Blog

1st Thomas Reinke returned from a strong 3rd place showing at the Word Cup in Albany, NY to continue his dominance at home, finishing 4-0 +228. He escaped with a 431-422 win against Mark Kenas thanks to the Collins-only find of ATTONES# (players of the American lexicon can only make NOTATES out of those letters). A round-four rematch also ended in Thomas' favor, 476-448, with Thomas getting down TONIEST, HOOTIEST, and UNHAILED. Mark had VERATRIA and VERBOSER# as his bingos. However, Thomas' highest-scoring game was reserved for Bryan Benwitz, whom he defeated 510-361, using bingos of CORKAGES, ARMOIRES, SOILING, and DISTASTE to reach the 500-point mark, a stratum of scoring which is disturbingly common for him.

2nd Charles Reinke, 5th place finisher in the same tournament where Thomas finished 3rd, once again found himself lagging behind his brother with a 4-1 +492 outing. His loss came in the first round as he was felled by Mark Kenas, 501-443. That game was part of a two-on-one, and the other game went much better for Charles, as he triumphed over Sara McLaughlin, 502-286. Charles' bingos in those two games were RIDDERS, RATLINS, PIEINGS, and FLOUTING. Another big victory was had over John Bialek, with Charles taking the comfortable 489-271 win, buoyed by a bingo of PECTIZED for 108 points. PECTIZE is a verb meaning to turn into a gel or jelly. The bingo cannons were firing at full force when Charles was matched against Bryan Benwitz in the final round: Bryan found ARTERIES, ORGANIZE, and ASCENDER, but lost 447-470 as Charles played bingos of OBLIVION, SOILAGE, and OUTRAISE.

3rd Richard Lauder played eleven bingos en route to a 3-2 +97 final record. Most of his success came in round three when he was selected to be the "one" of a two-on-one match. His game against Sara McLaughlin was a nailbiter, but it was Richard's win in the end, 417-412, thanks to bonus plays PARABLE and DOWNERS. A simultaneous game against John Bialek was a bit less stressful, as Richard got his second 500-point game of the year, 507-349. John played the plausible BUNGIES* (only BUNGEES), while Richard played TRAINER, STOGIES, and REEDINGS. In the final round, Richard deployed another three bingos (SNORTED, GRATINE, AVERTED) while dispatching Wendy Bialek, 416-315. Sadly, losses to Thomas Reinke (375-417) and Bryan Benwitz (319-444) early in the evening prevented Richard from appearing higher in the nightly standings.

4th Sue Goldstein got honorable mention with her 2-1 +6 performance. Her best game was a 360-286 win against Wendy Bialek where she played SCALING for 64 points.

1st Bryan Benwitz found himself at the top of the heap with a 3-1 +242 record on a night where only three out of ten players ended with a positive point spread. Bryan dominated his first two games, beating John Bialek 434-274 in round one and then felling Dave Kinzer 461-307 immediately after. INDURATE, ENDNOTE, CASTERS, and NEURITIC were his bingos in those games. He got his comeuppance when Thomas Reinke flattened him in round three, 518-392, but Bryan came back strong against the other Reinke, playing DILLWEED, NEONATES, and SOLVATE en route to a 461-407 win over Charles.

2nd Mark Kenas ran the Reinke gauntlet as he does every week, but came through it relatively unscathed, going 3-1 +170 in his series of Collins-lexicon games. His high-water mark was against Thomas Reinke, with an easy 481-375 win which saw him play GRECISE#, TARNISH, and ROTUNDS#. An earlier game against Charles Reinke ended in Mark's favor, 468-417, despite losing the bingo battle three to two. One of Charles' bingos there was the Madison-appropriate nine-letter find of BELTLINES, which makes one ponder, how chaotic would Madison traffic be if there was more than one beltline? Mark's only loss was against Charles, 423-441.

3rd Richard Lauder was the third and final player to finish with a 3-1 record, but his woeful -44 spread put him well back of the two other 3-1 finishers. Richard enjoyed success against players surnamed "Bialek", defeating John Bialek 402-308 (with bingos of SWAMPERS and HOLSTER), and then beating Wendy Bialek 391-306 (playing PRESIFTS and HEALABLE). A match against Sara McLaughlin was somewhat low-scoring, but still a win for Richard, 344-318. Sadly, all those wins were negated by a single loss to Thomas Reinke, 240-490, where Richard's bingo of RAINOUTS barely made a dent in Thomas' frightful bingo-driven assault.

1st Charles Reinke sprung back from a 1-3 record the week before to go 4-1 +152. For the second straight week, he was defeated by Sara McLaughlin, this time by a score of 380-449. Charles got the high-probability bingo of SOILAGE, but Sara found LABORING and MERRIEST. Playing in a two-on-one game, Charles managed to beat Mark Kenas 502-437 at the same time he was losing to Sara; his four bingos (PENLITE, RETSINA, VEINULES, and DURATION) certainly helped ease the pain. In the following round, Charles took down Richard Lauder, 422-346, despite losing the bingo battle 1-2 (UNWARIER vs BOATLESS* and REALLOT). Charles matched up against Bryan Benwitz in round four, and prevailed over the undefeated (at that point) Bryan in a tense contest, 437-419, finding SALVOES and IKEBANAS for his bingos.

2nd Lynda Finn went 3-1-1 (that last "1" being a tie) with a +300 spread total. The tie was a low-scoring 347-347 bout with Helen Flores, where Helen was responsible for the only bingo that appeared on their board, the phony FAKEOUT*. Lynda was playing two games at once when FAKEOUT* went down (she was beating Dennis Lloyd 465-300 at the time), so if she needs an excuse for letting FAKEOUT* by, it was that she was distracted. Lynda alo scored big wins against Thomas Reinke (481-368, playing UNMOORED and SKIPPED) and newcomer John (504-358, playing LODGERS, SONLIKE, HONESTER, and TIMEOUTS). Her loss was to Bryan Benwitz in a game that wasn't very close, 353-477.

3rd Bryan Benwitz scored well above 400 in all his game, averaging a nifty 443 per game while going 3-1 +279. The aforementioned 477-353 win against Lynda Finn was his best game of the night, seeing him adorn the board with GOOSIER, OPIATES, and ASEXUAL. He also won a high-scoring match against Dennis Lloyd, 454-416. Both players had a 100-point bingo in that one: Dennis' RELOOKED for 102 and Bryan's INQUIET for 105. Bryan also handed Sara McLaughlin her only loss of the night with a solid 420-285 win, buoyed by finds of ERASION (the sixth most-probable seven letter word!) and SIDINGS. Two more bingos of RECITERS and CARROMED were played against Charles Reinke, but it wasn't enough to deliver Bryan an undefeated record, as he lost 419-437.

4th Sara McLaughlin also went 3-1 but missed out on third place with her lesser +45 spread. She is now 8-1 in her last nine games!

We welcomed newcomers John and Wendy to the club. While they only won one game between them, they displayed considerable skill and we hope they come back soon!