The 2013 Scrabble Champions Tournament By Tomáš Rodr

Article originally appears on Tomáš' blog at http://www.scrabblistuv.blog.com/.

In 2012 there was a huge English scrabble tournament in Prague with players from all over the world taking part. When I heard about that, I thought, what the hell – why is something like that held in Prague instead of the world scrabble championship? If there was the World Scrabble Championship held in Prague, I would most probably have an opportunity to take part in it for a second time in my life.

As soon as the thought had gone through my mind – or, to be exact, some months after that – , it was announced that the WSC, or Scrabble Champions Tournament as it was renamed, would really be held in Prague as a part of the Mind Sports Olympiad.

At that moment everything became clear to me – a second chance for me, a) to improve my reputation from Warsaw, and b) become more well-known even outside my region as the Czech English scrabble representative.

As the date of SCR was drawing near, I was becoming more and more nervous. And to that, those obvious dilemmas: to study, or not to study? Ask a friend to put me up for those four nights, or pay for a hostel this time since four nights are already too much to ask?

As far as the latter is concerned, it gets solved unexpectedly by itself. Or, to be more exact, not by itself, but thanks to my best friend's friend Helena. She puts me up for a night after the last Czech qualifying tournament before the Nationals, which happened to be held in Prague too, and on hearing I was going to represent CZ at the SCT, she immediately puts down a note in her calendar, saying I can count on being put up for as many nights as I need during the event.

"Well, thanks very much but... isn't that too much to ask of you?"

"And where else would you sleep here in Prague – [would you get an] expensive [place to crash]?"

She was right – even if I took advantage of a hostel, four nights would wind up totaling over CZK 1000 in the least...

As if the fact that I was soon about to get my butt kicked many times wasn't enough, I had a hard time registering for the event. It's so nice you can register online and don't have to stand in a long line like in Warsaw two years ago, but seeing the IT hell I've been through, I'd rather have stood the line even if it had been miles long. That's to say, I spent hours at the computer trying to get through complex processes, asking for passwords over and over again AND, which just took the biscuit, in an up-to-date list of participants I saw Radana Williamsová who came fourth at the qualifying tourn (the second and third players weren't interested in participating at the SCT). Okay, so the fourth one can have a smooth registering process, while I, the winner, am still in danger of not being let in just because of lacking extra IT skills...? Just wait.

I emailed whoever I thought could do anything about that, including Philip Nelkon. He answered saying he was not involved in running the event and told me to turn to John Chew.

John left me wondering for several weeks – may have been too busy to answer my emails. I almost thought it was a punishment for the ironical comment about him I cited in my WSC Warsaw story. But hey, it was not me who had uttered the comment – I was just citing another player! Oh well, I thought, at worst I can just print the emails out and show them to the tournament director saying they were left unanswered.

Just a few days before my departure, after I'd given up all my hope and decided to solve things on arrival, a chat window popped up on my Facebook account. You aren't gonna believe that and neither did I at first – it was John Chew himself, having just arrived in Prague and bringing all the good news I'd been losing sleep over up till then: he tells me I've registered successfully and should I have any more questions, I should feel free to ask.

I actually had a few. (Questions, I mean.) For example, now that I knew I had registered successfully, I was wondering about being included in a booklet of participant portraits like the one we got in Warsaw two years before that.

He told me too keep cool because hey – there is NO booklet.

"Yeah, I understand you are trying hard to save expenses. I've heard they're going to be about a third of the Warsaw ones."

"Actually a tenth of those," he took my breath away.

Wednesday morning and after a short welcome speech we're at it. Or ... well, hey, wait, it was not that simple.

"Tom, are you staying here? At this hotel?" John Chew asked me after checking the players' attendance.

"I'm not."

"Then we need you to pay the facility fee."

Yeah, you're not misreading. While in Warsaw two years ago we were fed for free and there was no admission fee – why should there be, it's a championship we qualified for after all – here you have to buy food yourself AND pay this crappy "facility fee" of 25 Euro. Oh well, here you are, stick it up your ass.

And another piece of bad news, reminding us how cruel life can get: "Henry Yeo Kien Hung has flown to Prague for the Last Chance Qualifier tournament but ended up seriously ill in hospital..."

What a shock. That's not even irony of fate – that's downright pissoffable. Try flying a long distance – from Malaysia in his case – only to get incarcerated.

If I started out with a great game in Warsaw two years before that, here I'm probably meant to get a "welcome" kick in the ass. My Round 1 opponent, Ming Hui Robert Wee of Singapore, opens with THULIA(S): eighty-one. Three turns later he double-doubles the Z in BLITZ and ZO: forty-eight. I defend by double-doubling the X: AX and XU, thirty-three, but on his sixth turn he plays another bingo, ACTUAL(S), for 95 (including five points extra for my challenging a valid word – no free challenge like in Warsaw), and on his 12th turn another one, FESTIER: 71, leaving me far behind. I lose 532 – 288, saying oh well, I'm going to get my ass kicked many more times here so this was just to get me ready for that.

My goal is clear: end up better than in Warsaw two years ago, i. e. better than last-but-one, but that's exactly where I am in the Round 1 standings: 109th of 110, the only worse player than me being my fellow Czech representative, Radana Williamsová. We share our Round 1 pains and get ready for another dose of it in Round 2.

My Round 2 opponent, Robin Pollock Daniel of Canada, starts off with a bingo too. How the heck do they do that? UNDERATE for sixty-three, and two turns later, (Q)UAREST for seventy-seven. I do my best and indeed you can see that I'm not getting beaten as hard as in Round 1. Although she gets both blanks, towards the end of the game I use the only bingo lane left and play pure SAINTING from an S to a triple: eighty. She challenges, which makes me say oh shit in my mind, because all these English scrabble top players know the dictionary by heart, so if they challenge, you can usually say goodbye to the word you played straight away.

To her amazement, though, the computer with the dictionary installed shows the word with a green tick. When signing the sheet, annoyed by the 344 – 498 result, she complains to a player who came to have a look at how she did: "There's my five hundred game challenging SAINTING. He taught me a word!"

Indeed – I "taught" a native speaker a word she hadn't known, she "paid" five points for that and ended up below 500. At least some satisfaction – because otherwise I didn't enjoy this game at all. She kept complaining all the time – definitely not about the letters but about petty things: once I forgot to hit the clock, "Now I'm short of time," she grumbled as if that had ever mattered – she managed to finish her half of the game anyway, and even if she hadn't, the penalty for going overtime wouldn't have been a threat to her victory. The tournament director Wilma Vialle was called for as many times as TWICE to our table. Hell, I'm glad I'm through. Go bother someone else with your captiousness, madam.

Anyway – losing not even by 150 against a native speaker is something I can be satisfied with.

Is that ever possible? You lose twice, winding up 107th in the Round 2 standings, and get matched up against whom? Nobody less than Komol Panyasophonlert of Thailand, who was 6th at the 2005 Worlds, 7th in at the 2011 Worlds in Warsaw and overall one of the best players in the world, rated over 2000...

Against such people, even getting both blanks won't help you. I got them early in the game, playing LAUGH(I)(N)G for 61 points on my fourth turn (hooked to the G of his word GANOT), to which he answers with pure AURICLES for 88. Hm. I knew I had no hope. But let's do our best anyway. I rearrange AELNRST on my rack into ANTLERS and desperately look for a spot for them on the board. What do you think – there is none (oh okay, I confess, there WAS one but I overlooked it). I try playing LONESTAR* through an O on the board (the name of that American country music group sounded like a real non-proper noun to me), but of course it gets challenged off. ONLY THEN do I notice the N on the board, as I hinted at in the parentheses: LANTERNS, oh, what a fool I am. I pray for him not to block the spot.

He doesn't. Ooooophh. Not that this would decide the win – not at all – but at least I won't get beaten THAT hard. I hook my LANTERNS on PI, making PIS: sixty-five. He sure doesn't mind – he's way ahead, having played pure 72-point NORSELS two turns before that.

Even so, I'm not dissatisfied: losing 486 – 305 against one of the best players in the world ain't all that bad. I have suffered worse losses even in Czech scrabble.

I'm playing my fourth round at table #50 – one of the hindmost tables again of course; this time against William Kang of Malaysia.

However incredible it may sound, the 2011 WSC runner-up Andrew Fisher is sitting at the adjacent table, as he did in the previous round. I stare at him disbelievingly.

"Hi Tomáš. Here we meet again."

"What are you doing here??"

"Dunno..."

Well, shit apparently happens even to the world runner-ups. But Andrew will eventually make it to the top ten anyway.

This time it's me who gets a bingo right into his opening rack. But I'm afraid to play it, unsure whether ATROPINE can be spelled without the E at the end like it is in Czech. (It can, as I find out after the game.)

So it's him who opens with a bingo instead: E(X)CUSED. Seventy-eight. (There's this saying among Czech scrabble players: "[If you] don't play a bingo, it's your opponent who plays one instead." True indeed.) Luckily, his bingo gives me the E that I need, so I answer with this pure ATROPINE. Seventy-two.

This is the end of my attack, though, and the beginning of his almost never-ending power defense. Thirty-seven. Thirty-two. Thirty-two again. Thirty-three. And to take the biscuit – EXULTS with the X sixtupled: fifty-eight. 294 – 538.

I was trying to put together another bingo, but I couldn't for the hell of me make it, while he kept getting whatever he might have wanted. Oh well. I wonder if the defeat had been so cruel too had I opened with ATROPIN.

My fifth opponent is from the Philippines: Chris Abordo. The flag of the Philippines is almost the same as the Czech one, so if you expect something exceptional to happen during this round, you're right: I'm about to suffer my worst defeat of this whole event. At least it's come as early as in Round 5... which doesn't mean that the days to come are going to be much better, but at least I'm through the worst. He plays pure COOLIES as early as on his second turn, while I had to make quite a few two-to-five-point moves before I got together mine – SINGLE(S) hooked on QIS for 80. Guess what – he responds immediately with 75-point non-bingo SLEAZE. And if you think the bingo helped me to a total of 300 points at least... it didn't. I lose by staggering 327 points – 226 – 553. Oh well, still better than that Warsaw game against that Romanian.

This was a price I had to pay to play a first game at this event that will be worth it: against Sanjeev Sreejayan of Saudi Arabia.

"What do you work as? I'm a finance manager," he asks after a handshake and introduction.

Telling your opponent that you're an English teacher isn't really something that would intimidate them. Because as Stephan Fatsis rightly noticed in his Word Freak scrabble bestseller, scrabble has hardly anything in common with daily-usage English as a spoken language. What you use while playing has been rightly called "scrabblese".

He goes first: surprisingly with a 20-pointer. Whewww. I answer with QI and QAT, twenty-seven altogether, grinning in my mind that this is probably the first and at the same time the last moment of this game that I see myself in the lead.

Well, actually I was ahead for as many as two turns, hah! But then, if you expect the classic scenario of my opponent playing a bingo and leaving me way behind, you're mistaken: we run neck and neck for as many as six turns. Only then does he play LEANE(S)T to gain a 100-point lead, and what about me? Been there – I've got an "almost bingo" that I just can't make into a seven. I try a string of two-to-four-point word moves, but not really getting what I need, I abandon this plan. Pulling the 10-point Z, I double-double it in ZO and ZIN: forty-eight. 289 – 244 almost makes me think I'm back within reach, but only until he plays double XI: thirty-eight and I'm only back in a fix because here's a one-bingo difference again and my rack doesn't look very bingo-prone. I resort to defensive tactics – block the remaining bingo spots so that he can't broaden the difference at least. I lose 408 – 324 – my first today's loss I'm satisfied with. Although he sure knows far more words than I do, he, with the help of both blanks, won by just a one-bingo difference...

The following round, as I learn soon, is the last one for today. Hell, I'm glad – I've had enough of getting my ass kicked. I wish to be matched up against Radana – I've never had a hard time beating her in English scrabble so that way I'd wind up with at least one win today

The match-ups heard me. Radana Williamsová, table #51.

"I've [just] played a Norwegian and I lost by 190," she complains to me. Yeah, I know the "Norwegian" – I played against Anlaug in Warsaw and lost just by 30. But since then she may have gotten far better, because from what I've read she's been training by participating at tournaments even in America...

I start out with EH: ten points. Haha! She responds with AHA: eight. Looks like an interesting game.

All the press and nervousness being gone, for the first time at this event I feel I'm playing for pleasure. And as if the bag knew that, it blesses me with GIEPRST. Not that there was a bingo in there – but using an E on the board allows me to play this beautiful move I will cherish for quite a few hours to come (until it gets beaten by a better one): PRESTIGE through as many as two double-word score fields.

"Devadesát ctyri." The Czech for ninety-four – you sure enjoy suddenly not having to speak English for awhile. I've heard Thai players speaking their language too when they got an opponent from the same country as they were from – it's logical after all; why bother speaking English when your mother tongue is just being perfectly understood. And when players do have to speak English, it's magical to listen to them while they are counting their points: linguists have observed that this, like all "automatized" activities like that, is done in one's mother tongue – even when you've been living abroad for a long time and have forgotten your mother tongue completely. I remember being told by my Phonetics teacher at the university that this had been demonstrated on a Czech woman living in the US for dozens of years. She worked as a waitress and had forgotten all her Czech over the years, but while counting her guests' prices, she always did so in Czech...

PRESTIGE. This may have been to remind me what this tournament is about. Even though we're going to get smoked many times, even though we're destined to end up among the last – it's an honor to be here after all, be one of the TWO of over ten million Czech people there are.

She double-doubles the X: EX and XI, thirty-six, to cut the point superiority the quadrupled bingo gave me. Not for long, though – here's the Z. Hooking a double ZONE on her EX making EXO makes me forty points.

Another couple of 30-ish moves and challenging off a non-word of hers (actually I happened to play this phony in Warsaw too and it got challenged off too – that's why I remember it's not a word, although it is one in Czech and Czech people are tempted to think it's an international one) and my lead increases to 140. Then she, for a change, challenges off a non-word of mine. (I thought it was a word since I came across it in Stefan Fatsis's Word Freak scrabble bestseller – but I didn't remember he presented it just as a string of letters, not an actual word.) Not that it mattered much – I play a good bingo on my next turn, A(I)RLINE. šedesát tri, I report – sixty-three for the readers out there. I'll have an opportunity to report point numbers in Czech once more at this event.

"You didn't circle [the letter] the blank [stands for]," she reminds me. "If I were a bitch, I'd ask you to take [the bingo] back."

I wonder if she's right and if the tournament rules are that rigid. But when I try to apply this later when one of my opponents forgets to circle the blank too, it turns out they aren't. "If your opponent forgets to circle the blank, you ask them to circle it," the tournament director Wilma Vialle tells us all. So no, Radana, you wouldn't have succeeded in making me take back my bingo.

Now I'm ahead by more than 200 – my first and last killing win here. I say to myself, let's try and make it over 500 to make the joy even bigger.

And I do. I win 517 – 244, making this my first and last 500+ one-player total score at this event.

Towards the end of this game Radana bursts out laughing. I thought it was out of despair, but in the aftermath of our game she explains why: "I had kurva on my last rack." The Czech for a whore, but also used as an interjection, traditionally translated as "fuck". She might have implied her last rack expressed her feeling about our game...

While playing against her, I notice Radana has a different abbreviation of our country on her label – CZE as opposed to my (wrong) CSK, which might have been good had my country still been a part of Czechoslovakia. I tell the tournament director, whereupon she grins: "John is the problem. Ask him."

I do, and he is willing to give me another one "if it bothers [me]."

"That would be nice," I confess, and it pays – not only do I get the correct country abbreviation, but he also spells my name using the accents, which he hadn't done in the first version. "Nice," I appreciate that.

Let's get out of here. I need a beer and a rest...

Taking the streetcar to my friend's suburb, I notice I have to change streetcars about three stops away from the hotel the SCT is taking place at. Luckily, right opposite the stop there's a pub. I say to myself, why not have a few beers and reminisce the past games for awhile.

I didn't know what a "nice habit" of mine this would become during the event.

My friend's family welcomes me home like a rare guest. They fish for newspaper articles about the event and are eager to be fed with news on how I did. A shower, a nice supper and straight to bed, I tell myself. But of course neither of those happens. We spend a good soirée talking and I have to be careful to get to bed before midnight. Which I do – and they having learned there's no food at the event, I even get a snack to take along.

We had been warned before that today a TV is going to come, wanting to interview the two of us. But in the heat of the moment I forgot about that – although my early morning games are often a failure, this time I'm full of new optimism and hope I could make another win today – not the one I made yesterday and that I was practically "supposed" to make.

When I read the name of my Round 8 opponent, I get amused. I misread it as "Hardlyanto", copy it this way into my scrabble tournament notebook and say to myself, "This one's hardly gonna beat me."

"Hardiyanto," he shakes my hand. Since a few years ago I'm used to writing out my opponents' names in full in my exercise book, so I ask for his first name.

"No first name. Just this one." I say okay, but then I notice him put down "Michael" and "Tomáš". Why would one keep one's first name in secret?

"I have to play fast – been told the TV is waiting for me outside," I grin. He sneers back with an "okay": either it just seemed so to me or his moves, on the very contrary, took longer than eternity. If he had been killing me, I guess I would have given the game up right away in favor of the TV interview.

But he hadn't. We're still chasing each other. ZED: thirty-two. I bingo with SPINNER: seventy-three. He challenges my 47-point YETIS: fifty-two then.

When I double-double the X, making VEX, EX, and RED, and collect 42 points, my optimism gets bigger. I'll make it. Let the TV bite me, I say to myself, what's more important is to try and have one more win. The match is still close, though, so I'll have to rely on the endgame and on going out, adding his leftover.

During the endgame, Radana comes to my table: "You don't have to hurry – the TV's already gone."

Oh shit. But if this is the price I have to pay for this win – then okay. When Radana came to tell me that, I was just putting together my final killing going-out move... and here it is. I win 354 – 370.

Yeahhh... a second win. But if you expect me to call home right away and tell 'em the great news, you're mistaken: the game against this Indonesian guy took so long that I practically couldn't have any break (if he played this slowly all the event long, I guess he must have had no breaks at all!). But when I saw the Round 9 match-ups and found out that I'm supposed to play Viliam šnábel of Slovakia, I grinned devilishly: let's manage one more win now and the news to call home will be twice as shocking.

Where did all that confidence of mine come from all of a sudden? Well, I remembered I managed to beat the Slovak representative in Warsaw so I hope I'll manage this one as well, let alone considering he's 1 – 7 now, his only win so far having been over Radana by 21 points only.

Confidence helps a great deal to plant optimism in you, and as we know, optimism helps scrabble players a real lot, being nothing less than a basic prerequisite if you want to win. So even when Vilo (as Viliams are commonly called in Slovakia) gets ahead, I stay calm, seeing how bingo-prone my current rack looks. The current difference between us is about a one-bingo one – so here's one more tactical two-point move to get my rack more balanced and create one more hook, and then here we go: PO(S)TING, seventy-four.

I know this is far from being the end, because all the bingo did is that it put me back neck and neck with him. One turn later, though, he makes a blunder, wanting to beat as much as possible out of the triple setup I made by playing that bingo of mine. POSTINGS... I watch with bated breath what will come next after the S... hopefully it won't hurt that much.

"Thirty-seven," the word he's just hooked on POSTINGS is HORALS*: suspecting the latter is not a word, I challenge it. Indeed. Word overboard... I mean off the board.

"Horal is an adjective," I tell him and add with a sneer: "Of an hour. It's not the HORAL you thought of."

What I hinted at is that in Czech, and in Slovak as well, a HORAL is a word for an eager mountain hiker. I get ahead with FIGGED: twenty-eight, still watching out because my lead equals eleven points only.

I can't believe this: he plays HALOE*. "What the heck is that? Challenge." Usually the weirder a word, the bigger the chances it's good in English scrabble, but this one looked so suspicious he didn't get away with it. Two missed turns in a row on his side! Let's take advantage of that. MALE and FE: twenty-three.

Still not safe: 34 points ahead, and he plays HOA for twenty-five.

This three didn't ring the bell with me, so, gathering all my strength to keep a poker face, I thought: another piece of bullshit, third in a row? Ha! "Challenge."

This time, though, it's him who can get malicious: his word stays on the board and he gets five points extra.

Watching my lead shrink to four points – 195 – 191 –, I concentrate on making a big leap. What could help me to do so is the X I'm holding. I triple it, playing EX and ODE: thirty-one. He, though, holds the Q and makes a counter-attack: QIN, EST, and REE... thirty-one too.

You wouldn't believe this: I have two S's on my current rack but they make me feel uncomfortable. Moreover, they're now in company with low-point letters, so I burn one playing YOUS and SEA: seventeen, only to get punished by drawing a V. I throw it onboard as a part of VID, turning OY into DOY: eighteen. He uses the V on the board and plays VINE: seven. This looks suspicious, I murmur. Luckily, I've just gotten an H: while in Czech scrabble I don't like this letter very much – worth two points only and not very useful, unless it comes together with a C – , now I welcome it like a savior. Suspecting where on the board Vilo was about to get up to something, I take that hook first – double-doubling the H in AH and HI, turning the VID into AVID. Twenty-six. He, though, shoots back with a Z on a triple: REZ, thirty-two. 312 – 296 – he's still a threat.

CON and NAH: seventeen. To my amazement, he answers with a low-point URE: eight. Alright, let's get even further away. I take out my 8-mm – oh, I mean 8-point weapon of J and play JOBS, hooking them on his OY, turning it into JOY. Twenty-six. Apparently overflowed by vowels, he plays AHI and AI: eight. Thinking his low-point words might as well serve as future bingo hooks, I go and block them: I turn URE into PURE, hooking PEW on it. Thirteen. He responds with KIWI and AI for eighteen: now I'm leading by thirty-eight, so I just concentrate on blocking again, being careful not to open the board.

I have still been watching out and seeing him as a threat up till then, so now I breathe a deep sigh of relief. A real haut-relief – something comes to help me and tells me I've practically already won. Something that doesn't really exist in the Universe and is a totally man-made phenomenon: time.

That's what Vilo runs out of now. While I'm used to playing fast so there's a lot of minutes left on my side of the clock, his has reached 00:00 and gone into minus figures.

A big stone off my chest. I play RID for eleven and watch him respond with UKE, twelve, in complete peace. Even though I can't go out, I don't mind: I add an S to JOY, collecting my last 16 points of this joyful game. He goes out with CEE. I would have won anyway, but with his overtime penalty of 20 points the win is even sweeter: 393 – 334.

"Two wins in a row!" I rejoice into the phone. Now I know I'm probably destined to get back to getting dusting, and indeed. I can't believe that – despite being down there in the current standings, I still get matched up against a native speaker! Esther Perrins of Australia. Although I respond to her opening move with an aggressive Z-exploiting move of FIZ, ZA, in, and FA for 35 points, it doesn't intimidate her. She gets a blank early in the game, plays 74-point SCRU(T)INY, gets the other blank and puts down WEL(T)ERED: eighty-three. Oh, actually eighty-eight including a "bonus" for my challenge. I add two more 30-pointers – DIVED, 33, and BIB, BY, and BI for 32 altogether – but those are just last kicks of a dying beast. I lose 393 – 261, comforting myself this is not all that bad: I lost only by about the difference of the two blanked bingos she had played.

Who do I get for my next opponent? Yes, right – another native speaker! Oh well, I've already gotten used to that ass-kicking anyway. Terry Kirk of England opens with – guess what – yeah, a pure bingo, GAROTTE, seventy-eight, and all I can do is just lag behind. On his sixth turn he adds SEZ and ZA, double-doubling the Z: forty-eight, and another five turns later another bingo: WI(L)DEST, eighty-eight. Only now do I get a blank too. It takes me awhile to put together a bingo, but considering the point distance between us, it doesn't really matter. All I can manage now is make my loss-to-come, which is already apparent, not that painful.

I manage the bingo on my last-but-one turn: TWEN(T)IES, seventy. Thanks to this, I lose by two hundred "only": 337 – 537. Oh well. Losses by two hundred happen even in Czech version, so nothing to be depressed by.

Kunihiko Kuroda of Japan – I can't not remember what a great game I had against the then Japan representative Keiichiro Hirai in Warsaw in 2011 where we both raked over 400 points. Kunihiko, though, plays pure NESTLING for 63, adds some 30- and 40-ish moves and leaves me behind. On my last-but-one turn I play WING(L)E(T)S for 61 (I reminisce my Warsaw 2011 game against the Gambia guy living in the UK, against whom this very same word won me the game – but then it was pure and tripled), but that only makes the loss not that painful – just by 131. I lose 458 – 327 – if only knew this was just to get me ready for my worst game here.

Before it comes, John turns to me: "Tom – do you know someone who's a doctor – a medical doctor?" Several docs I do know come to my mind, but then he adds "in Prague", so I advise him to ask Radana – she's from Prague after all while I'm not. I tell her to come around to him when she has time, and when she wonders why, I "forward" John's question to her. She does know one, so she'll sure be of more help to John than I would have been.

My worst SCT 2013 game happens now, as I have anticipated – Round 13, a symbolic unlucky number, against Anand Buddhdev of the Netherlands. My game against the Dutch representative in Warsaw in 2011, Suzanne Dundas, was a great one, both of us raking up over 400 points. That may be another reason why it had to be the opposite now. Anand challenges off my non-word bingo, plays a (good) one of his own, then adds one more ("this came out," he confesses), then a 37-pointer, a 39-pointer, another bingo, and all I can do is watch him leaving me more and more behind. When I at last play a stronger move. QI and Q(I)N for 63 points – , I only set him up for Z(I)N and ZIG for 51, which neutralizes this move of mine totally. He finishes the execution with 42-point MINKE, making three other words at the same time and me glad he hasn't reached 600 points. I lose 291 – 590, gathering all my strength left, if any, for a desperate grin of a dying beast: "At least it wasn't by three hundred."

I guess by his name and look he sure doesn't come from the Netherlands, so I ask him about that. My secret guess: India.

"I'm Indian, but I grew up in Canada." Yeah, I guessed the former.

"That explains that," I sneer, pointing at the humiliating game we've just finished.

"Say hello to Suzanne," I tell him as we part, hurrying up to refresh myself after the dusting.

The past game was a price I had to pay for the upcoming one which was great. Peggy Fehily of Germany lived in Canada just like Anand did. "It's pronounced 'feely'", she says. One of the few things left after the Canadian she had divorced. "I just kept the name – I don't mind..."

"I played Ben Berger in Warsaw two years ago," I unburden myself of an unpleasant experience.

This game, though, unlike my previous one, only showed that having lived in an English-speaking country is not much of a deciding factor. She starts off with eight-point TID: I hook WAE to that, turning her word into TIDE. Nineteen. Fighting an overflow of vowels, I throw off the Q in QI and play AYIN on my next turn, setting myself up – duh, I have the Z. Too bad the field above the AYIN is not a bonus one. She, though, sets me up for a better one, so I abandon my plan and play RITZ, turning her ACE into RACE and tripling the Z. One turn later, we're still neck and neck: 105 – 99, the difference being I have a bingo-prone rack. About a minute later, I find ENGA(G)ES in it, but grumble in my mind there's nowhere on the board to put it. And she's not likely to set me up – she'll sure take advantage of that open triple in the upper right corner. Which she does, playing BITE for twenty-seven. Hm. Bite me, hah.

Only then does it dawn on me: I almost forgot – EE is a word, so I can use another triple, the O8 one. Well, here I go: EE and ENGA(G)ES, seventy-seven. I watch myself having picked up the habit of writing the sevens the way everyone here does. But that will only last until the end of the event.

The bingo puts me 44 points ahead only, so let's still watch out. She plays JEE for 18, so I seek to respond with a strong move to boost my lead: WHIMS, hooked on my previous move of ARC, making it ARCS.

Some more exploitation of 4-point letters on my side: KAF and IF for 40 altogether, FOU and FOGS for 46. Now we're 192 – 320 – but guess what, in MY favor! So when she triple-triples the X in AX and XI for 52 three turns later, it's hardly a threat to me. I seek to block the bingo spots left, but before I do, she manages to play one: AVOI(D)ED, eighty. Luckily I was ahead by more than a one-bingo difference at that moment, so it leaves me cold. I even say "nice", which I'm usually definitely not in the mood to do when losing hard, ha! Another two turns later it's over: I win 360 – 414, this being my fourth victory at this event.

My last game for today: Muhammad Inayatullah of Pakistan. There was a heated discussion within the Czech Scrabble Association before letting the Pakistani come: "I'm not gonna take responsibility for a terrorist attack," the Czech Association pres wrote on the CAS website forum. I noted, though, that we don't want to sound like discriminating, which he had to agree with me on. In the end, the Pakistani, and Muhammad especially, turned out to be very nice guys.

What was not nice, though, is that he played a bingo as early as on his third turn: T(A)TTIES, hooked on CAW subsequently turned into SCAW. Sixty-nine. This was a response of his to my 37-point DOVES and PIED on my second turn, so his bingo puts him in a 28-point lead only. He challenged the latter, so I got five points extra. "You know, there's a saying – in English there's no noun that can't be versed," I grin. As if the bingo was not enough, he triples the Q in TALAQ on his very next turn, got 40 points ahead and leaves me in a fix for about three turns. Then I catch up with JO and LO for 29 followed by 44-point WINGY. His lead shrinks to 28 points and then even to 21 after he buys my 23-point FREEZED*.

He regains his lead with KHI which brings him thirty-nine points. He being only 48 points away, I still hope I could catch up, when he frightens me by playing ANEURIN.

... but no, he's not going to use the last tile remaining on his current rack. Sixteen. Oooooophhh. I double-double the X in AX, XU, and NU, and get within reach, but he uses the Z and the blank, and escapes with a piece of WET ZA with a lot of F(A)T: three words for 37 altogether. I hook an E to his AX, creating three more words: 26, leaving an L and an A on my rack. I wish he had to pass now so I can go out – if I was able to do so for about 20, I could win

But it's him who goes out. I lose 341 – 375, but still, a great game. I know he deserved the win.

Now let's get out – I badly need a rest and a beer. Halfway through the route to my accommodation provider friend I discovered a good pub the day before, so I got off at the Výton streetcar station again and enter the stylish building.

"Good evening – a [pint of] Podskalák [beer]?" That's what I had here yesterday.

"How can you remember that? There must be a lot of people here [every evening]..."

Well, it may be just that not many local guests sit alone and pore over weird notes in an exercise-book...

Just like the day before, I have two pints of Podskalák here, pondering over the so-far SCT results, poring over my notes in my tournament exercise-book. Then I continue the route to my accommodation providers. They welcome me kindly just like the day before and show me newspaper articles about the SCT they have cut out for me.

Over the last two days of the event, all I really liked was the great socializing we did (mainly thanks to Peggy Fehily of Germany who was eager to get European scrabble players together and even invited us over to Germany to an open tourn, which we considered participating but didn't in the end): that's to say, I don't manage to win a single game on Friday or Saturday. While in Warsaw the three wins I had then were more or less scattered throughout the three days of the championship, here all my wins – four this time – were destined to happen within the first two days. Even so, I do have some highlights, such as four high losses on Day Three: 431 – 386 to Anlaug Frydenlund of Norway about whom I know she plays at a lot of events around the world just to keep in shape (what decided the game was her taking a triple which was hard to block); playing 109-point pure REECHOED against Hervé Bohbot of France to lose 396 – 468 (he gets so impressed by the bingo – he challenges but it comes back good so the 109 points include five points extra for that – that he signs the score sheet three times, adding: "I reechoed that one!"); and even against some native speakers: I lose 382 – 529 against Blue Thorogood of New Zealand (I amuse him by playing CHITTING as a third try after two of my previous bingos get challenged off; he challenges this one as well but it comes back good); 454 – 389 against Simon Gillam of Scotland; 363 – 464 to Gareth Williams of Wales, who kept saying "Yeah" after every good move of mine, so when I played a word and he didn't say yeah, I knew straight away shit was going to hit the fan; the deciding move he made was NIM(B)LER on a triple hooked on RAIDS, making (B)RAIDS, when both B's of the set had already been played so I hoped nothing big could happen at that spot. "I was hoping you didn't have a B," I told him after the game. "Oh, I didn't!" he laughed.

Having long run out of possibly bearable opponents, I get matched up against young Michael McKenna of Australia in Round 30. Even he, in his teens, apparently knew the dictionary by heart. I was practically dead as early as after the third turn: he played RESAMPLED (65 points) and B(O)NFIRES (74) on his second and third turn respectively, then added HAFIZ for 80 points and left me lag behind. I, on the other hand, took three turns to play a good bingo: first he challenges off my TIMBERS because I make an invalid hook (he had closed the board with that unextendable word intentionally), then BR(O)WIEST* and only after that, across AB he created on the board (he may have hoped I wouldn't discover the bingo, but even if I did, it wouldn't be a threat to his upcoming victory) I play (C)RABBIEST. That could be good, I think in my mind. "Eighty-eight."

"Yeah. Nice," he says, again knowing straightaway whether the bingo is good or not. A big fucking stone off my chest.

Only after the game I learn I've just played against a former World Youth Champion. That way, I can consider losing 471 – 316 a success... he was even so humble and modest that he told me after the game: "Thank you. I was REALLY lucky.

"Yeah, you had two bingos coming out..." but hey, let's confess he'd have won even without them. The bingos he played were easy, but we all know he would have discovered even harder ones – it was plain to see he knew the dictionary by heart.

And the last-but-one round just showed me what a lame English scrabble player I am compared to most of the rest of the world: against Fadian Satria of Indonesia I was evidently the one who kept getting easier letters; while two bingos (ROUTINES and SWATHER) were enough to let him win, I played three bingos but still lost 447 – 394 due to missing a fourth one. On my second turn I put down 63-point BEGONIAS, then on my very next turn pure quadrupled DEPONING for 103 points (including five for his challenge); on my 13th turn I added UNARMED, 77, but when I wanted to release a final mortal blow with TANGOERS*, they get challenged off. This left me wondering – if a SWINGER is a swing dancer (apart from another meaning of this word), why the heck isn't a tangoer a tango dancer? "You should have played NEGATORS," he tells me after the game. Oh well. He knows, while I didn't – so he deserved the win.

Well, it was not that bad after all. The only thing that puts me off is that Viliam of Slovakia had one win more, although I had beaten him quite easily. Even so, I end up better than in Warsaw: 107th of 110. On Sunday there's a Czech scrabble tournament held within the SCT. Radana, who ended up dead last at the SCT (she could have had one win over Hardiyanto but lost by a few points due to him cheating – he should have had ten points less; one win, though, would not have saved her from ending up the last), takes part, but I don't. However incredible it may sound, I'm fed up with scrabble for now. I do come and have a look at the Czech tournament: people gather around me and want to hear some news on how I did. Pavel Vojácek, the Czech scrabble association pres who came and had a look at us playing during one of the SCT days, grins at me: "Tom – fill your football knowledge gaps."

He hints at the interview I gave to one of the newspapers – they kept comparing scrabble to football and I had to let them know repeatedly the footballers' names they uttered didn't ring the bell with me. Anyway, it doesn't matter because what this particular newspaper wrote about me and Radana was one big piece of bullshit.

The 1998 National Champ and Parnas club president Zbynek Burda comes to me to complain: "I wish I hadn't come here [to the Czech scrabble tournament held within the SCT]," he grins. "I haven't been doing good, and on top of that these crappy [tile] bags – [the tiles] keep falling out of them..." (This time the Czech sets were provided by the SCT organizers.)

However incredible it may sound, he rises from 1 – 2 he was the moment we met there to 6 – 2 so in the end he becomes the winner of this tourn. I'm happy to be among my good old Czech scrabble friends – this time I find it more enjoyable than watching the SCT finals. They said they were exciting, though:the two finalists were the then double World Champion Nigel Richards of New Zealand (actually currently living in Malaysia) vs. the world runner-up of the past Komol Panyasophonlert of Thailand. But if you think the winner is clear in advance, it wasn't all that simple. Komol beat Nigel twice and vice versa before Nigel finally won the tiebreaker.

Come on, the happy part is coming. Even during the event we were chased by the media (a German TV interviewed us and so did some local newspapers as I already said) and I knew regional ones would do so too when I get home. They do. A newspaper reporter met me on the train on my way to Prague, so he's one of the people to get in touch with me when I get back. Like after my return from Warsaw, I become a bit of a media star again, this time even out of my region. But regardless of that, it's an experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life... I'm not likely to take part at the SCT ever again because as I said they've made it into an open tournament anyone who pays a fee can participate in. But I'll keep my fingers crossed for those who do – the Slovaks already announced Viliam is going to England... well, good luck!

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