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The Peter Schmiedicke Train Has No Brakes

1st Peter Schmiedicke went 4-1 +188 to capture 1st place in the Experts.  He didn't manage to break the 500 barrier in his five games, but he did come very close when he beat Helen Flores 497-359 in a bingo-heavy contest.  Peter played ANOINTED, OVERSEA, and SCRAPING while Helen played HUTLIKE and DEVIOUS.  His only loss came against Gail Salm, 346-428.

2nd Thomas Reinke had three wins and a rare tie to place second.  The 400 mark was crested in all four of his games, with his lowest score being his 412-412 tie against Richard Lauder.  In a last-round matchup against Bryan Benwitz, Thomas scored his highest point total of the night with a score of 476-399.  Bryan played OVERNICE and SINGABLE; Thomas one-upped him with AUDIENT, ARENITE, and NONFOOD.  That marks the second time in the past month that NONFOOD has been played as a bingo, despite its low probability.  It is defined as "pertaining to something other than food."  As in, "this blog post is nonfood."

3rd Andy Bohnsack was 3-1 with a gigantic +602 spread.  He was having a great evening, eclipsing 500 three games in a row (514, 517, and 548) until he ran up against Peter Schmiedicke.  He ended up losing that game by one tiny point, 359-360.  Just one point separated the immortal glory of first place and the not-as-immortal-or-glorious glory of third place, but Andy can take solace in the fact he still averaged 485 on the night.

This writeup wouldn't be complete without mentioning Richard Lauder's 640 point game.  This is by far his highest score since we began the modern era of record-keeping in 2011.  It is also the third highest game played by anybody since that time!  He had five bingos, all of them seven letters in length: OPHITES, SOUNDED, DAUNDER, BERATED, and SOIREES.

Sue Goldstein Supplies Plentiful Servings of Punishment

1st Sue Goldstein finished 3-1 +209, good enough for first place in a larger-than-usual intermediate division.  She started her night off with a bang, defeating Aki Miura 379-274 and getting down the bingo TAILLESS in the meantime.  All of her scores were in the 370 range, excepting her 293-343 loss against June Scott.

2nd Harwinder Dowd ended her night at 2-1 +111.  Her best showing was a 376-243 victory against newbie Rachel Conner.  

3rd June Scott also went 2-1, but with a smaller +74 spread, to finish third in the intermediate group.  Her 385-272 drubbing of Sharlie Miura was certainly the high point of her night.

Andy Bohnsack Wallops Scrabble Players for Fun and Profit

1st Andy Bohnsack went 4-1 +434 to take first place in the expert group.  He suffered an upset defeat against Barb Besadny to start the evening, 359-412, but won the rest of them with ease.  Charles Reinke's 13-game winning streak was snapped when Andy crushed him 444-311, deploying such words as TELECOMS, TULADIS, and the word-of-the-week nine-letter COATTAILS.  Doing some quick back-of-the-envelope math, $5 for ending the streak + $4 for high L play - $2 entry fee = a huge $7 dollar profit for Mr. B.  Who says you can't make a living playing Scrabble?

2nd Charles Reinke won his first four games, extending his winning streak to thirteen (unlucky!) before losing to Andy Bohnsack, thus finishing 4-1 +294.  He beat brother Thomas Reinke 417-341, getting down TASTERS and CURATIVE while the latter twin was held uncharacteristically bingo-less.  Charles now has a five-game winning streak against his brother, but the lifetime series is still owned by Thomas, 29 wins to 26 losses with one tie.

3rd Richard Lauder ended up in third by ten spread points over Mary Becker with his final result of 3-1 +130.  He played a high-scoring game against Betty Hasselkus which he won 477-410, his GAPLESS and ADROITER prevailing over her HOOFERS and TRACKERS.  Richard also had an impressive three-bingo game against Helen Flores that he won 435-398, but one of the bingos was phony: GRABENDS (GRABENS would be good).  His valid bingos were ZESTIER and TANSIES.  Due to an editing mistake, Richard's play of TANSIES was previously reported as the phony TANSIERS.  We at madisonscrabble.com regret the error and assure our readers that journalistic integrity is at the forefront of every blog post we write.

Harwinder Dowd Makes Easy Work of Intermediates

1st Harwinder Dowd emerged from word battle with not a single loss to her name, finishing 3-0 +221.  Only her first opponent, Sharlie Miura, was able to eclipse the 300-mark against her, but Harwinder still won comfortably 342-309 with the aid of her bingo SEEKING.

2nd June Scott ended up at 2-1 +127, winning her first two games by large margins (350-256 against Aki Miura and 339-213 against Sharlie Miura) before losing to Harwinder Dowd.

Peter finishes 4-1, is bingo king with 11 bingos, had high game of 524 and high average of 449. 

Andy was the only one who could defeat Peter, and finished in second at 3-2. 

Renato played the word of the night, HELLERIS