Records tumble at Northern Ireland Scrabble Championship 2012
Even prior to the remarkable events of January 21st, the Northern Ireland Scrabble Championship had been shaping up to be a high quality tournament. In its sixth year, the Belfast tourney comprised 15 rounds and featured an array of star players including the world number one, Brett Smitheram and number seven, Paul Gallen. However on the first day itself, the show was stolen by 21 year old Toh Weibin, who smashed the world records for highest score and spread in his 5th round game against Rik Kennedy, scoring 850 to his opponent's 259. Read more about the man now being dubbed "Mr. 850" here.
Weibin capped off the tournament by finishing 4th overall as Paul Gallen won with a 12-3 record, closely followed by Kevin McMahon and Stewart Holden on 11 wins. Stewart provided WESPA with a first hand report on the championship:
Six years ago when this event started it wasn't even rated by the
ABSP, just a small "local" event mainly for players travelling up from
Republic of Ireland. The size and strength of the field has improved
year by year, the event is now rated by RISPA, ABSP and WESPA and we
knew from the outset that 2012 was going to be the moment that
Scrabble on this wee green island finally made the headlines. Of
course we couldn't have predicted everything that was going to happen!
Six players who had competed at the WSC in Poland (including those
finishing 5th, 8th and 12th), the current WESPA ratings number one and
12 of the top 16 in Ireland meant that this was by far
the best field ever seen on Irish soil and the quality of words seen
on the adjudication screens reflected this.
Of course the weekend was dominated by Toh Weibin's staggering 850pt
game against local man Rik Kennedy, himself no pushover having
finished 17th at the WSC in 2009. It was an honour to be present when
such an event occurred (and to have it played on our own board) and it
is hard not to see the records set lasting for a very long time....
although in this crazy game, who can tell what lies around the next
corner. Rik was magnanimous in the face of such a shock and he even
recovered to achieve a positive spread by the end of the tournament.
Congratulation to Weibin who is a thoroughly nice guy and deserves all
the fame and glory his "Mr 850" title will bring. The game log and GCG
file will follow in due course, but meanwhile there are photos of the
board and the scoresheets available all over Facebook.
I can't say how proud I am of the fact that the four members of the
All Ireland team from the recent Four Nations event finished in the
top five placings. Together we battled a tidal wave of talent from
eight different countries and emerged entirely dominant; something
that would have been unthinkable five years ago and a great sign of
how Scrabble in Ireland has improved dramatically in recent years; I
feel this weekend has finally put us "on the map".
Pictures provided by Stewart Holden
In the end the tournament came down to a head-to-head between Paul
Gallen (NI) and Kevin McMahon (ROI), with the former emerging
victorious for the 4th time in 6 years. Oh and Paul's first bonus in
that crucial deciding game? It came from the letters ABEEITUX and was
very familiar to Mr Toh sitting opposite me on the board nextdoor. You
couldn't make it up.
January 2012