Who's in the money?
This list included 12 tourneys, from Michael Tang's $50,000 Causeway to the $240 US WSC Qualifying tourney. Of the $153,000 up for grabs in 2009, $140,000 of it came from seven tourneys: Causeway, WSC, Godswill, UK Open, King's Cup, iGate and English Open.
Of the $153,000 awarded, $67,000 went to just two players. Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (Thai) finished ahead of Nigel Richards (NZ) at iGate, King's Cup and WSC and outearned Nigel 36,000 to 31,000. Wellington Jighere (Nig) was third with 10,000 for his first place in Godswill.
Here are the top ten:
1. Pakorn 36,000
2. Nigel 31,000
3. Jighere 10,000
4. Mark Nyman (UK) 5,100
5. Helen Gipson (UK) 4,400
6. Balogun Rasheed (Nig) 4,000
7. Dave Wiegand (US) 3,500
8. Michael Akonor (Ghana) 3,000
9. Mikki Nicholson (UK) 2,700
10. Lewis Mackay (UK) 2,400
Of the $153,000 paid out in prize money in 2009, $30,500 was contributed by Mattel. But I believe Michael Tang (organiser of the Causeway extravaganza) may have added more to the prize fund — it's hard to say how much exactly as he doesn't publicise it. I would guess he added much more than $30,000 to the Premier Division prize fund above what came from entry fees.
For this year's Premier prize fund (December), It looks as if he'll be adding $46,000 above the entry fees. He may also be coming up with tens of thousands for his new Champion of Champions event.
Besides Mattel's $30,500 contribution to the World Scrabble Championship prize fund, it also spend tens of thousands on other expenses for that tourney.
North America hasn't been so lucky lately. Hasbro has stopped its funding of the National Championship, but it has contributed $10,000 to the prize fund over the past two years.
[*We would welcome your views about the state of prize money for world Scrabble. Write to editor@wespa.org or post to world-scrabble@yahoogroups.com.]