluster of players stuck at 3-2 with his overpowering +441 spread. Doing the opposite of Andy, Aaron lost once to each Reinke, but still commands winning records against Both. He quite handily took care of Helen Flores, holding her bingoless in a 447-281 triumph which saw him play OUTEARN and ESTUARY (maybe U's aren't so bad after all...? Actually, yeah they are). However, even less mercy was on display against Leslie Seltzer, with Aaron amassing a large portion of his cumulative spread in a 544-290 beating. Again, he thoroughly halted his opponent's efforts to bingo while getting CHOICES, SEMINAR, and PROTEIN (new anagram: REPOINT) for himself. 

Somewhat surprisingly, we had five bingos that can only be found in the new dictionary: TAENIOID (Andy), THONGIER (Bryan), NOVATES (Charles), CROTALE (Aaron), and NEMESIAS (Thomas). The editor would like to note that he had the new word SATINIER available, but opted for the higher-scoring INERTIAS instead. Other new words seen on boards included TONIFY, EJIDO, ZINCO, ZAIDY, ACAI, ERUV, ROO, PHO, TIX, AJI, and EMO. Of course, the quartet of new twos (DA, GI, PO, and TE) were all played multiple times.

Despite the large amount of new bingos, our progress on playing all the bingos in the book went from 16.3% to 15.6%. We will never reach 100% because nobody will ever play PIZZAZZ or PIZZAZZY, unless they contrive a scenario in which the bag contains two Z's or three blanks.