THE WORLD OF COMPETITION SCRABBLE – MARCH
March, especially toward the end of it (as Easter approaches), has a very hectic Scrabble schedule: this month’s review takes us to four continents!
We start in The Philippines, where the 14th Open Panagbenga Baguio Tournament was held in the first weekend of March. Whilst the field was comprised mostly from the home country, they did get one representative from Singapore and one from Australia taking part. Odette Rio took out the event, winning 12 of her 16 games.
As this tournament was being held, the South Australian "Adelaide Festival of Scrabble" kicked off its first of two WESPA rated tournaments: The South Australian Championships. Australia’s Alastair Richards took this tournament out winning 15 of his 16 played games. The Festival itself ran local events culminating in the premier event on the Australian calendar, The Australian Scrabble Championships (more on that below).
Pakistan announced a training group of 80 players in its quest to take out another WYSC later in the year. In addition to this, its number one player, Waseem Khatri took out the Signature 8th Ranking Scrabble tournament.
New Zealand ran its Masters tournament from 25th to 27th March.
In fact, the end of the month saw the biggest level of Scrabble action for the year with tournaments also being held in England, Australia and Kenya!
The Bristol Championship was run over 21 games with Rafal Dominiczak taking out the title, winning 16 games, from Elie Dangoor and Stephen Hunt. The 600 mark was exceeded 3 times, twice by Vincent Boyle (his 639 topping the list). Vincent also has two of the top 3 high losses for the tournament as well.
The final event of the Adelaide Festival of Scrabble, as mentioned above, was held from 26th-28th March: The Australian Scrabble Championships. Clicking on the link will show you the prize winners and the links to the streamed games. Oliver Jenner-O'Shea streamed the games to Twitch, using Quackle, which provided an invaluable resource for post game analysis!
Trevor Halsall won his second title, having last won in 1994. Larrie Strautmanis kept the Plate Title in the host state and there were 10 Youth players taking part. Four other countries were represented, including one coming from the UK and one from Nigeria. Ayorinde Saidu took out the third place. Andrew Fisher was runner up.
Aside from the WESPA album, Scrabble Victoria posted albums of all three days. The presentations were also live streamed for the first time.
For avid followers of Scrabble Kenya on Twitter would have seen the extensive coverage given to the East Central And Southern Africa 2016 Scrabble Tournament. This annual event started with the challenge thrown down by Uganda to Kenya but Kenya came out triumphant in the end. With a 54% win record against its opponents, Kenyans also finished in the Top 3 individual placings. Willy Mwangi took out the win, from Gitonga Nderitu and Allan Oyende. The quality of Scrabble was high, with 6 scores in excess of 600, with one of those heading past 700 (710 by Allan Oyende in Rd 14 against Stanley Njoroge).
April sees tournaments being held in Germany, Malaysia and the UAE. Malta and the US start tournaments in April but conclude in May.
With more events being held around the world, stay tuned for our comprehensive April report.
Pictured L-R: Peter Kougi, Jyoti Chandna, Trevor Halsall, Nick Ivanovski (with his son), Ayorinde Saidu, Daniel Piechnick, Andrew Fisher, Esther Perrins