Division 2 Winner: Thomas Reinke

No Doubting Thomas, Reinke Rules Division 2

by Carole Denton and Alyssa Faria

Thomas Reinke and John Robertson (Mary Rhoades in background)

If Stefan Fatsis got a commission for every newbie he brought into the folds of club and tournament SCRABBLE, he'd be a very rich man. Case in point: After espying Word Freak in the Games section of a bookstore back in 2004, Thomas Reinke of Middletown, Wisconsin, now 19 years old, bought it, read it, and passed it on to his twin brother, Charles. They started playing games against each other, "learning the twos and getting excited over bingos," then joined the Madison SCRABBLE Club #247.

Upon entering his first tournament, Wisconsin Dells, in October 2005, Thomas promptly won Division 5 with a 9-2 +857 record. The next spring, he was "brought down to earth" by an "atrocious" performance at the Arden Cup. Undaunted, he went to the sizzling Phoenix National Scrabble Championship and placed 4th in Division 6. From then until now, he's experienced the typical vicissitudes of tournament SCRABBLE, although doing well more often than poorly (e.g., winning Division 2 at Wisconsin Dells last October) and, with three exceptions, steadily building his rating to 1550 after Chicago in May.

His identical (and we mean IDENTICAL) twin, Charles, has traversed roughly the same path and for the first time passed Thomas in rating points (1620) after placing 4th in Division 2 at Chicago this May. Thomas now says, "It looks like I'm ahead again. Sorry, bro!" Your move, Charles! Charles's performance in Division 1, by the way, was none too shabby: he went 17-14 and finished 39th after starting at #103. [John Williams of the NSA believes the Reinke twins are the first twins to reach this skill level.]

At Dayton, Thomas firmly took control after game 9 and never relinquished his first-place position. He had a remarkable streak of 20 wins in the first 21 games, losing only in Round 8 to Joel Horn. Despite hitting a rough patch on Tuesday (Day 4), losing five consecutive games (including two to the venerable Tim Anglin), he remained in the driver's seat and was Gibsonized for game 31.

A true diplomat, Thomas declines designating his toughest opponent during the tournament: "Everyone at the top of Division 2 was a very worthy opponent." He describes his study methods as basic, merely using "Zyzzyva, nothing fancy like mnemonics or flash cards,” and admits to "fairly inaccurate tracking" and not "keeping track of blanks and esses." As he puts it, "I don't think about how poorly I draw, but how poorly I play. The losses I had were not because of tiles, but because of my own subpar play and word knowledge.” That's something we should all keep in mind! He adds, "I felt like I was on the top of my game for most of the tournament. I was lucky enough to have very few close endgames." In this tournament, SYCONIUM, played in game 15 for 95 points, was his favorite bingo, and his all-time fave is CORMORANT through the first OR, played in a club game.

Thomas, currently a student at Madison Area Technical College, credits Richard Lauder of the Madison club as being very supportive and the club itself for keeping him involved. "If I didn't have such a fun and well-run club to play in, I'm not sure I'd still be here." When not Scrabbling or studying computer programming, Thomas enjoys playing Trax and Hex (invented by John Nash) and listening to Rhapsody (of Fire), Blind Guardian, and Equilibrium.

Carole Denton has been a tournament player since 1992—seemingly permanently plateaued at the high-intermediate level (1450-1550)!. She is soon to become a director to assist Ted Gest at the Washington D.C. SCRABBLE Club #171.

Alyssa Faria lives in Cambridge, MA, and is an IT specialist in Boston. She has played serious tournament SCRABBLE for about five years and is currently among the game’s highest rated women.