THE WORLD OF COMPETITION SCRABBLE – JULY
Welcome to the July report on the world of Scrabble. Tournaments in six countries and a 2017 announcement meant for a busy month: an eventful month that bodes well for what will be an even bigger next couple of months!
Hong Kong was the first full WESPA rated tournament to be completed and it was a double header weekend (King's Cup had started in late June and featured in our previous report). Johnson Tsang was victorious in the Saturday event whilst Jesse Day won on the Sunday: Twitter fans were able to keep up with Jesse's games as he emerged victorious. The group photo from the Sunday event is below.
As an aside, Twitter is a great way to display game and tournament goings-on and we look forward to more players embracing the medium.
A week later and the truly global nature of World Scrabble was on display. WESPA rated tournaments occurred in the US, Israel, the UK and Pakistan!
Raz Naot went undefeated at the Summer Qadima Tourney in Israel.
Jeremy Hildebrand won 13 of his 15 games in winning the Northern Championship held in Mississauga.
Waseem Khatri won the Pakistan Scrabble Championship with the Pakistani Youth Team coach, Moizullah Baig, taking the runner-up position. Mirza Tayyab's 652 the highest game score in a high quality event played over 27 games. Keen readers and overall observers of the World Scrabble scene will be well aware of the strength of the Pakistan players and are kept well informed with a savvy social media presence.
Staying on the topic of innovative coverage, the UK's ABSP Masters event featured a vlog from England's David Webb. Allan Simmons won this highly coveted title, winning 14 of his 16 games. The author of Scrabble Trainer has won this prestigious event previously. One of those accounts can be found in his excellent book that summarizes his 2007 win. It is an amazing and insightful read.
In amongst the tournaments, Scrabble Kenya had a successful launch of WESPAC 2017 with their Sports Ministry. Photos below outline a prominent release and bodes well for an exciting event in November next year.
Before we look to August, events at the 3rd Gail Open Scrabble Cup: the Facebook album from the event contains some great photos to show the international nature of the event. India's Sherwin Rodrigues won the event from Udayan Grover, Goutham Jayaraman and Michael Tang.
On to August! The traditional rivalry between Australia and NZ in Scrabble will continue with the biennial Trans Tasman Challenge taking place in Adelaide - it is the first of two WESPA rated events with the Queensland Championships taking place later in the month.
The 2016 North American Scrabble Championship is the premier event on the US Calendar and we anticipate high quality Scrabble over the 5 days from the 6th-10th August!
Another premier event in the UK, the BMSC, is a triple treat of tournaments in late August. Soon after, all eyes will turn quickly across the Channel to Lille as the first of the English language tournaments kicks off at what will be the biggest festival of Scrabble on offer this year to date: the MSI World Championships!
The first English tournament is the World Youth Scrabble Championship. The future of Scrabble will be on show in August.
Stay tuned for that and more as we conclude this report!
Happy Scrabbling
Sunday in Hong Kong. Picture: HKSPA
WESPAC 2017 - promotional poster. Source: Scrabble Kenya
Director General sports Kenya flanked by Eliud Lell SK chair and Benard Amuke vice chairman LOC. Source: Scrabble Kenya