June/July 2013 - The Last Word Newsletter

Transcription

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The Last Word
The Independent Tournament SCRABBLE® Newsletter
A Monthly Newsletter
Issue 39 - June/July 2013
Farewell to the NSA
TeamUSA
Bethel Back-to-Backs
Final 3
Qualifiers for Worlds
Worldwide SCRABBLEathon
July 13, 2013
The Last Word is an independent publication for tournament SCRABBLE® players. It is not
affiliated with Hasbro, Mattel, the North American SCRABBLE® Players Association (NASPA),
the Word Game Players’ Organization (WGPO), or the National SCRABBLE® Association (NSA).
Our mission is to provide content of interest to all SCRABBLE® players, so please let us know if
there are topics you would like us to add. We welcome contributions: stories, artwork, etc.
For the time being, we are hoping to provide this Newsletter at no charge; however, since it is a
100% volunteer effort, we would appreciate any donations. Advertisers are encouraged, too. If
you would like to have The Last Word emailed to you, please send a request with your email
address to CorneliaSGuest at gmail dot com and we will add you to our mailing list
Editor-in-Chief: Cornelia Guest
Columnists: Joe Bihlmeyer, Jan Cardia, Timothy Cataldo, Judy Cole, Joe
Edley, Stu Goldman, Jeff Kastner, Daiva Markelis, Joan Mocine, Tony Rasch,
Lester Schonbrun, Larry Sherman, Chris Sinacola, Siri Tillekeratne, Linda
Wancel
The Last Word is a volunteer
effort. We appreciate your
donations.
(PayPal or snail mail--contact
[email protected])
Editors-at-large: Robin Pollock Daniel, Joe Edley, Stefan Fatsis, Ted Gest
Photographer-at-large: Betsey Wood
Contributors: Connie Breitbeil, Julian Daffern, Ryan Fischer, Marissa
Freedman, Diana Grosman, Keith Hagel, David Lewis, Kenji Matsumoto, John
Merlau, Art Moore, Cristian José Richart Piqueras, Larry Rand, John
Robertson, Sherrie Saint John, Chris Schneider, Bruce Shuman, Michael
Turniansky, Barbara Van Alen, Brad Whitmarsh, Christy Wold
For advertising rates,
please email
[email protected]
Copyright © 2013 GuessWhat! Some data copyright ©1999-2013 NSA; copyright © 2010-2013 NASPA; and copyright © 2005-2013 Seth Lipkin and Keith Smith.
SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the USA and Canada. Elsewhere it is the trademark of J.W. Spear & Sons, Ltd.
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Table of Contents
From the Editor 3
Advertising Section: Equipment, Tournaments, Organizations, Books 4
Tournament News 11
World SCRABBLE® Championship Qualifying Tournament 11
Bethel CT Back-to-Back Tournaments by Cornelia Guest 13
Italy-Croatia Cruise in Pictures by Larry Rand and Barbara Van Alen 15
Tournament Results 18
New Faces: Marissa Freedman & Christy Wold 22
National SCRABBLE® Association Closes After 25+ Years 26
Scrambling for SCRABBLE® at the University of Chicago by Bruce Shuman 29
Club News edited by Larry Sherman 32
The SCRABBLE® Rebellion by Julian Daffern 34
The Nervous Rack: My Life in SCRABBLE® by Daiva Markelis 37
Historic Moments: SCRABBLE® Through the Years by Stu Goldman 39
What’s Your Play? 40
Word Trivia Quiz by Siri Tillekeratne 42
Canadian Team Qualifying Tournament Information from John Robertson 44
SCRABBLE® and Scrabblers in the News edited by Judy Cole 45
Word Star by Jeff Kastner 57
SCRABBLE® Videos by Kenji Matsumoto 60
Tournament Talk 61
Know the Rules by Jan Cardia 62
The Wordsmith: Ah bide in scootlund by Chris Sinacola 64
Scrab-doku by Jeff Kastner 69
The CJRP SCRABBLE® Challenge by Cristian José Richart Piqueras 72
One Up! Cup for July by Timothy Cataldo 73
SCRABBLE®: Thoreau & Thoreau by Frank Lee 75
Fill in the Blanks by Jeff Kastner 76
Passages edited by Larry Sherman 78
SCRABBLE® Resources 80
Tournament Calendar 84
Archives 92
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From the Editor
Over Memorial Day Weekend 356 players competed in SCRABBLE® tournaments--more than the
number of players at last year’s National SCRABBLE Championship. However, these players were
competing at eight different tournaments, with a high turnout of 81 at the ArdenCup in Elmhurst, IL,
and a low of 14 at the inaugural Sacramento, CA event.
With so many different events on the same weekend, players did not need to travel far to compete.
But many did. Thirteen Northeastern players from New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts
traveled to Montreal to compete at the Cote St. Luc tournament. Two players from Illinois and one
from Georgia traveled to Irving, TX, to play at the Mid-Cities SCRABBLE Adventures. Joey Mallick
traveled from Maine to compete at the Stamford, CT tournament. Ricky Sirois traveled from New
Hampshire, Mike Kapernaros from Connecticut, and Jeanmarie Youngblood and Kyle Condron from
New York to compete at the ArdenCup. Susie Tiekert traveled from Florida for the Silicon Valley
Showdown in Campbell, CA, as did many Midwestern players.
As a director who enters a contract with my venues often a year or more in advance, it scares me
that attendance numbers at tournaments are taking a slide. The solution might be simply that we
should schedule fewer tournaments. Or book inexpensive venues. The good turnout for the
upcoming National SCRABBLE Championship after several years of weak attendance might reflect
the good hotel rates. Players only have so much money to spend on SCRABBLE, and multi-day
tournaments eat up that money quickly in travel, lodging, and restaurant expenses.
I’m hoping that creative ways to boost attendance can be found. In the meantime, I’m hoping
players will come to the next two multi-days I’ve scheduled (Old Greenwich, CT; Poughkeepsie,
NY), and that I won’t have to give up beautiful venues for the sake of economy. We’ll see....
*
I was greatly saddened to learn of the closing of the National SCRABBLE® Association (NSA) on
July 1. John and Jane Williams and their wonderful team have devoted over 25 years to bringing
tournament SCRABBLE to where it is today, and the NSA has contributed to many of my fondest
memories at the National School SCRABBLE Championship. Since I’ve been coaching School
SCRABBLE, I’ve brough many teams to the NSSC, and the NSA has always made the event
amazing for all my players and their families.
Where School SCRABBLE will go from here is still unannounced; however, I’m hoping that Hasbro
will continue having the annual championship for kids. Many of today’s top young players started
out in School SCRABBLE: Bradley Robbins, Joey Krafchick, Sam Rosin, Jackson Smylie, Matt
Canik (just to name a few). With the active Youth SCRABBLE programs in other countries, there is
a need for North America to provide support for young players. They are our future.
This issue features a story on the NSA closing, with John Williams’ statement and links for those
needing additional information. A sad event.
Thanks, John, Jane, Patty, Theresa, Katie, and the many others who have contributed so much of
their time and energy to SCRABBLE through the NSA. We appreciate all you have done!
Cornelia Guest
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OLD GREENWICH
August 16-18, 2013
Come play SCRABBLE® this summer at the Old Greenwich, CT tournament August
16-18 at the beautiful Hyatt Regency Greenwich. Five tournament options:
NASPA TWL & Collins Main Events: 16 games Friday night-Sunday afternoon
NASPA TWL & Collins Early Birds: 5 games Friday afternoon
Unrated Newcomers Tournament: 3 games Saturday morning
PLUS JEOPARDY! GAME SHOW SATURDAY NIGHT!
Saturday buffet lunch included for all Main Event players. Free parking for all players.
Gym, pool, shuttle bus to nearby shopping. Special nightly hotel rate for Scrabblers
including Internet. Prizes galore!!! Directed by Jason Keller & Cornelia Guest.
Sign up using our flyer at cross-tables.com. Contact: Cornelia Guest (914-772-6535).
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NEWTOWN, ct
BENEFIT scrabble® tournament
Sunday, September 22, 2013
10 a.m. to 6 p.m
The INN at NEWTOWN
19 Main Street, Newtown, CT
A multi-division benefit SCRABBLE® tournament including Sunday Brunch:
1. Main Event, TWL: 7-game fully rated NASPA tournament with 2-3 divisions by rating. Entry fee:
$70; $15 discount for first-time tournament players; no refunds after 9/7. Registration 9:30 am.
2. Main Event, CSW: 7-game fully rated open NASPA tournament (if 4 entered). Entry fee: $70; $15
discount for first-time tournament players; no refunds after 9/7. Registration 9:30 am.
3. Newcomers Event: 3-game unrated tournament for new players and players rated under 1000.
Youth and Adult divisions if 4 players entered in each. Entry fee: $45; no refunds after 9/7.
Registration 9:30 am.
BENEFIT RAFFLE DURING LUNCH BREAK
Send entries with name, address, phone number, and entry fee to Cornelia Guest, 135 Codfish Hill Rd.,
Bethel, CT 06801 (make checks payable to Cornelia Guest). For more information contact Cornelia
Guest at [email protected] or at 203-244-5324.
All profits from this event will be donated to the United Way of Western Connecticut’s Sandy Hook
School Support Fund (https://newtown.uwwesternct.org).
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* the ultimate e-newsletter for Scrabblers *
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Available in 46 different colors, sizes YXS-3XL: $25 plus $5.15 shipping.
Send orders to Cornelia Guest,
135 Codfish Hill Rd.,
Bethel, CT
06840
Or by PayPal to [email protected]
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World SCRABBLE® Championship Qualifying Tournament
Princeton, NJ: 6/14-16
Kate Fukawa-Connelly organized this year’s World SCRABBLE® Championship Qualifying
Tournament, which took place at the Holiday Inn Princeton Southeast June 14-16. The WSCQT
was run concurrently with three other Princeton NASPA tournaments, cleverly billed as “Choose
Your Poison.” On Friday there was a 5-game TWL Early Bird; on Saturday an 8-game CSW
tournament; and on Sunday an 8-game TWL tournament. All were directed by Tim FukawaConnelly.
Friday’s TWL Early Bird attracted 14 players, who were
divided into two groups. Winner of Division 1 was Jeffrey
Jacobson, who finished with a 4-1 +330 spread over
Connie Creed (3-2 -116) and Wes Eddings (2-3 +44).
Division 2 went to Judy Cole (4-1 +137), who nosed out
Tom Draper (4-1 +80). Glenn Filzer was third (3-2 +281).
L-R: Early Bird winners Jeffrey Jacobson (Div. 1)
and Judy Cole (Div. 2).
Four players competed in the Saturday CSW tournament,
including three players already qualified for this year’s
SCRABBLE Champions Tournament in Prague: John
O’Laughlin, David Koenig, and Brian Bowman. Judy Cole
was the fourth entry. Players finished in their seed
positions, with John O’Laughlin first (6-2 +545) and David
Koenig second (5-3 +261).
On Sunday, ten players faced each other for eight games
of TWL play. The winner was 14-year-old Nicholas
Vasquez, who finished with a 6-1 +402 record over Ben
Harrison (5-1-1 +680) and Wes Eddings (5-1-1 +397).
The 20-game CSW main event, the WSCQT, brought
fourteen hopefuls to Princeton to vie for the three
remaining spots on TeamUSA for the 2013 SCRABBLE
Champions Tournament. A hotly contested tournament
had five players in contention going into the final game. Jason Keller, who was in the lead going
into game 21, lost that game to Jim Kramer, giving Jim the tournament win (13-7 +629) and a spot
on the U.S. team for the eighth consecutive time. Evans Clinchy finished second, with a 12-7 +806
record, with Jason third (12-7 +649); both will be representing the U.S. for the first time at a world
championship. In fourth place was Steve Polatnick (12-7 +376), who is the alternate in case one of
the 14 team members needs to be replaced.
L-R: Saturday’s CSW tournament winner, John
O’Laughlin; Sunday’s TWL tournament winner,
Nicholas Vasquez.
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TeamUSA: The final 3
Jim Kramer, from Roseville, MN, who finished first at the World SCRABBLE®
Championship Qualifying Tournament, has been playing tournament
SCRABBLE for 30 years. He was won 38 tournaments including the National
SCRABBLE Championship in 2006. Other major wins include Wisconsin Dells
(1990, 1991, 1997, 2000, 2003); Ft. Wayne Midwest Invitational (1991); Sioux
Falls, SD (1994, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2012);
Twin Cities, MN (1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004,
2006, 2008); Lakewood, CO (1998); and the NAST Finals (2008). He has
represented the United States at the last seven World SCRABBLE
Championships (2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011), finishing 3rd in 2001 and 5th in 2003.
His current CSW rating is 1924, making him the 28th ranked Collins player in the United States.
Evans Clinchy, from Boston, MA, who finished second at the WSCQT, has
been playing tournament SCRABBLE since 2007, when he won his first
tournament in Worchester, MA. Since then he has won 20 more tournaments,
including Cape Cod (2007); Philadelphia (2008); Utica (CSW, 2011); Lake
George (2011); Hancock (2012); New York (CSW, 2012); and Poughkeepsie
(CSW, 2012). He has won 8 of his 23 CSW tournaments. His current CSW
rating is 1912 (peak 1962), making him the 29th ranked Collins player in the
United States. This is his first trip to the World SCRABBLE Championship.
Jason Keller, from Highland Park, NJ, who finished third at the WSCQT, has
been playing tournament SCRABBLE since 2007. He has won 25
tournaments, including Princeton (2008, 2011); Atlantic City (2009); Pittsburgh
(2012); and Montreal (2013). He has played in seven CSW tournaments,
winning two of them. This is his first time respresenting the United States at
the World SCRABBLE Championship.
ALTERNATE: Steve Polatnick. From Miami, FL, Steve has been playing
tournament SCRABBLE for more than 30 years. He has won 40 tournaments,
including Miami, FL (1987); Reno (1991, 2000); Fort Lauderdale, FL (1992,
June and November; 1997); Pompano Beach, FL (1993, 1994); Euless TX
Worlds Qualifier (1995, 2005); Satellite Beach, FL (2000); Indian Harbor, FL
(2002); Stuart, FL (2003, 2004); Port Richey, FL (2003); and Melbourne, FL
(2004). He represented the United States at the World SCRABBLE
Championship in 1995, 1999, 2001, and 2005, finishing 4th in 2001. Steve
finished 4th at the 2013 WSCQT.
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Bethel CT Back-to-Back Tournaments
By Cornelia Guest
On June 8 and 9, I directed two 7-game back-to-back tournaments in Danbury and Bethel, CT, with
a Saturday-night after-tournament party at my house.
June 8 Tournament
The Saturday tournament was at the Hampton Inn in Danbury, just over the Bethel border. Twentyeight players competed in three TWL divisions and one Collins division. Players enjoyed this new
venue--plus HomeFree cookies brought to the event by Brad Robbins. Thanks, Brad (and Jill,
Brad's mom)!
Joel Sherman made the train ride out from NYC
worthwhile, taking Division 1 with a 6-1 +406 record.
Second was Terry Kang Rau, who finished 5.5-1.5
+245. Stefan Rau--at 4-3 +242--was third. Fourth-place
finisher Brandon Randall won the prize for High Nonbingo for ZONE, 87.
Sam Moch won Division 2 with a 6-1 +373 record.
Second was Joe Bihlmeyer, who had thought the
L-R: Joel Sherman, Division 1 winner; Sam Moch,
tournament was Sunday and missed his first three games.
Division 2 winner.
Peter Barkman graciously agreed to make up game 3 with
Joe during the lunch break, and Joe rallied to finish 4-3
+100 for the second-place prize money. Third was Brad Robbins, who finished 4-3 +4. Brad also
won the prize for High Bingo with ARTSIEST (131).
Division 3 went to Roberta Borenstein, who finished 6-1 +299. Second, at 5-2
+378, was Jonathan Kent, with Zachary Dang third with a 5-2 +124 record. A
new player debuted today: 6th grader Dustin Brown. Although he did not win a
game, he had five close losses and looks like a young player to watch!
The Collins Division attracted four players, half of
whom were named Judy and 3/4 of whom had names
started with J. The non-Judy J, Jason Keller, won with
a 5.5-1.5 +530 record. Second was Judy Cole, with a
3.5-3.5 +82 record. Cornelia Guest, 3.5-3.5 -25, was
third. Jason won the tournament High Game prize for
a 619, and Judy Cole took the High Loss prize for a
458 (against Cornelia Guest).
L-R: Roberta Borenstein, Division 3 winner; Jason
Keller, Collins Division winner.
After the tournament a number of players drove to my house for
an afterparty, with more SCRABBLE® games and exciting
games of "Skilliards," a house specialty.
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June 9 Tournament
Winners at the 6/9 Bethel Tournament. L-R: Stefan Rau, 2nd Div. A; Jan Cardia, 1st Div. A;
Zachary Dang, 1st Div. B; Linda Wancel, 2nd Div. B. (Photo by David Lewis)
The day could not have been much more beautiful for the 6/9 tournament at my house in Bethel,
CT. Sixteen players came to play in two divisions, with games sprawled out all over the house and
outside by the pool. Players enjoyed a barbecued chicken lunch (with veggie options), plus other
snacks throughout the day.
Jan Cardia was the winner of Division A, with a 6-1 -13 record. Yes, negative 13! A 249-point loss to
runner-up Stefan Rau (5-2 +281) in Game 3 had Jan catching up on spread points all afternoon.
Third was Ben Schoenbrun (4-3 +248) and fourth Karl Higby (4-3 +48). Brenda Casey, who gamely
played in the division despite being seeded well below the rest, received a SCRABBLE® tote bag
for her good sportsmanship.
Division B ended with the top four players with 5-2 records. The winner was Zachary Dang, with a
+302 spread. Zach has been making quite a habit of winning tournaments--and it's a pleasure to
see his enthusiasm. His win took his rating over 1200 for the first time. Second place went to Linda
Wancell (+150), who nosed out front-runner Judy Rosenthal in the final game by 34 points. Judy
was third (+139) and Jonathan Kent fourth (+73).
It was great fun having Scrabblers over for the tournament, lunch, and a swim (for some). Thanks
to everyone who made it! My next tournament will be Old Greenwich August 16-18 at the beautiful
Greenwich Hyatt. The tournament was orginally scheduled for July 19-21; however, I was able to
change my contract to the August dates when Nationals announced their 2013 NSC dates. I hope
you'll all continue to support this tournament--in a lovely hotel with a tree-filled atrium and a great
pool, perfect for a hot weekend in August!
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Italy-Croatia Cruise in Pictures
By Larry Rand and Barbara Van Alen
Twenty-five Scrabblers and friends enjoyed a cruise with visits to Italy, Sicily, and Malta June 15-26.
Here are some photos from the trip--and of the winners.
A typical street in Orvieto
A chapel with the Basilica where St. Francis of Assisi is buried
Our group
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A ceramics store in Orvieto
A cave in the Blue Grotto (Capri)
A room from a typical home in Herculaneum
Jack Eichenbaum and Siri Tillekeratne on a Blue Grotto boat
See additional photos at http://
vanrandtravel1.smugmug.com.
Visit our website for future cruises: http://
vanrandtravel.com/Van_Rand_Travel/
Welcome.html
Mt. Vesuvius on our way to Naples
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FINAL RESULTS- 15 ROUNDS
Division A
Larry Rand 9-6 +788
Jack Eichenbaum 9-6 +284
Dave Engelhardt 9-6 +235 HG- 543
Marc Levesque 8-7 -209 HL- 395
Amnon Igra 6-9 -625
Mary A. Stevens 4-11 -473
Division B
Linda Wancel 8-6-1 +108
Siri Tillekeratne 8-7 +479 HG- 562
Sharon Moser 8-7 -95
Linda Oliva 8-7 -221
Barbara Van Alen 7-8 -268 HL- 443
Tobey Roland 5-9-1 -3
Division A winners: 1. Larry Rand; 2. Jack Eichenbaum;
Dave Engelhardt (High Game); Marc Levesque (High Loss)
Division C
Denise Mahnken 10-5 +725
Audrey Pelfrey 10-5 +515 HL- 412
Betty Toole 8-5-2 +376
Barbara Morris 8-6-1 +303
Dawn Doyle 7-7-1 +415 HG- 505
Gloria Curry 0-15 -2334
Fun Prizes (Best “cruise” play)
Marc Levesque: SHUTTLES
Tobey Roland: STERN
Gloria Curry: TOASTING
Division B winners: 1. Linda Wancel; 2. Siri Tillekeratne;
Barbara Van Alen (High Loss)
Division C winners: 1. Denise Mahnken; 2. Audrey Pelfry;
Dawn Doyle (High Game)
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Tournament
Results
MAY 1-31
BERMUDA & CARIBBEAN
TREASURES CRUISE 5/2-11
1. Jan Cardia
NATIONAL SCHOOL
SCRABBLE®
CHAMPIONSHIP,
WASHINGTON, DC (NSA)
5/3-4
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1. Noah Walton
1. Noah Walton
CUYAHOGA FALLS OH 5/4
1. Scott Pianowski
2. Michael Bassett
MINNESOTA VS.
WISCONSIN BORDER
BATTLE, DECORAH IA
(WGPO) 5/4-5
1. Thomas Reinke (WI)
ROME NY 5/4
NEW YORK NY 5/4
1. Joel Sherman
2. Adam Townsend
3. Frances Shaw
OREGON TILE, PORTLAND BERKELEY CA 5/5
OR EARLY BIRD (CSW) 5/3 1. John Karris
1. Dave Wiegand
2. KC Frodyma
3. John Gaines
OREGON TILE, PORTLAND
HUDSON NY (CSW) 5/11
OR 5/3-5
1. Ronald Howard
2. Gladys Burritt
MN VS. WI BORDER
BATTLE (WGPO),
DECORAH IA 6/4-5
1. Thomas Reinke
OREGON TILE “TILE VS.
COLLINS CSW
SHOWDOWN (CSW) 5/5
1. John O’Laughlin
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SASKATOON SK CAN
5/18-19
1. George Macaulay
2. Wanda Drury
3. Julie Kading
GUELPH ON CAN 5/19
1. Tony Leah
2. Matt Schlegel
MOUNTAIN VIEW CA
(WGPO) 5/19
1. Jerry Lerman
WILMINGTON DE 5/19
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Jason Bednarz
Jeffrey Jacobson
Mark Berg
Verna Richards Berg
Linda Oliva
Marie Filandro
Ruth Brower
STAMFORD CT EARLY
BIRD 5/24
1. David Koenig
1. Brian Galebach
2. Sarah Rosenblum
ST. LOUIS PARK MN 5/11
STAMFORD CT 5/24-27
OREGON TILE, PORTLAND 1. Rob Robinsky
2. Michael Kapernaros
OR (CSW) 5/3-5
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OREGON TILE, PORTLAND HUDSON OH 5/18
1. Daniel Stock
OR LATE BIRD 5/5
1. Kevin Bowerman & Raymond 1. Daniel Citron
2. Jason Broersma
Gao
OREGON TILE EARLY
BIRD, PORTLAND OR
EARLY BIRD 5/3
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INDEPENDENCE OH (LCT)
5/14
1. Kevin McCarthy, Sr.
BAYSIDE NY 5/18
1. Marjorie Schoneboom
2. Jonathan Kent
3. Tenekia Kia Lindsay
DALLAS TX 5/18
1. Michael Early
2. Edward Gowash
1. Will Anderson
2. Ben Harrison
3. Marie Puma
ARDENCUP XII, ELMHURST
IL 5/25-27
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Lou Cornelis
Doug Lundquist
Michael Kapernaros
Mike Johnson
Joseph Newton III
ARDENCUP XII, ELMHURST
IL (CSW) 5/25-27
1. Mark Kenas
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COLLEGE PARK GA
5/25-27
1. David Gibson
2. Andrew Gardner
3. Julia Scruggs
FORT LAUDERDALE FL
5/25-27
1. Ian Weinstein
2. Elspeth Abbate
3. David M. Dzamba
IRVING TX 5/25-27
1.
2.
3.
4.
Chris Cree
Jason Randolph
April McCarley
Regenia Hidalgo
MONTREAL QC CAN
5/25-26
1. Jason Keller
2. Michael Fagen
3. Gerda De Vries
MONTREAL QC CAN
(CSW) 5/25-26
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AUSTIN TX 6/1
TORONTO ON CAN 6/5-19
1. Joey Krafchick
2. Robert Fenske
1. Mark Edelson
2. Dave Krook
3. Mireille Huneault
AUSTIN TX (CSW) 6/1
1. Geoff Thevenot
BETHEL CT 6/8
BRANDON MS 6/1
1. Joel Sherman
2. Samuel Moch
3. Roberta Borenstein
1.
2.
3.
4.
Eric Cahanin
Lindsey Dimmick
Carolyn Atchison
Murali Balasubramanyam
BETHEL CT (CSW) 6/8
1. Jason Keller
CALGARY AB CAN 6/1-2
CHARLOTTE NC 6/8
1. Eric Tran
2. Betty Bergeron
1. Matthew Bernardina
2. Hannah Lieberman
3. Marissa Freedman
NEW YORK NY 6/1
1. Joel Sherman
2. Robert Kerr
3. Linda Wancel
RICHMOND KY 6/1
1. Steve Bush
2. Joe Roberdeau
KANSAS CITY MO 6/8
1. Avery Mojica
2. Jonathan Li
3. Kimberly Taylor
MISSISSAUGA ON CAN
6/8
Geoffrey Newman
Matt Schlegel
Josh Greenway
Valeria Kovacs
Will Robertson
1. Adam Logan
TUCSON AZ 6/1
SACRAMENTO CA
5/25-27
WASHINGTON DC 6/1
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1. Rich Baker
2. Terry Vrchota
1. Sam Towne
2. Martin Gold
3. Joanna Ward
MISSISSAUGA ON CAN
(CSW) 6/8
SILICON VALLEY
SHOWDOWN,
CAMPBELL CA (WGPO)
5/25-27
WASHINGTON DC (CSW)
6/1
1. Dominick Mancine
2. Anne McCathy
BERKELEY CA 6/2
BRANDON MS 5/31
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Scott Garner
Carole Drake
Josephine Flowers
Carole Atchison
Sharon Hall
1. Richard Spence
1. David Koenig
1. Jesse Day
2. Emely Weissman
3. Dan Unger
TUCSON AZ 6/2
1. Travis Carlson
1. Chris Lipe
PORTLAND OR 6/8
1. Noah Walton
2. Kolton Koehler
3. Betty Cornelison
BETHEL CT 6/9
1. Jan Cardia
2. Zachary Dang
CHARLOTTE NC 6/9
1. Matthew Bernardina
2. Hannah Lieberman
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GUELPH ON CAN 6/9
1. Jim Nanavati
2. Crayne Spanier
KANSAS CITY MO 6/9
1. Darin True
2. Jonathan Li
3. Christy Wold
INDIANAPOLIS IN 6/14
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Marty Gabriel
Travis Green
Aditya Kini
Joe Roberdeau
Chuck Jones
Carlotta Lanier
Tootsie Hamburg
Kim Jackson
WORLD SCRABBLE
CHAMPIONSHIP
QUALIFYING
TOURNAMENT (CSW),
PRINCETON NJ 6/14-16
1. Jim Kramer; 2. Evans
Clinchy; 3. Jason Keller
PRINCETON NJ 6/14
1. Jeffrey Jacobson
2. Judy Cole
CORRALES NM
(SWLLLINS) 6/15-16
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6. Mark Garratt
ITALY-CROATIA CRUISE
(WGPO) 6/15-26
1. Larry Rand
2. Linda Wancel
3. Denise Mahnken
KNOXVILLE TN 6/15-16
1. David Gibson
2. Jerri Bergeron
3. Wayne Scruggs
PITTSBURGH PA 6/15-16
1. Jeff Cook
2. Tony Incorvati
3. Sonya Thomas
PRINCETON NJ (CSW)
6/15
SEATTLE WA 6/15
1.
2.
3.
4.
Jon Shreve
James Porter
Jane Bissonnette
Charles Dupont
MOUNTAIN VIEW CA
(WGPO) 6/16
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SCRABBLE
CHAMPIONSHIP,
TORONTO ON CAN
6/21-24
1. Adam Logan
ATCO NJ 6/22
1. Brian Galebach
2. Margo Kuno
3. DURHAM NC 6/22
1.
2.
3.
4.
Ryan Fischer
Amalan Iyengar
Kenny Hoang
Alex Zhuang
EDMONTON AB CAN 6/22
1. Timothy Anderson
2. Debra Bates
MADISON WI (WGPO)
6/22
1. Thomas Reinki
2. Peter Schmiedicke
3. Brad Williams
ROMULUS MI 6/22-23
PRINCETON NJ 6/16
SYRACUSE NY 6/22
DALLAS TX 6/15
TORONTO ON CAN 6/16
1. Robin Lewis
2. Leslie Millard
3. Edward Gowash
1. Jim Nanavati
2. Mireille Huneault
INDIANAPOLIS IN 6/15
1. Eric Peters
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1. Leesa Berahovich
1. Nicholas Vasquez
Marty Gabriel
Elizabeth Davis
Scott Hawkins
Lois Greene
Carlotta Lanier
U
1. Paul Epstein
2. Stephan Henney
3. Mark Sienkowski
1. Joey Mallick
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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TORONTO ON CAN 6/21
1. Daniel Blake
2. Shubha Kamath
GLENDALE CA 6/23
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Judy Levitt
Ira Cohen
Brian Nelson
Esther Kisich
David Baran
AUSTIN TX 6/29
1. Robin Lewis
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AUSTIN TX (CSW) 6/29
1. Geoff Thevenot
2.
CHARLESTON WV 6/29
1. Daniel Stock
1. Rob Robinsky
2. Carl Voss
NEW YORK NY 6/30
1. Debbie Stegman
2. Jeremy Hall
3. Brian Rose
1. Jack Overby
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New Faces
Since our last issue, 61 new faces have competed at NASPA and WGPO tournaments, including
our featured “New Faces”: Marissa Freedman, who won the Charlotte (NC) Lite Bird Tournament on
6/8 with a perfect 4-0 +610 record to earn an initial NASPA rating of 936; and Christy Wold, who
won the Kansas City (MO) Late Bird Tournament on 6/9 with a 5-1 +306 record to earn an initial
NASPA rating of 931.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Marissa Freedman
Marissa Freedman of Charlotte, NC, works for a healthcare company,
enjoys spending time outside with her chocolate lab, and is a big
movie buff. She also loves playing SCRABBLE®. “I started playing
SCRABBLE as a young teen—we’d play as a family on vacations.”
She also played online quite a bit during grad school and still likes a
game of Words with Friends. She competed in her first tournament,
the Charlotte Lite Bird, on June 8, winning all of her games to finish
first with a 4-0 +610 record—and earning an initial NASPA rating of
936. “This was my first SCRABBLE tournament—I might be hooked!”
Marissa had a great time at the tournament. “I enjoyed meeting other
like-minded players who enjoy playing the game as much as I do.
Everyone was very nice!” While she was a bit intimidated by the rules
and protocol, she soon found her stride. “Everyone was very helpful
in terms of teaching me the ropes. It just took a few turns to get the
hang of everything.”
She looks forward to playing in another tournament soon. “The tournament was so much fun!” Her
recommendation to other players considering a tournament: “Come and try it out!”
_____________________________________________________________________________
Christy Wold
Twenty-five-year-old Christy Wold moved from South Dakota to
Kansas City, Missouri, a little over two years ago. She is active in her
church and one of the leaders in the local high school youth group.
She enjoys reading, writing, and playing SCRABBLE® and some
other online games. “I’ve always loved and done well in all kinds of
word games and puzzles--with the striking exception of
Scattergories®. I am pretty much a miserable failure at
Scattergories!”
Christy played SCRABBLE occasionally with her mom and some
friends growing up, but it wasn’t until she graduated college that she
got more interested in the game. “However, it was often hard to find
people willing to play with me, so one day, for fun, I decided to see
how it would work if I played against myself. That turned out to be an
engaging and satisfying ‘fix’ for my word addiction--especially since I
played ‘open-book’ style with the Official SCRABBLE Players
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Dictionary as a reference. About a year ago, I started playing SCRABBLE at Pogo.com.
“I started with the free version, which does not follow tournament rules, but this January I signed up
for their membership. That gave me access to play other players following the NASPA tournament
rules, which I knew nothing about but wanted to try. At the beginning of my first NASPA-style online
game, I looked at the timer and saw that I had 25 minutes. I thought that was per turn, and thought,
‘Wow, tournament games must last a really long time.’ But I was happy to have the freedom to
spend as long as I wanted pondering each turn . . . until a few turns into the game when I happened
to look at the clock and it was down to around 12 minutes. Another turn or two later, I realized it was
25 minutes for the whole game! Needless to say, I had to think fast for the rest of my turns, having
wasted so much time at the beginning.”
In late April, Christy searched on line for local SCRABBLE clubs and contacted John Merlau, who
was listed as the director of the only Kansas City NASPA Club, #567. Unfortunately, John had
disbanded the club in December 2012 due to a lack of participants, but he suggested Christy
compete in a June tournament he was directing. “He recommended that we meet before then so he
could walk me through the tournament procedures, which we did. Though he beat me soundly in
both games we played, he gave me lots of helpful pointers and introduced me to different online
resources such as Zyzzyva and Quackle. In the weeks that followed, I continued to play a few
games a week online and dabbled with some of the resources John had shown me, including
reviewing (though by no means completely memorizing) a "cheat sheet" with valuable lists of
acceptable words (2- and 3-letters, I and U dumps, J/Q/X/Z words, common bingo combinations,
etc.). About a week before the tournament, I met with another local player who had contacted John,
Irene Twork, who graciously welcomed me into her home to play a couple games. This gave me
another chance to practice using the timer and tracking the scores and plays.”
Christy was initially overwhelmed by the idea of signing up for a tournament with so little live-play
experience, but John encouraged her to try it. “I was a little nervous at first, but when I got there,
everyone was very friendly and welcoming. The people I played against in my division shared my
love of the game and were happy to answer any questions I had. I think what I appreciated most
about the people I played with was feeling that they weren't there simply to win a game. They were
there to have fun, meet new people, and play SCRABBLE with fellow word-lovers.”
Christy won her first game, which gave her a boost of confidence, but then lost her second game.
“In that game, I challenged two words, lost both times, and then was reluctant to risk challenging
and potentially losing more turns. I let two phoneys get by.”
But she won her remaining games--and the division. “There were several great moments during the
tournament--especially each time I won a game or a challenge. Sometimes those were also the
most stressful moments: such as when three of the bingoes I played (QUEENINg, TIMBERY, and
POCKETER) were all challenged and I wasn't 100% sure of their validity. But overall, I think the best
moment was at the end when I realized I had done my best and had done well in the tournament. It
was then that I felt like I'd become part of a community of people that I would otherwise never have
met. I hope to see many of them again in future tournaments and would like to thank them for
making my first tournament such a fun and rewarding experience.”
She recommends that other new players practice tournament-style games before entering a
tournament. “If you can't join a club, there may be someone in your area that you could sit down
with once or twice to go over how it's done. At the very least, you could try contacting the
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tournament director to see if he or she might know of anyone you could play.” She also suggests
new players relax. “If you want to do a lot of studying and memorizing in preparation, great, but
don't let it overwhelm you and burn out your enjoyment of the game before you even get to the
tournament.”
Christy hopes to play in more tournaments, though she isn’t able to travel extensively. “I definitely
plan to keep participating in the Kansas City tournament each year!”
_____________________________________________________________________________
Welcome to Marissa Freedman, Christy Wold, and the following other new
faces:
OREGON TILE EARLY BIRD, PORTLAND OR 5/3-5: Mary Avery
SASKATOON SK CAN 5/18: Kate Ballard
WILMINGTON DE 5/19: Edward Carl, Marie Zakrociemski
STAMFORD CT 5/24-27: Amy Lamborn
ARDENCUP, ELMHURST IL 5/25-27: Kyle Condron, Alex Decorrevont
TORONTO ON CAN 6/5-19: Sidonie Bell, Sharon Dalgliesh, Jeff Gaunt, Esther Iczkovitz, Mickie
Katgara, Sara Rosenbaum
BETHEL CT 6/15: Dustin Brown
MONTREAL QC CAN 5/25-27: Sandra Glenns, Ella Sobel
SACRAMENTO CA 5/25-27: Pamela Haines
DALLAS TX 6/15: Joey Gordon
RICHMOND KY 6/1: Michael Haboubi, Pete Swisher (3rd)
TUCSON AZ 6/1: Tom Hendler
WASHINGTON DC 6/1: Elizabeth Berry, Gary Emanuel, Mary E. Goulet, Jennifer Lee, Thomas
Schafer (2nd)
TUCSON AZ 6/2: Peter Stokes
CHARLOTTE NC 6/8: Sean Gorman, Shawn Miklaucic (2nd), Michael Sawchuk (2nd), Andrew Voss
KANSAS CITY MO 6/8: Benjamin Errebo, Drew Malen
MISSISSAUGA ON CAN 6/8: Stan MacNeil, Sheryl Quammie, Lomi Singh, Debra Westwood
MISSISSAUGA ON CAN (COLLINS) 6/8: Mark Hettiaratchi, Shayan Jafrani
PORTLAND OR 6/8: Kevin Milbert, Carol Walker
INDIANAPOLIS IN 6/14: Phyllis Hale
CORRALES NM (SWLLLINS) 6/15: Adrienne Digneo, Elizabeth Gilchrist
DALLAS TX 6/15: Joey Gordon
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INDIANAPOLIS IN 6/15: Roger Bess, David Pogue
ITALY-CROATIA CRUISE 6/15-26: Gloria Curry
KNOXVILLE TN 6/15-16: Emily Brodeur
PITTSBURGH PA 6/15-16: Ehha Kaia
SEATTLE WA 6/15: Curt Phillips, Jim Phillips, June Shelp
MOUNTAIN VIEW CA 6/16: Kyle Brown
TORONTO ON CAN 6/16: Sara Rosenbaum
DURHAM NC 6/22: Gaurav Sirdeshmukh, Gautam Sirdeshmukh
EDMONTON AB CAN 6/22: Erin Kinsella
GLENDALE CA 6/23: Charles Laolu
AUSTIN TX 6/29: Prem Narayanan
NEW YORK NY 6/30: Michael Francus
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National SCRABBLE® Association Closes after 25+ Years
NSA Executive Director
John D. Williams, Jr, and
Jane Ratsey Williams,
Director of Operations
and School SCRABBLE
On June 3 the SCRABBLE world was saddened to hear that the National
SCRABBLE Association (NSA) would be closing on July 1. Founded in 1978,
the NSA coordinated North American club and tournament play, including the
National SCRABBLE Championship, until 2009, when the North American
SCRABBLE Players Association (NASPA) took over those responsibilities.
The NSA also published SCRABBLE News, a popular newsletter for
Scrabblers, until 2011. Until closing, the NSA promoted casual and School
SCRABBLE clubs, programs, and tournaments, and since 2003 ran the
popular annual National School SCRABBLE Championship (NSSC), which
has twice been televised on ESPN.
On June 3, John D. Williams, Jr., Executive Director of the National
SCRABBLE Association, issued the following statement:
After 25+ years, the National SCRABBLE Association (NSA) has decided to close its doors,
effective July 1, 2013. Hasbro, the game’s owner, has reduced our budget by 65% from last year,
which makes it only 25% of what the company spent promoting the game just 5 years ago. We
simply feel we cannot continue our efforts effectively without the proper financial support. By the
company’s own admission, SCRABBLE specifically, and board games in general, are now a lesser
priority under the company’s new business plan.
While this is an unanticipated and disappointing development, we accept the realities of today’s
business economy. We are choosing instead to focus on the amazing experience we’ve had over
the years promoting the SCRABBLE brand and spreading the word about the world’s greatest
game. We sincerely thank everyone who has been a part of the effort.
Currently, the plans for the future of the National School SCRABBLE Program are unclear. Moving
forward, Hasbro plans to take over the NSA’s responsibilities internally. Below are the links for
specific questions regarding this transition.
John D. Williams Jr., Executive Director
National SCRABBLE Association
More recently the following information has been released:
Beginning July 1, 2013 Hasbro will internally manage all SCRABBLE brand marketing, publicity,
Consumer Affairs and Community Relations to better align all SCRABBLE-related efforts with larger
Hasbro marketing and community relations activities.
As we move forward towards that date, the NSA will be helping Hasbro create a comprehensive
Internet source to answer consumer questions, assist in sales of product and provide a depth of
learning materials. We have provided Hasbro with proper links for tournament and rated clubs to
make it as smooth a transition for School SCRABBLE members, Library Members and Casual game
players as possible. Hasbro is working diligently to have their Hasbro SCRABBLE website updated
and ready in the next few weeks.
Since 1982 John D. Williams Jr. and the National SCRABBLE Association have played an
instrumental role in promoting SCRABBLE playing with schools, communities and families, including
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the development of the renowned National School SCRABBLE Program. Together with his partner
Jane Ratsey Williams and their amazing team their enthusiasm and hard work has brought the
SCRABBLE game to tens of thousands of students, parents, teachers and families and has been
invaluable to the brand.
Hasbro has not made a decision about the timing for the next National School SCRABBLE
Championship. They encourage School SCRABBLE Clubs, organizations and literacy groups to
continue to run SCRABBLE tournaments in their communities.
Will Hasbro continue the National School SCRABBLE Program?
Hasbro will continue to encourage SCRABBLE playing in the classroom and help provide parents
and teachers the resources to implement SCRABBLE clubs in schools at a local level.
The company will still offer teachers a specially-priced School SCRABBLE Kit and resources on
how to start School SCRABBLE clubs at www.Hasbro.com/SCRABBLE.
“It is with great sadness that the NSA staff will no longer do the outreach it has,” says Jane Ratsey
Williams.
"The SCRABBLE brand has taken us all over the world and introduced us to so many amazing
people who have touched our hearts. All of us at the NSA want you to sincerely know what a special
journey it has been for us. Please let us know if there is any assistance we can give you before our
doors close July 1.”
Who do I contact now?
• To find the latest information on the SCRABBLE brand, products, rules, Casual or School
SCRABBLE clubs and tournaments, visit www.hasbro.com/SCRABBLE
• For press/media inquiries, contact [email protected]
• For Customer Service inquires, call 888-836-7025 or visit http://www.hasbro.com/customerservice/contacts/
• For rated tournament information, contact: North American SCRABBLE Players Association
(NASPA) at www.scrabbleplayers.org • For questions regarding official SCRABBLE word sources, contact publisher: MerriamWebster, Inc. http://www.merriam-webster.com/contact/index.htm • For the licensee that supports the SCRABBLE app, contact: www.ea.com
• To reach John Williams privately [email protected] or Jane Ratsey
Williams [email protected] The National SCRABBLE Association has a long history. Its roots were an organization called the
Scrabble Crossword Game Players, Inc., founded in 1972 by Selchow & Righter (then owners of the
SCRABBLE trademark) to sell games and protect the trademark. SCGP held tournaments,
developed rules and a rating system, and chartered SCRABBLE clubs. Membership was $5, which
included a quarterly newsletter (the SCRABBLE Players Newspaper), and a copy of a strategy
guide called the Scrabble Players Handbook. Funk & Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary was
the official tournament word source. Lee Tiffany was the first head of SCGP, followed by James
Tobias and Jim Houle. Houle introduced the North American Invitational, the predecessor to today’s
National SCRABBLE Championship, in 1978.
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John D. Williams, Jr. became head of SCGP in 1987, at which time there were approximately 75
tournaments in the U.S. During his tenure Williams made enormous changes to the organization
(which changed its name to the National SCRABBLE Association), spurring the growth of
tournament SCRABBLE in North America. He brought structure to the tournament game by forming
a Rules Committee. He also helped keep SCRABBLE in the public eye by getting SCRABBLErelated stories covered by the media. Under John’s tenure the National SCRABBLE Championship
(run by the NSA through 2008) grew to be the largest SCRABBLE tournament in the world, with a
record-setting 837 player in 2004. The NSA also had a website, where players could find
information about the game; check for tournament and club details; and purchase equipment,
clothing, and books at its “Wordgear” online store.
In 1991 the NSA began actively promoting a SCRABBLE in the Schools Program, which was
eventually headed by Jane Ratsey Williams, John’s wife and NSA Director of Operations. Jane
helped encourage the development of School SCRABBLE clubs throughout the country, and
organized the annual National School SCRABBLE Championship for 4th-8th graders. With a
$10,000 first prize, this event helped promote SCRABBLE with young players nationwide. In recent
years, NSA staff members Teresa Bubb, Patty Hocker, and Katie Schultz have helped with the
NSSC as well as the NSC.
The NSA also developed and managed the ProLiteracy Worldwide Fund-Raiser Program, which has
helped raise thousands of dollars for literacy groups through SCRABBLE fundraisers.
The NSA team at the 2013 National School SCRABBLE® Championship
Thanks for the years of SCRABBLE memories!
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Scrambling for SCRABBLE® at the University of Chicago
By Bruce Shuman
On June 8th, as part of my University of Chicago's 50th reunion of the
Class of 1963, I was persuaded to "take on all comers" at SCRABBLE as
part of the big weekend on the Quadrangle of our institution. I am
pleased to report on a more-or-less successful SCRABBLE-themed allgeezer fundraiser, in the hopes that others might profit from reading
about both my success and my mistakes, should anyone care to try to
replicate my experience.
Background: Over 60 years ago, my father, noting my burgeoning
interest in chess, took me downtown on a Saturday, where, in the
ballroom of the city's biggest hotel, we witnessed an event in which a
grandmaster chess champion (don't ask me to recall his name) took on all comers, and demolished
any of the local gentry who had the effrontery to challenge him. As memory serves, the champion
played perhaps 30 opponents, seated outside a large square of tables, while he abruptly, arrogantly,
roamed around the interior of the square. The results were predictable: Champion: 30; challengers:
nil, although there might have been a stalemate or two (it's hard to remember things at your age
when your Social Security number is 4).
I never forgot that afternoon, and so, when most of the surviving members of the Class of 1963
wrote up our responses to the open-ended question, "What have you been doing in the half-century
since graduation?" I, of course, in submitting my details, mentioned my long career as a tournament
SCRABBLE player. This caused our reunion chairperson to prevail upon me to provide a
combination fundraiser and entertainment, whereby I would take on all comers at SCRABBLE -- six
at a time -- within a three-hour time period. The stakes: When I won a game, my vanquished
opponent would be asked (but not required) to write a check and mark it as part of our class gift (an
Odyssey scholarship fund); and when I lost, I would add a similar amount to the same pot of money.
Scrambling for Scrabble Sponsored by the
Class of 1963
Saturday
12:00PM–3:00PM
Ida Noyes Hall, East Lounge, 1212 E. 59th St.
Registration Required Free
Classmate and champion Scrabble enthusiast Bruce Shuman AB’63, AM’65, will take on all comers—up to
eight opponents at a time (priority will be given to members of the Class of ’63). Opponents may play as
individuals or form a team to defeat Bruce. For every game lost, Bruce has offered to donate $25 to the Class
of 1963 Odyssey Fund. Those he vanquishes will be asked (but not required) to do the same. Please bring your
Scrabble set.
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Approximately 100 classmates plus their significant others attended the reunion, and of those, 18
signed up to play against me, with an additional 12 placed on a waiting list. My event was boiled
down to a timed schedule of three shifts of six (thankfully negotiated with the Alumni Office down
from the original eight opponents at a time). While the event raised an extra $325 for the Class Gift,
the afternoon, while not quite a train wreck, suffered glitches and delays, for various unanticipated
reasons:
(1) Some signed-up players failed to show up for their "slots," without telling anyone.
have seen that coming.
Should
(2) A call had been put out numerous times over the preceding six months for prospective
opponents to bring their boards, racks, and tiles, but most, alas, did not.
(3) I found myself playing on the sort of ancient boards that geriatrics like me remember from our
youth, in which incised wooden tiles bedeck a board lacking in ridges.
(4) So-called "kitchen table" SCRABBLE players who thought they were "pretty good" at
SCRABBLE, discovered that they really weren't, and had almost no shot of winning against an
experienced and reasonably competent tournament player unless they had a lot of lucky draws and
had previously studied and learned the lists of acceptable "twos" and "threes." As stated earlier, this
event was primarily a fundraiser and secondarily a social event, with "competition" coming in only a
distant third. Not everybody -- it would seem -- got the memo on that.
(5) Due to the absence of timed games, some ran overlong, causing impatience in those waiting.
(6) My challenges did not always go unchallenged, themselves. A few opponents wanted to argue
and kept kvetching about WHY a certain word was unacceptable in the OWL. I repeated that the
"book" was the sole authority, hoping that we could just move on, but dissatisfaction -- not with me
but with "that damned book" -- caused them to lose turns, and thus, games. An example: a former
classmate played a nifty vertical word, FRYING, which I complimented enthusiastically, but in her
next turn, she hooked an S onto that play to make FRYINGS* with a horizontal play, and
complained bitterly when I had the chutzpah to challenge it off. I just said "Sorry!" and moved on
down the line, which may have seemed smug and heartless to her, but what else could I do?
(7) Despite being asked to have their next plays all ready to go when I returned to their boards and
refocussed my attention on the situations at hand, some opponents were manifestly unready, and
made me -- and everybody else involved -- wait while they pondered their next plays, which meant
that the whole line, already chafing at having to wait so long for their turns, had to wait even longer
for me to circle back to them.
(8) Some opponents didn't seem to recognize or care that the event was primarily a fundraiser.
They thought it was a blood sport, and thus were miffed at losing. Not bad sports, exactly. Just
disgruntled. Guys like me -- most of us, anyway -- are old hands at losing gracefully. One or two of
my weekend opponents? Not so much.
(9). The best part of the whole experience: Playing SCRABBLE against eleven of my former
classmates. The worst part? Trying to score four or five games simultaneously, which was an
unmitigated nightmare! Never the world's best multitasker, I kept screwing up, writing plays on the
wrong sheets, the correction of which burned into valuable time, and I grew weary of uttering lame
apologies. In retrospect, I should have either asked someone to follow me around and keep score(s)
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for me while I focussed on my plays and those of my opponents, or just trusted opponents to keep
score, accepting whatever they announced.
(10) I did answer one question I'd long had: How hard would it be to use artifice to, you know, "tank"
a game, in the interest of making an opponent happy? Turns out that throwing a game is piece of
cake. All you do is "overlook" bingos and other high-count plays on your rack, and at the same time,
stifle the natural urge to challenge off opponents' plays that you know to be bogus. Thus (but feeling
a pang of ethical ambiguity), I allowed a single game to "get away from me," and in so doing, I flatout delighted an opponent, who crowed about beating me at that evening's get-together, while I just
stood by, wearing a beneficent smile.
Bottom line: my efforts on that recent Chicago afternoon added a few hundred extra bucks to the
substantial amount raised by my class and enhanced -- if only slightly -- the huge amount that we all
ponied up as a class for the Odyssey Scholarship Fund. I was also the recipient of lavish praise
from my classmates for my willingness to put on this event, and going 10 up and 1 down on the
afternoon wasn't exactly chopped liver, was it? My performance helped showcase the abilities of a
reasonably good SCRABBLE player, and, who knows? It just might serve to bring a few of my
victims into SCRABBLE clubs near their home towns to improve their games. At the same time, my
single "loss" might well have saved me from the terrible sin of pride.
I'd be happy to discuss aspects of this experience with readers of The Last Word. Write to me at
[email protected], (or call me at 910-256-9659) and I'll do my best to field any questions and/or
comments.
Bruce Shuman, director, NASPA Club #611, Wilmington, North Carolina
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Club News
Edited by Larry Sherman
If you'd like your club to be considered for an article or if a newsworthy event has taken place at
your club in the last month, please submit material to [email protected].
________________________________________________________________
Ottawa Club Stars at Canadian National SCRABBLE® Championship
By Sherrie Saint John
Adam Logan won this year's CNSC with three consecutive wins
in the best of five finals with Ross Brown. What those outside
their club might not know is that Adam and Ross are both
members of Ottawa's NASPA Club 495 (http://
www.ottawascrabbleclub.com). What is even more incredible:
five of the top ten prizewinners at the 2013 CNSC came from
this very club!
L-R: 2013 Canadian National SCRABBLE
Champion, Adam Logan; CNSC Director
John Chew; Finalist and runner-up Ross
Brown. Adam and Ross are both
members of Ottawa’s NASPA Club #495.
1. 14-4 +1253 Adam Logan (plus three wins in the finals)
2. 13-5 +722 Ross Brown
3. 12-6 +855 Matthew Tunnicliffe
6. 12-6 +649 John Stardom
10. 11-7 +153 Kristiina Overton
For his top finish, Adam won $5000, a trophy, and he donated $2000 to the Children's Hospital of
Eastern Ontario Foundation. Rounding out the other club prizes, Ross: $2500, Matthew: $1000,
John: $250, and Kristiina: $100.
Two days after the CNSC, at the Wednesday weekly club meeting at the Gloucester Public Library
(Meeting Room A, 2036 Ogilvie Rd., from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM), the club celebrated their national
champion with a loud round of applause when he entered the room. Immediately afterwards, club
member Thérèse Bartley unveiled a cake she'd had made for the celebration. The cake was
enormous and yummy, featured all the club's CNSC top finishers in white lettering on chocolate
frosting, and all but one piece had disappered by the night's end. To add to the celebration, nearly
two dozen pieces of baklava also were consumed.
Just to show that things were settling back into normalcy after the club's three games, Adam
admitted he'd gone 2-1, losing one to a badly played endgame--to Ross Brown! Even champions
have their club losses!
Complete coverage of the CNSC will appear in the next issue of The Last Word.
OTTAWA (ON, CAN) NASPA SCRABBLE® Club #495 meets Wednesday nights from 7:00-10:00
p.m. at the Gloucester Public Library, Meeting Room A, 2036 Ogilvie Rd., Ottawa, ON, Canada.
Contacts: Emilie Henkelman, 613-723-1999, [email protected]; Sue Tremblay,
613-822-0792, [email protected]; Matthew Tunnicliffe, [email protected]. Club
website: http://www.ottawascrabbleclub.com.
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627 game at Casselberry/Orlando Club #438
Congratulations to Supriya Nagpal Devnani, who
joined the 600 club on July 1. In her third game
of the evening she went on a four-bingo
bonanza, saving her best for last. With the
gorgeous LEXICOn, she announced “146 and
out.” Her final score was 627 points. (Story and
photo courtesy of Art Moore)
ORLANDO-CASSELBERRY (FL) NASPA
SCRABBLE® Club #438 meets Monday nights
at 7:00 p.m. at the Wirz Park Recreation Building,
806 Mark David Blvd., Casselberry, FL (just north
of Orlando). Contacts:
[email protected]; Art Moore,
4007-733-2095; Brian Miller, 407-580-1099.
______________________________________________________________________________
INTERLOPEr at Dallas Club #319
Chris Schneider had a fun play recently at Dallas (TX) Club #319. With LINTERS on his rack, but
no place to play it, he found his only available bingo through OPE: INTERLOPES!
DALLAS/RICHARDSON (TX) NASPA SCRABBLE® Club #319 meets Thursday nights at 7:00
p.m. at Whataburger, 1910 N. Coit Road, Richardson, TX. Contacts: Mike Willis, 302-419-7248,
[email protected]; Pat Sanchez, 214-328-2942, [email protected].
_____________________________________________________________________________
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The SCRABBLE® Rebellion
By Julian Daffern
On May the thirty-first of this year players of the Gamehouse version of online SCRABBLE were
shocked to find that the game they knew had been changed almost beyond recognition. They had
been informed for several weeks previously to this that there was going to be an “upgrade” to the
game, but were given no details of what this would actually mean. SCRABBLE® is a registered
trademark, and all intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and
Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of
Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Prior to May 31, Hasbro had licensed
the online rights to the game to Electronic Arts (EA) for the United States and Canada, and Mattel
had licensed these rights to Gamehouse for the rest of the world. The changes to the game for the
rest of the world were a consequence of Mattel awarding the online rights to Electronic Arts (EA).
What EA did was not an upgrade of the Gamehouse version of SCRABBLE; instead they completely
replaced it with what many players found to be a far inferior version of the game. Immediately after
the change, new pages and groups began to appear on Facebook set up by disgruntled players of
the old version. After a few days there were dozens of pages, and thousands of members began
talking to each other in order to coordinate the protest. The largest of these groups is “Bring Back
the Scrabble We Love” with over 3,000 members(https://www.facebook.com/groups/
492649110806594/). Complaints began to flood into the Mattel and Scrabble fan pages but were
completely ignored apart from a statement from Mattel about change being frustrating. Players were
further angered when Mattel and EA began deleting many negative comments on their pages and
also barring many people from their pages altogether even though they had always been polite and
never abusive. A week or so after the campaign to restore the old game started there were several
articles about it in the media, including the BBC. Mattel received hundreds of emails from players,
yet at the date of this article had not answered one complaint other than an automated response.
One of the initial problems with the replacement of the old version was the fact that players had
game contacts with whom they regularly played and chatted, sometimes for years and sometimes
supporting each other through difficult times in their lives. These people were not always friends on
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Facebook and were only identified in the game by their first name and the first letter of their
surname, so when the changes took place, people lost these contacts without warning and with no
way of finding them again. Many illustrations of this point can be found on the page “Scrabble -- The
Game with Heart” (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Scrabble-The-Game-With-Heart/
137294323135332).
Functionality was also a major problem with the new game. In the old Gamehouse version players
had the ability to choose games with various timed turns; the new game does not have this feature.
Players also could view prospective opponents’ stats before choosing to play them; the new game
chooses a random opponent. The old game auto refreshed; in the new game you have to “poke”
your opponents to let them know it is their turn. In old version there was a display of tiles remaining
in the bag; in the new version players have to pay for this feature. The Gamehouse version was
played on a traditional board, whilst in the new game there is an option to pay for playing on a
traditional board or else play on a cartoon version of the game.
There is a planned worldwide protest on the thirteenth of July, where people will be playing
SCRABBLE in public places to raise awareness. More information on this can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/118501358320154/118718001631823/?notif_t=group_activity.
Mattel and EA have continued to ignore emails, block comments, and delete comments by people
with a genuine concern and a love of the game of SCRABBLE. This is not good customer service,
and we will continue to campaign for the restoration of the old game. Below I will provide a list of
links to the various pages, groups and articles, by no means comprehensive.
Julian Daffern
https://www.facebook.com/BringBackTheOldScrabble
Articles:-
http://thehoopla.com.au/dont-mess-with-my-game-scrabble/
www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/lets-have-the-old-game-back-period.html
http://
http://
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www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22905191
furious-game-overhaul-of-games-app/
broke-don-t-fix-it
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http://www.itv.com/news/2013-06-14/scrabble-fans-
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/scrabble-if-it-ain-t-
http://www.pontefractandcastlefordexpress.co.uk/community/scrabble-change-
prompts-anger-1-5769129
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-14-ea-makes-a-scrabbled-
egg-of-the-official-scrabble-app
http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
news/article-2341899/Have-word-Scrabble-players-furious-changes-popular-board-game-app.html?
ito=feeds-newsxml
http://news.techeye.net/software/ea-scrambles-scrabble
http://
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/features/scrabble-for-answers-as-game-changes-leave-players-lostfor-words-1-5767565
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125063-EAs-New-Scrabble-
App-Causes-Kerfuffle
http://www.fin24.com/Economy/Lost-for-words-20130614
http://
www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/scrabbles-facebook-update-spells-a-n-g-e-r/storyfni0cx12-1226658962628
facebook
https://soundcloud.com/primediabroadcasting/mandi-smallhorne-
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/vu-sur-le-web/20130618.OBS3744/facebook-la-
refonte-de-l-appli-scrabble-excede-les-utilisateurs.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/robatkinson/games-giant-mattels-scrabble_b_3536651.html
Pages: - https://www.facebook.com/weboycottea https://www.facebook.com/groups/
492649110806594/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/555363251182500/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/622037857807232/
https://www.facebook.com/BringBackScrabbleWorldWide
https://www.facebook.com/bringbackoldscrabble
https://www.facebook.com/NewScrabbleDislikePage
https://www.facebook.com/BoycottScrabble
https://www.facebook.com/oldscrabble
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Scrabble-Changes-Are-Reversible/463299813752521?
fref=pb&hc_location=profile_browser
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The Nervous Rack: My Life in SCRABBLE®
Greetings from Nerdville
By Daiva Markelis
Daiva Markelis is a professor of English at Eastern Illinois University and
the author of White Field, Black Sheep: A Lithuanian-American Life. She
and her husband, expert Marty Gabriel, both play tournament SCRABBLE.
_________________________________________________________________________
(2/7/13) Friends who know me from my most recent incarnation (I typed incarceration by mistake
but quickly realized my mistake)—the last fifteen years of my life when I can safely call myself an
adult—would probably characterize me as outgoing and outspoken. I blurt what’s on my mind; I tell
strangers not to litter, my husband to pay attention to my important musings, and my students to
shape up or ship out.
As a girl, however, I was shy, scared of the Italian girls in my neighborhood with their bouffant
hairdos and smoldering cigarettes. Bad influences, my grandmother called them. I was fearful of
some of the Lithuanian girls as well, the older ones who wore lipstick and knew the meaning of
words like douchebag.
I imagine a postcard from my early grade school days—me with my hair in braids and my teeth
begging for braces, pasting insect stamps into my Young Adventurer’s Stamp Collector’s Book. In
the background one can detect the faint outlines of a chess set. Next to the chess set, in bold relief,
stands a pile of books including Tell My Why (Sample question: How big is the universe?), Profiles
in Courage, and an unabridged Lithuanian-English dictionary.
Greetings from Nerdville, the postcard says.
(Husband intrusion: “Do you know that nerd can also be spelled nurd?” But nerdy can only be
spelled nerdy, not nurdy.”)
My nerdiness followed me into high school. I memorized the poetry of Longfellow for fun, stayed up
nights reading Tolkien, and almost flunked out of gym—though it was leavened somewhat by
participation in drama productions (high school drama productions, not my own—those came later)
and occasional use of various illegal substances.
As I’m writing this I’m wondering what the difference is between nerd and geek. Are they
interchangeable? I vaguely remember hearing that geek is more positive than nerd.
When I first met my husband, we asked each other about our ethnic backgrounds.
“I’m half Greek,” Marty told me. What I heard, though, was “I’m half geek.”
“The other half of you must be jock,” I nodded wisely.
I sometimes think if I’d been born twenty years later I wouldn’t have had such a difficult time in
school. These days nerdiness is accepted, if not celebrated (though I suspect that young nerds still
have a hard time of it, especially if most of their classmates are non-nerds.) The Big Bang Theory is
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one of the most popular sitcoms on television. Top celebrity nerds, according to popular
entertainment blogs, include such attractive people as Natalie Portman, James Franco, Vigo
Mortensen, and the Gyllenhaals. Students come to class wearing t-shirts with slogans like “Ich bin
ein nerd,” “Chaucer is my homeboy,” and “Cogito ergo sum.” (There should be a comma after the
cogito: Cogito, ergo sum. Many people labor under the false assumption that there are no commas
in Latin, but this is true only of medieval Latin. Fun fact: the comma as we know it was adapted
from the virgule–a real word because it’s good in SCRABBLE®—a little diagonal slash first used in
the middle ages. I learned this from the Wikipedia site for comma, which includes a little warning:
“Not to be confused with coma.” A lot of my students do confuse comma with coma. A few years
ago a student wrote the following: “I was in a comma out of which I painfully emerged.” I was very
tempted to respond, “I was once in a question mark and, let me tell you, that was no fun.”)
I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this or how it relates to SCRABBLE, except that the game
attracts a lot of nerdy people. Tournament SCRABBLE players are probably all nerds by definition,
though some are nerdier than others. Quite a few are accomplished, attractive, sophisticated nerds.
Melissa Routzahn, for example, is a curvaceous blue-eyed blonde who also happens to be an
expert on cheese. Lisa Brown has shining hair down to her butt and a wonderful laugh and knows
about a thousand languages. There are many more examples. Of course, there are also just plain
ol’ weird nerds, mostly guys who won’t look you in the eye and wear high-water pants and shortsleeved shirts with pocket protectors, but I’ll save that topic for another time.
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Historic Moments: SCRABBLE® Through the Years
Monumental Mistakes of Monumental Players
By Stu Goldman
We all make mistakes. When I was teaching I would tell my students not to be embarassed by
mistakes since the only people who didn’t make mistakes were the dead. Yet errors that show
unusual lack of attention to fundamentals of SCRABBLE have occasionally been made by its
greatest players.
A Brit who has won the WSC was famous for milking every second of his clock. In one game his
opponent was stuck with the J and his rack contained several O's, so he had to guard against
setting up a hook for JO. He was about to go out with TOY (or another three ending in OY) in the
lower left corner of the board, when he thought he'd use his few remaining seconds for another play
and just put down OY. Of course his opponent played JOY to go out!
Perhaps the mst disastrous error of this type happened to a player who has won both the NSC and
the Superstars of 1992. He was studying for the upcoming WSC at a time when words were also
being added to the OSPD. That led to some confusion of what three-letter words could be made. In
a large tournament he added K in front of ET and played KET. His opponent challenged
successfully, so he played KEN on his next turn; but he played in the same place, so he had still
played KET. Of course, this was again successfully challenged. That cause a loss of the tournament
by a few points of cume. If he had not made the second KET play, he would have won the
tournament.
My own failing in his regard is not as complicated. I lost a one-day tournament once when my
opponent bingoed out on the TWS row. I failed to notice that the 2-letter hook he made to do it was
as phony as the proverbial three dollar bill. So at least in that regard I AM IN THE COMPANY OF
THE VERY BEST.
Stu Goldman lives in California and has been playing tournament SCRABBLE® for 40 years.
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What’s Your Play?
Michael Turniansky found an interesting play at Baltimore (MD) NASPA SCRABBLE® Club #50 in a
game against Joanne Cohen on Thursday, June 20. Here’s his board. What did he play?
ANSWER on next page.
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ANSWER
IE SANSERIF
Notes Michael: “Only 27 eight-letter words end in F: aardwolf, airproof, aperitif, bodysurf, digestif,
disproof, dummkopf, kerchief, langlauf, longleaf, meatloaf, mischief, mooncalf, moonroof, oilproof,
overleaf, sanserif, semideaf, shinleaf, subchief, subdwarf, sunproof, unbelief, werewolf, wetproof,
windsurf, yourself.”
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Word Trivia Quiz
By Siri Tillekeratne
The following words whose unique meanings are given were added to the OSPD in 2006. What are
those words?
1. A dirty or contemptible person
2. A fish of the pipefish family
3. To transport (military personnel and equipment) by ship
4. A food made of wheat gluten
5. A creature in Scottish and Irish folklore
6. The sale of a large number of stocks, bonds, or commodities
7. A white grape grown in France
8. A malignant tumor of the testis
9. A teacher of Japanese martial arts
10. The waste in a septic tank
ANSWERS on next page.
Siri Tillekeratne is a director of the Calgary NASPA SCRABBLE® Club #374 and a former Director
of the Year.
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1. A dirty or contemptible person SCUZZ/ES
2. A fish of the pipefish family SEAHORSE/S
3. To transport (military personnel and equipment) by ship SEALIFT/S/ED/ING
4. A food made of wheat gluten SEITAN/S
5. A creature in Scottish and Irish folklore SELKIE/S, SILKIE/S
6. The sale of a large number of stocks, bonds, or commodities SELLOFF/S
7. A white grape grown in France SEMILLON/S
8. A malignant tumor of the testis SEMINOMA/S
9. A teacher of Japanese martial arts SENSEI/S
10. The waste in a septic tank SEPTAGE/S
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Canadian Team Qualifying Tournament Information
From John Robertson
A poll of the players thus far who are interested in vying for Canada’s last spot at the upcoming
SCRABBLE® Champions Tournament [formerly known as the World SCRABBLE Championship] in
Prague resulted in the following decision: The qualifying tourney (QT) will be held the weekend of
August 10-11 at the Earl Bales Community Centre in Toronto. Approximately 14 rounds of games
will be contested over those two days. The schedule and exact number of games to be played will
not be finalized until after 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on August 3. That is the deadline for any interested
Canadian players to sign up for the event.
Presently there are six interested players. If the number of players registered at the deadline is an
odd number, the deadline will be extended in hopes of having an even number of players. (The
additional player will be accepted on a first-come-first-served basis.)
Anyone wishing to participate in this important QT needs to contact the NASPA Canadian
Committee by the above deadline. The Canadian Committee will be the final arbiter regarding
registration issues.
Please consider playing in this event if you are a Canadian Collins player. (The Collins lexicon will
be used in the QT.)
We are also looking for a director to oversee this event. Anyone interested in this position should
contact the Canadian Committee as well.
John Robertson
NASPA Canadian Committee Chairman
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SCRABBLE® and Scrabblers in the News
Edited by Judy Cole
See something about SCRABBLE® or a SCRABBLE® player in the news? Let us know! Send your
stories to Judy Cole ([email protected]).
_______________________________________________________________________________
Tourney Talk
SCRABBLE® clubs and tournaments are in
the news:
• Canadian National SCRABBLE®
Championship – On June 24, 2013,
Adam Logan was crowned the 2013
Canadian National SCRABBLE®
champion after defeating fellow Ottawa
player Ross Brown in the best-of-five
finals.
MAY/JUNE MILESTONES
ERIC TRAN reached 2000 for the first time at the
CNSC in Toronto (ON).
NOAH WALTON reached 2000 for the first time at
the Portland (OR) tournament.
MORRIS GREENBERG reached 1600 for the first
time at the CNSC in Toronto (ON).
SIDDHARTH MURALI reached 1600 for the first
time at the Knoxville (TN) tournament.
JASON RANDOLPH reached 1600 for the first time
at the Irving (TX) tournament.
PETER NOOM reached 1500 for the first time at the
SWILLINS tournament in Corrales (NM) tournament.
CURRAN EGGERTSON reached 1500 for the first
time at the Calgary (AB) tournament.
The Canadian National SCRABBLE®
Championship featured 52 of the best
Scrabble players from across the
country for a weekend of competition at
the Bond Place Hotel.
SAM TOWNE reached 1500 for the first time at the
Washington (DC) tournament.
JONATHAN KOFOED reached 1500 for the first
time at the Elmhurst (IL) tournament.
MIKE JOHNSON reached 1500 for the first time at
the Elmhurst (IL) tournament.
Adam won $5,000 for himself and
$2,000 for the charity of his choice, the
Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Foundation.
Global News (06/24/2013) http://globalnews.ca/news/668098/a-d-a-m-l-o-g-a-n-crownedscrabble-champ/
Canada Newswire (06/24/2013) http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1189243/adam-logan-spells-v-ic-t-o-r-y-at-the-2013-canadian-national-scrabble-championship
• Muscat (Oman) – Barbara Luke, a veteran English player visiting Oman, won the Oman Open
SCRABBLE® tournament held on May 17, 2013.
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The tournament was organized select a team of 8 to
represent Oman at the Annual Gulf SCRABBLE®
Championships to be held in Dubai at the end of May.
Times of Oman (05/20/2013) http://
www.timesofoman.com/News/Article-15861.aspx
•Dubai (UAE) – The 23rd Annual Gulf SCRABBLE®
Tournament drew players from around the region on
May 30 through June 1, 2013. The top finishers from
each country will qualify for the SCRABBLE®
Champions Tournament (formerly known as the World
Championships) in Prague in December.
Making his debut in the Gulf championship was 15year-old Navya Zaveri, who was crowned the
under-16 world champion last December. He could not
hide his nerves yesterday: “This is the first time I’ll be
competing against adults. I have high hopes but I can’t
really say much. Anything can happen. There is always
a luck element – that’s part of the game, you can’t
avoid it.”
The 30 competitors ranged in age from 12 to 71 (the winner, Mohammad Sulaiman, by the
way).
The National (05/30/2013) http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/war-of-words-in-dubai-asscrabble-champs-convene
Khaleej Times (06/01/2013) http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/
nationgeneral/2013/June/nationgeneral_June1.xml&section=nationgeneral
7 Days in Dubai (06/02/2013) http://www.7daysindubai.com/Scrabble-fans-battle-Gulfchampionship/story-19155877-detail/story.html
•Sacramento (CA) – Tony Wade describes his participation in
the inaugural Sacramento SCRABBLE® Open over Memorial
Day Weekend.
Tony plans to place the SCRABBLE® rug he received from Sam
Kantimathi beneath his card table stamped with a
SCRABBLE® board and accompanied by oversize tiles.
Daily Republic (06/03/2013) http://www.dailyrepublic.com/news/
locallifestylecolumns/scrabble-tournament-an-early-fathers-daygift/
•Christchurch (NZ) - Eight-year-old Lewis Hawkins won
Division 5 at a national competition in Christchurch at the
beginning of June and has qualified to represent New Zealand
at the SCRABBLE® Champions Tournament.
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Lewis plays at least two hours a day and papers the walls of his bedroom and bathroom with
word lists.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8761228/Lewis-is-at-the-zenith-of-aptitude/
•Princeton (NJ) – On June 16, 2013, 14-year Nick Vasquez won
the 1-day tournament (TWL) taking place alongside the
SCRABBLE® Champions Tournament qualifier (Collins).
To celebrate Father’s Day and his victory, Nick offered to take his
family out to dinner with the $135 first prize.
The Alternative Press (06/17/2013) http://thealternativepress.com/
articles/14-year-old-wins-princeton-scrabble-tournament
•Deerfield (IL) – Chicago NASPA Club #340 meets Sunday
afternoons at the North Shore Unitarian Church. During evennumbered months such as June, the club presents cash prizes
(about $20) for such achievements as high score and low score as
well some creative contests – for example, best summer word.
Club co-director Liz Berman was on the losing end of this month’s
likely high score, a 589 by her opponent.
Chicago Tribune (06/17/2013) http://www.chicagotribune.com/
news/local/suburbs/highland_park_deerfield/ct-tl-lk-0620religion-20130617,0,6932388.story
•Las Vegas (NV) – MindSports International will be holding its first
tournament in the United States from July 5 to 7, 2013, at the
Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Among the attendees will be the
$50,000 SCRABBLE® board.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=5mMZqERJCwQ
In Jeopardy!
Concord (MA) SCRABBLE® player Judy Cole competed on the June 21, 2013, episode of
Jeopardy!
Judy rang in to get the first question and bet enough on the Final Jeopardy question to win if the
returning champion was not as familiar with Betty Boop as she was. Alas, he was!
You can watch the show at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85iDKKGOiRY.
Judy’s appearance garnered a notice in the Concord Patch (06/23/2013) - http://concord.patch.com/
articles/concord-resident-competes-on-jeopardy.
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Bourne Identity
Elisabeth Jardine of Bournemouth (UK) travels the world playing SCRABBLE®
for cash and glory, racking up telephone-number scores, and vanquishing
opponents with fiendish words like SYENITIC.
In 1987, Elisabeth started the Bournemouth SCRABBLE® Club, which attracts
16 players on average to its weekly meetings. She currently serves as a
complaints officer for Association of British SCRABBLE® Players (ABSP).
Daily Echo (06/02/2013) http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/
10452881.Meet_Elisabeth__she_travels_the_world_playing_Scrabble_for_cash/
No Passing Passion
New Holland (PA) SCRABBLE® player Marichelle Roque-Lutz shares her passion for
SCRABBLE® with reminiscences of her games as a teenager in the Philippines and her adventures
on the Philadelphia (PA) area tournament and club circuit since her retirement in 2006.
Philippine Daily Inquirer (05/19/2013) http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/104021/what-i-do-for-a-game-ofscrabble
School Days
Students playing SCRABBLE® are in the news:
• National School SCRABBLE® Championship – This year’s champions, Kevin Bowerman
and Raymond Gao, continue to attract media attention.
•News Observer (05/19/2013) – According to the
champions, to get really good at SCRABBLE®, you
need to play a lot of SCRABBLE®. Kevin plays 10 to
15 hours a week while Raymond estimates that he
plays about 8 hours a week.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/05/19/2903669/
scrabble-stardom.html
•Chapelboro.com (05/19/2013) – Kevin looks
forward to appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live!: “I’m
pretty excited to be on the show. I think it’s a pretty
big accomplishment to win but to also to appear on
national TV. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
http://chapelboro.com/news/entertainment/chapel-hill-teen-scrabble-champs-to-appear-onjimmy-kimmel-live/
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• Jimmy Kimmel Live! (05/24/2013) – As has become a tradition, the champions faced off
against Jimmy Kimmel with John Williams of the National SCRABBLE® Association as the
referee.
•Part 1 - http://
www.youtube.com/watch?
v=gaH6Gf1BWtE
•Part 2 - http://
v=ghSdL-FqfIU
You can stroll down memory
lane with a retrospective of past
matches at http://
v=Eyof3V5bpos.
• Vista (CA) – On May 8, 2013, 122 students from 4 elementary schools competed in the 11th
annual tournament at Empresa Elementary School. Among the words played were LOCKING for
110 points.
U-T San Diego (05/13/2013) http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/may/14/tp-scrabbletournament-marks-11th-year-at-vista/
• Uganda National School SCRABBLE® Championship – Britania Allied Industries has
contributed over $7,000 to promote SCRABBLE® among students in Uganda.
Winners at the National School SCRABBLE® Championship
on June 1, 2013, will receive cash prizes and gift hampers.
New Vision (05/28/2013) http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/
643292-scrabble-lands-sponsorship-for-schoolschampionship.html
•Orpington (UK) – In the UK Channel 4 documentary series
Child Genius, SCRABBLE® player Shrinidhi Prakash is one
of 21 children taking part in a contest for exceptionally gifted
children, run in association with British Mensa.
Shrinidhi hopes to one day have a say in which words make
it into the dictionary – don’t we all?
Bromley Times (06/13/2013) http://www.bromleytimes.co.uk/
news/
orpington_scrabble_champion_appears_on_channel_4_child_genius_documentary_1_2235498
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•Abu Dhabi (UAE) – In a bid to improve the Arabic
writing skills of students, the Abu Dhabi Education
Council will introduce Arabic SCRABBLE® to
Grade 6 students across the public schools in the
emirate for the next academic year as an
extracurricular learning resource.
Khaleej Times (06/18/2013) http://
www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?
xfile=data/todayevent/2013/June/
todayevent_June23.xml&section=todayevent
AV Laurels
Dublin (IN) SCRABBLE® player Penny Sitler was recently presented the
Women in AV Award by InfoComm International.
With more than 30 years of AV industry experience, Penny has built a
marketing program at Draper, Inc., worthy of recognition, launching all web
and social media initiatives and overseeing many product launches.
Starting at Draper as an intern, she eventually became the company’s first
female salaried employee.
AV Network (06/13/2013) http://www.avnetwork.com/latest/0013/aneetagupta-and-penny-sitler-named-infocomm-women-in-av-award-winners/
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Bonjour, WiFi!
As part of Ogilvy Paris’ recent
campaign for SCRABBLE®, WiFi
hotspots were set up in areas of
Paris (France) that don’t normally
have WiFi connections. To get
connected, people had to play
SCRABBLE® to unlock a WiFi
password and get free minutes for
their SCRABBLE® points.
Just don’t try to play WIFI*.
Digiday (06/07/2013) http://
www.digiday.com/brands/scrabblebrings-free-wi-fi-to-good-spellers/
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Facebook Flap
Mattel’s decision to partner with Electronic Arts for SCRABBLE® on Facebook was met with delight
by Collins devotees in North America but with dismay by the 3.5 million users of the previous
version. Game statistics and contact lists were lost during the upgrade.
Helen Jones, who is leading a protest against the change, commented:
“This is Scrabble, people are completely obsessed with their statistics. This is
not some Candy Crush game. We used to have a really classy board but now
it’s vulgar. It has been totally Americanised.”
John Lewis organized a protest in the town center of Pontefract (UK) to
bring attention to the issue and created an online petition, which has
garnered over 5,000 signatures.
Daily Mail (05/31/2013) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/
article-2334218/Furious-Scrabble-fans-boycottFacebooks-version-board-game-hard-earned-scoresdeleted-software-upgrade.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Technology Tell (06/01/2013) http://
www.technologytell.com/apple/117629/scrabble-for-iosupdated-six-new-languages-added/
Herald Sun (06/07/2013) http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/scrabbles-facebook-update-spells-a-ng-e-r/story-fnii5s3y-1226658962628
IT Wire (06/07/2013) http://www.itwire.com/your-it-news/entertainment/60199-facebook-screwedscrabble-say-serious-supporters-%E2%80%93-sacrilegious
Daily Maverick (06/11/2013) http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2013-06-11-facebookscrabble-more-than-just-a-game/#.UcuhrDusgRQ
BBC News (06/14/2013) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22905191
Pontefract & Castleford Express (06/14/2013) http://www.pontefractandcastlefordexpress.co.uk/
news/scrabble-change-prompts-anger-1-5769129
Daily Mail (06/14/2013) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341899/Have-word-Scrabbleplayers-furious-changes-popular-board-game-app.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Yorkshire Post (06/17/2013) http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/features/scrabble-for-answers-asgame-changes-leave-players-lost-for-words-1-5774556
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Sing a Song of SCRABBLE®
Michael Hermiston adds SCRABBLE® to his
repertoire, which includes songs about checkers and
Monopoly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00Jb8M9WIM&feature=share
Scrabbling for a Cause
SCRABBLE® tournaments as fundraisers are in the news:
•Southington (CT) – The 11th annual
SCRABBLE® Challenge raised over $28,000 to
benefit the Literacy Volunteers of Central
Connecticut.
150 guests played SCRABBLE® in teams of 6
to 10 and also participated in a silent auction, a
teacup auction, and raffles.
The Hartford Courant (06/02/2013) http://
www.courant.com/community/new-britain/
hcrs-75850hc-newbritain-20130531,0,3682551.story
• Oxford (UK) – On June 11, 2013, Chris May, a musicology student at the University of Oxford,
played 28 games of SCRABBLE® at once in an attempt to beat the Guinness current record of
25 games set by Ganesh Asirvatham in 2007.
Chris, who is rated 9th in the world, needed to win
75% of the games to claim the record – he won 25
out of 28 games for an 89% win percentage.
The event has raised more than £1,000 to support
children in Oxfordshire with reading difficulties.
BBC News (06/11/2013) http://www.bbc.co.uk/
news/uk-england-oxfordshire-22843897
The Oxford Times (06/11/2013) http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/yourtown/oxford/
10477670.Oxford_Scrabble_player_beats_world_record_for_most_games_played_at_once/
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World Record Academy (06/12/2013) http://www.worldrecordacademy.com/games/
most_scrabble_games_played_at_once_Chris_May_breaks_Guinness_world_record_213440.ht
ml
Chris’ grandmother, Pauline Arnold, remembers that
she beat Chris once with a triple word score.
Central Western Daily (06/15/2013) http://
www.centralwesterndaily.com.au/story/1573854/
pauline-has-had-a-few-words-with-world-record-holderchris/?cs=103
•Frederick (MD) – On June 9, 2013, 116 players
participated in a SCRABBLE® tournament to benefit
Families Plus, which provides education to parents on
nutrition, stress, financial management for children,
and teenage pregnancy.
Playing a phony cost a dollar while challenging a valid
word cost the challenger a dollar. Sneaking a peek at
Zyzzyva or Zarf on a cell phone cost the offender five
dollars.
The Frederick News-Post (06/10/2013) http://
www.fredericknewspost.com/your_life/
life_news_collection/volunteerism/
article_ae6de7a3-727c-57cb-9210-4788fe6d2108.html
Fairy Tales
In Guatemala, the SCRABBLE® Tales campaign
promoted SCRABBLE® with three active poster
installations that rearranged the letters in the
Spanish titles of fairy tales into new stories:
•Los Tres Cochinatos (Three Little Pigs) → Tres
Chinitos Locos (Three Crazy Chinese Men)
•La Caperucita Roja (Little Red Riding Hood) → El
Carrito Caja (Pau, the Basket Case)
•El Patito Feo (The Ugly Duckling) → Pelotito Ofe
(Little Ball Ofe)
The Inspiration Room (05/20/2013) http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2013/scrabble-tales/?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tirdaily+(The+Inspiration
+Room)
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SCRABBLE® Confessional
Columnists discuss the joys of online SCRABBLE®:
• Virginia Hefferman of Yahoo! News (05/24/2013) praises the “glorious” SCRABBLE® app and
its advantages over the board game where she “kept noticing someone else (or me) getting too
freaky, avid and wild-eyed about winning.”
http://news.yahoo.com/scrabble-app-review-apptitude-133827257.html
• Steve Mirsky of Scientific American (07/02/2013) notes that online SCRABBLE® “comes with a
psychic danger unknown in the old days. After each move, a widget on the screen now offers to
reveal the best play you could have made with the letters in your virtual rack. A game today thus
affords competitors a plethora of regrets.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scrabble-sends-one-man-scrambling-formeaning
Book It!
Watchung Booksellers in Montclair (NJ) will be celebrating words with a series of SCRABBLE®
events during July.
The events include an evening where you bring a friend, a board, and any alcoholic beverage you
might need to make you smarter. Garden Staters, mark your calendars for July 17th!
http://www.watchungbooksellers.com/scrabble-summer-watchung-booksellers
SCRABBLE® Celebrities
Celebrities share our love of the game.
• On The Prairie Home Companion (05/11/2013), Garrison Keillor talked about his late mother’s
gambling on online SCRABBLE® – “a sweet grandma but a killer when it came to
SCRABBLE®.”
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Tune in at about the 92:00 mark at http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/www_publicradio/tools/
media_player/popup.php?name=phc/2013/05/11/
phc_20130511_128&starttime=01:25:58&endtime=01:38:50
• On The Daily Show (06/25/2013), Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, author of Mo’ Better Blues,
wore a SCRABBLE® bow tie as he explained how an episode of The Cosby Show featuring
Stevie Wonder influenced a whole generation of artists.
Uproxx (06/26/2013) http://www.uproxx.com/tv/2013/06/questlove-wore-a-scrabble-bowtie-onthe-daily-show-and-explained-the-most-influential-moment-in-hip-hop/
___________________________________________________________________________
Judy Cole is co-director of the Lexington MA NASPA SCRABBLE® Club #108 and solves crossword
puzzles when not playing SCRABBLE®.
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Word Star
By Jeff Kastner
Play Word Star, a word game with similarities to Boggle, created and presented each month by Phoenix, AZ
expert Jeff Kastner.
The puzzle grid is in the shape of a hexagram…also known as the “Star of David.”
Your object is to find and list as many words as possible, using only the 7 letters contained in the Word Star
puzzle. All words must be OWL2 or Long List acceptable.
There are 3 basic rules to finding words within a Word Star puzzle:
1. Words must be at least 3 or more letters long (with no limit on how long the word can be).
2. Words are formed by using letters that adjoin each other. For example, the words OPE and
ARK are acceptable, but not PARK, because the “P” and the “A” are not neighboring letters.
3. Letters within a word may repeat as many times as possible, as long as such letters are
repeated twice (or thrice) in a row, or as long as Rule 2 is followed. So, for example, ZOO and
EKE are both acceptable. But RAZOR would not be acceptable because the “O” and the “R” are
not adjoining.
•
Note that the Center Star, located in the white middle portion of the puzzle, is the most important
letter. It is the only letter that adjoins each of the 6 others in the puzzle. In addition, there are bonus
points awarded for using the Center Star as often as possible. The Center Star in this month’s puzzle
is the letter “K.”
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Multiple forms of the same word are acceptable (for example, RATE, RATED, RATER, RATERS, and
RATES would all be fine, if they were in the puzzle). No points are awarded (and no penalty points are
assessed) for any entries on your word list that are not in the OWL2 or the Long List, or that do not adhere
to the above rules.
Points are scored as follows:
•
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2 Points for each WORD found.
5 Bonus Points for each BINGO (7 or more letters) found.
1 Point for each LETTER of every word found.
1 Bonus Point for each CENTER STAR of every word found.
Example of Points Scored:
Let’s say a Word Star puzzle has an “S” as the Center Star letter, and your list consists of the following
words:
ATTIRE
ATTIRES
SAT
SATE
SATIRE
SATIRES
TIRE
TIRES
Your score would be:
•
•
•
•
16 Points for the 8 WORDS found.
10 Bonus Points for the 2 BINGOS (ATTIRES and SATIRES) found.
42 Points for each of the 42 LETTERS used in the 8 words.
7 Bonus Points for each CENTER STAR used (the letter “S” is used 7 times).
TOTAL SCORE in this imaginary example = 75 Points.
Par Scores for this month’s Word Star:
165 points (Novice); 240 points (Intermediate); 300 points (Advanced)
Once you’ve compiled your list, check out my SOLUTION on the next page.
See you next month with another Word Star puzzle! …Jeff Kastner
Jeff Kastner, originally from New York City, has been living in Phoenix, AZ since 1985. Jeff is one of a
handful of players who has ever been ranked in the USA-top-50 in both SCRABBLE® and chess. He is the
2010-2011 Phoenix SCRABBLE® Club champion, the 2011-12 Phoenix “Floating” Club champion, as well
as the 2011 Scottsdale SCRABBLE® Club champ.
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Word Star Solution for: The Last Word June 2013
AKEE
ARAK
ARE
ARK
AZO
EEK
EKE
EPEE
EPOPEE
ERA
ERE
ERR
KAKA
KAZOO
KEEK
KEEP
KEEPER
KEP
KOOK
KOP
KOPEK
KREEP
OKA
OKE
OKRA
OPE
OPERA
PEE
PEEK
PEEP
PEEPER
PEER
PEKE
PEKEPOO
PEP
PEPO
PEPPER
PEPPERER
PER
PERE
PERK
POKE
POKER
POO
POOP
POP
POPE
POPPER
RAKE
RAKEE
RAKER
RARE
RARER
RAZZ
REE
REEK
REEKER
REP
REPERK
REPO
REPP
ZOO
ZOOKEEPER
ZZZ
PAR SCORES: 165 points (Novice); 240 points (Intermediate); 300 points (Advanced)
BEST SCORE:
2 Points for each WORD found:
64 Words = 128 points.
5 Bonus Points for each BINGO found:
3 Bingos = 15 points.
1 Point for each LETTER of every word found:
268 Letters = 268 points.
1 Bonus Point for each CENTER STAR of every word found:
35 K’s = 35 points.
TOTAL = 446 Points
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SCRABBLE® Videos by Kenji Matsumoto
Hey guys, so I've created a few videos for YouTube. More will be coming soon, and I'm hoping to
make at least a video a week for a while. At this stage my videos are a learning process, so I'm
hoping the videos will get better as I learn how to do this: I have very little idea of what I'm doing,
and I'm looking at these videos as a starting point. Thanks to everyone who has helped me so far.
I would like these videos to be one of the first things that new players see when entering the
tournament scene. My goal is that every time a new player comes to a SCRABBLE® club or a friend
asks about SCRABBLE that you can direct them to my videos and they will find them entertaining
and mildly informative.
Over time, I also hope to make videos that are more suited to tournament-level play once the basics
have been covered. If you like the videos, please tell your friends and anyone who you think will be
interested, as marketing these videos will prove to be quite a challenge. I want to educate myself in
this space and am willing to spend the effort and time to do so, especially once Nationals is
complete. If anyone has any suggestions as to how to make my videos better, how to market these
videos, etc. please feel free to drop me a line at [email protected].
Thanks,
Kenji
Kenji Matsumoto’s videos are at the following channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/
ScrabbleVideos. The videos feature SCRABBLE strategy by one of the world's top players. Kenji
has won thousands of dollars playing tournament SCRABBLE, winning tournaments all over the US
and placing 2nd and 4th at the last two National SCRABBLE Championships.
As of our publication date, the following strategy videos are available:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Leaves (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vgh01irWIM)
Bonus Squares (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YCC3C-_Ln0)
Hooks and Extensions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYfaQng5SOQ)
Parallel Plays (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdxPpl5Si5s)
There is also a video of a hyperspeed SCRABBLE match between two champions, Kenji and Noah
Walton (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRKAJBuUOUY), with one minute per side for the entire
game.
Check back at the channel periodically, as Kenji will be posting more videos, including ones that
address topics for more advanced tournament players.
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Tournament Talk
Sometimes there’s more news from or about a tournament than simply who won. If you’d like to
share good news with our readers, please send it to [email protected].
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Michigan Madness’s Sophia Murzin
Sophia Murzin, age 96, played all 14 games at the Michigan Madness
Tournament on June 22, winning one game (against Ruchi Batra). Sophia, from
Dearborn Heights, MI, has played in over 200 sanctioned tournaments since
1995.
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High Play at Baltimore Tournament
At the Baltimore (Catonsville) MD tournament on April 27, Diana Grosman
scored her highest game ever (662), which contained her highest word ever
(REFIXING, 284 points). Diana notes that her spell check doesn’t like the word,
but luckily the OWL does! Diana, from Reisterstown, MD, has played in over 180
sanctioned tournaments since 1983.
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Rocky Mountain High is Nigh for Word Cup ’13
The third annual WGPO Word Cup is drawing close, but there's still time to register to play often,
play fair and have a lot of fun, according to the tournament organizers.
This year's Word Cup will take place in Denver, CO, on Aug. 2-7 at the Red Lion Denver Southeast
and will feature a 7-round Early Bird and a 31-round main event. Directors will be Rick Wong and
Angela Dancho.
After filling the original block of rooms set aside for the event, the Red Lion has added more to
accommodate the expected strong turnout. The hotel also wll provide free airport shuttle sevice and
will keep the playing room open until midnight daily.
For more information, go to the tournament section at www.wordgameplayers.org or contact Angela
Dancho at [email protected] or Larry Rand at [email protected], 480-730-5031.
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Know the Rules
By Jan Cardia, NASPA Rules Committee Chair
Jan Cardia, a longtime expert player and chair of the NASPA Rules Committee,
writes this monthly column on rules for The Last Word. We are thrilled to have
Jan sharing her rules expertise with our readers, and we encourage you to
email any questions you may have about tournament and club rules to
[email protected]. (Photo credit: Jill Jarrell)
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Question:
A plays a word which does not use all his tiles.
B challenges and stops the clock.
A and B go to the computer. A leaves his remaining tiles on his rack face up.
The word is acceptable. A and B return to the table, and A starts to replenish his rack.
The issue is when the clock is restarted.
A takes the position that the clock can be started as soon as he sees the first of the new 5 tiles.
B takes the position that the clock can be started immediate since A sees the 2 tiles that he left face
up on his rack.
Your thoughts?
Answer:
This is an easy one because the rules address this specifically.
Under IV.J.1.l: The clock may only be restarted after both players are seated, all face down tiles
have been reracked, and successfully challenged play removed from the board... the drawer has
seen the face of at least one replenishment tile.
Hence, A.
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Question:
What is the status of the rules update?
Answer:
All changes were recently submitted to John Chew. Once the changes are inputted and triplechecked for accuracy, they will be posted on the NASPA Scrabble website. If ready with enough
lead time, they will be introduced at the Nationals in Las Vegas.
There are a few dozen changes, but the majority are just rewording or clarifying current rules.
There is also some reorganizing of a couple of the rules to help with the flow of order.
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There are just a few changes that some players will feel are radical. Remember that we field a lot of
complaints and suggestions from the membership at large. When enough people give us GOOD
reasons to reevaluate a rule, we address it with a lot of pros and cons and then, ultimately, vote on
whether to make a change. These votes are rarely unanimous, but enough of the committee
members have been convinced that the new rule is the way to go.
A lot of time and effort went into these decisions. For the most part, I am quite pleased with the
changes.
Jan Cardia
Rules Committee Chair
Jan Cardia has been playing competitive SCRABBLE® for 32 years and in tournaments for 29
years. She has been a member of the Rules Committee since its inception. She divides her time
between New York City with her husband, Aldo, and Delaware, where her children and
grandchildren all reside.
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The Wordsmith
Ah bide in scootlund
By Chris Sinacola
This month, I offer the third and final installment of my spring travels to Ireland and the United
Kingdom, focusing this time on Scotland.
For the first half of this column, we need to do some fairly heavy lifting to set the stage:
Let’s start with Robert Burns. Most folks with a passing familiarity with world literature will recognize
Burns as Scotland’s national poet, and a literary figure beloved the world over. Most of those
probably know he wrote some of his works in Scots.
Fewer realize that Burns did not write exclusively in Scots, but also in English, as well as Scottish
English. And here we run headlong into the first linguistic thicket of Scotland, namely, what exactly
do they speak?
Well, mostly English, at least in Edinburgh, and at least from what we could tell. Our tour guide, for
example, spoke English with a lovely Scottish accent, and threw a good bit of Scots at us now and
again.
Now Scots, also known as “braid” or “Broad” Scots, is a Germanic language that is related to Norse.
Here’s a sample of Scots, courtesy of Wikipedia, from The New Testament in Scots, as prepared by
William Laughton Lorimer (1885–1967):
“This is the storie o the birth o Jesus Christ. His mither Mary wis trystit til Joseph,
but afore they war mairriet she wis fund tae be wi bairn bi the Halie Spírit.”
In his book Scotland: A Very Short Introduction, Rab Houston notes that Scots was the language of
law and government by about 1500 A.D., but notes that the “first authentically colloquial New
Testament in Scots” wasn’t published until 1983!
“Long dismissed as archaic, even embarrassing, and gradually eroded by post-Victorian universal
education, Scots revived in the late 20th century and now has a vibrant print culture,” Houston
writes. “Yet spoken Scots flourishes most strongly in modern Northern Ireland, where it has been
aggressively marketed as a cultural counterweight in Unionism to the skillfully lobbied role of Gaelic
in Irish nationalism.”
It is hard to determine what percentage of the population speaks Scots in Scotland itself. Estimates
range from 1.5 million to 2.7 million, most of whom speak English as their first language. Part of the
uncertainty stems from the fact that many Scotsman aren’t sure that Scots is really a bonafide
language. A 2010 poll, for example, found that two-thirds of respondents didn’t think of Scots as a
language of its own.
If that’s true, what to make of Scottish Gaelic, which derives not from Norse, but from Old Irish? Its
roots, if you will, lie to the west. Many call it Highland Gaelic, and according to the 2001 UK census,
just 1.2 percent of residents in Scotland could speak it. Most of them live in the Outer Hebrides, the
sparsely populated islands that constitute Scotland’s northwest coastline, and which are the last
pieces of land one sees when flying from Glasgow to Iceland or the U.S.
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The difference between Scots and Scottish Gaelic is obvious from a simple example. The English “I
live in Scotland” would be “Ah bide in scootlund” in Scots. Different, but fairly easy to grasp, since
the sentence structure and sound seems fairly close to English, thanks to their common linguistic
ancestry. But “I live in Scotland” in Scottish Gaelic is “Tha mi a' fuireach ann an Alba.”
Finally (actually, far from it, but we have limited time here), there’s Scottish English, which is
perhaps best thought of as the language of educated and cultured Scotsmen in the cities and runs
along a continuum from nearly pure English (as spoken in England) to nearly pure Scots, with every
imaginable gradation in between.
If you’ve followed along this far, even if
with some confusion, don’t worry. The
bad news for scholars is that the
linguistic realities are far more
complicated than I have suggested. The
good news for SCRABBLE® players is
that each of the linguistic flowers that
blooms in Scotland has contributed to the
beauty of our game, particularly if one
embraces the Collins lexicon.
It doesn't get much more Scottish than this: Haggis, tatties and neeps at
a ceilidh dinner.
Trying to figure out where a given word
comes from can be a puzzle unto itself.
The “TAE” in the Biblical passage above,
for example, means both the preposition
“to” and can be a verb meaning “to toe
the line.” MITHER obviously means
“mother” in this context, but ask the word
judge, and you’ll see MITHER is a verb
meaning “to confuse.”
Questions such as “Where does that word come from?” and “What is that word’s real or earliest
meaning?” matter, I suppose, only to linguists and purists. For SCRABBLE purposes, it’s enough to
know whether a given combination of letters is acceptable in whichever lexicon one is using. And
about the only explanation most players need to explain the multiple meanings for words is the
simplest and most logical: There are only 26 letters in English, and only so many ways to put them
together that are even remotely logical to our brains and pronounceable by our tongues.
With much of the background out of the way, let us turn to the second half of our tale, with a few
anecdotes, stories and words that filled our precious few hours in Scotland.
With our free time in Edinburgh, we first went to the Canongate KIRKYARD#, where several
prominent Scotsmen are buried, including Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations.
Smith’s tomb is enclosed by a wrought-iron fence, the better to keep his disciples from erasing, via
their all-too-visible hands, all markers of his mortal remains. It is, of course, a place of pilgrimage for
economists from around the world, but during our visit, made in a light drizzle, we had the spot to
ourselves.
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I did not realize it at the time, but Smith lived for the last 12 years of his life very near the spot where
he is buried, in a house at Panmure Close.
That word, CLOSE, is familiar, but it doesn’t mean “near” in this context. A CLOSE is, rather, a
narrow passage, dozens of which can be found in Edinburgh. They are used as shortcuts between
main streets, as passageways to enclosed courtyards, or afford exhausting stairways that the hardy
Scotsmen and Scotswomen use to get from one part of town to another without having to make their
way around blocks of buildings.
Canongate is also notable for another reason. In 1841, Charles Dickens, who had come to
Edinburgh to give a lecture, walked through the burial ground and saw a marker – long gone now –
for an Ebenezer Lenox Scroggie, whose inscription informed passersby that he had been a “meal
man” or corn merchant. The story goes that Dickens, who had a mild case of dyslexia and was
battling the fading daylight, read the inscription as “mean man,” was thus inspired to create the
character of Ebenezer Scrooge.
This story is said to have been reported in The Scotsman newspaper in 2004, and I certainly hope
it’s true.
We popped into Bonnie Scotland, one of the ubiquitous souvenir shops that line the streets of
Edinburgh, in search of a shirt or two. I mention this only because of the proprietor, a Sikh immigrant
who sounded for all the world as if he had been born and raised in Scotland. Perhaps he had been.
He was very friendly and accommodating, invited us to return for the summer musical festival, and
in every way seemed as Scottish as Robert Burns himself. Such are the ways of a globalized
culture, I suppose.
The one thing our new friend was not was much of a salesman, as he managed to sell us only one
shirt. We simply refused to believe that the size XXL rugby jerseys were in fact size XXL, given that
the sleeves only extended just past my elbows.
All this dawdling, along with a stop for Turkish coffee and Turkish Delight, made us rather pressed
for time, but I did use my last half-hour in Edinburgh to scale The Scott Monument, a 200-foot (and
six inches) sandstone spire that pays tribute to Sir Walter Scott, who is (aside from Burns) probably
Scotland’s best-known author.
The monument, completed in 1844, was blackened over the years by the soot of Edinburgh’s
thousands of chimneys – soot that earned the city its nickname “Auld Reekie.” (Those still upset
because “everything’s good in Collins!” might take note that REEKIE* isn’t!)
For four pounds British sterling I had the dubious privilege of climbing to the top of the monument,
which is achieved by scaling three spiral staircases which grow progressively narrower, and, toward
the top, permit just one non-obese person at a time to make the passage.
The first of these staircases leads to a spacious chamber with stained glass windows and wood
carvings displaying scrolls with the names of Scott’s many novels. Fair enough. But the climb
seemed much less of a good idea as I neared the top, given the 40 miles per hour winds that were
roaring among the slots and slits of the Gothic architecture.
The rational part of my brain knew that the monument had made it this far and surely had endured
strong winds than these. But I have to admit I kept a tight grip on the handrail and thought, more
than once, how very wise it had been to prepare my will a few years ago.
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Once to the top – not quite, but the observation deck near the top is as high as one can climb – I
was rewarded with a 360-degree view of Edinburgh and the chance to add a dozen or so
photographs to the nearly 1,000 already on my camera.
A copy of the certificate “proving” that I climbed the monument (don’t worry, I have the photos, too),
is now pasted into my journal. I notice that it’s number 003881, which might mean I am the 3,881st
person this season to climb the 287 steps. It might mean that only that many folks have bothered
since they started charging the four pounds and handing out the certificates.
I’m sure it doesn’t matter to anyone else, and I’m not sure it even matters to me. But probably.
And that, I think is a good way to characterize the three broad conclusions that I offer as I conclude
my accounts of my travels to the “Isles.” They might not matter to you, but they do matter to me. So,
here they are.
First, and this need not have anything to do with SCRABBLE directly, travel, as clichéed as the
saying may be, really is very broadening. Even in the scant two weeks I spent in a few places in
Ireland, England and Scotland, I met with any number of interesting adventures, people, and
anecdotes that have enriched my life, and provided ample suggestions for further reading and study.
Second, my idea of what is or is not a word, which was already trending strongly in the direction of
Collins and a broader, more inclusive, or even “unabridged” lexicon, has moved still further in that
direction. When one hears English speakers in Ireland, England or Scotland use local dialect words,
slang, jargon, loanwords, neologisms, and portmanteau words as readily and naturally as we
Americans do, it becomes clear that that there are far more words and phrases in the “Englishspeaking world” than any of us can imagine or know.
Finally, seeing a bit of the world is perhaps the best way to emphasize a point I’d very much like the
entire SCRABBLE-playing world to consider, whether you are one or more of these: Newcomer,
veteran, patzer, champion, director, NASPA official, or dictionary committee member, past, present
or future.
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The oft-voiced objection “But that’s not a word!” – which I’ve heard at clubs, at tournaments, online,
over the phone, and in numerous conversations over the last decade – is just about the silliest and
most parochial thing one can say. And if I’ve heard it during my relatively limited participation in
organized SCRABBLE, I’m sure many others have heard it far more often than I have.
The point is that you might not have heard many of the words in Collins, and the many more words
that are not found even in Collins. You are certainly not required to play SCRABBLE with any
lexicon you find too expansive, permissive, “foreign,” disruptive to your comfort, or challenging to
your brain.
But surely we can all acknowledge by now that English is a world language – probably the world
language, if any language at all can make that claim. The game that Alfred Butts started in the
middle of the last century has grown up and out, and will continue to do so. That’s a good thing.
If you are one of those who wants to keep SCRABBLE in the bag, so to speak, chasing the blanks
and the power tiles to form the same old words in the same old way, you are welcome to it. But the
provinces of English that lie beyond your personal horizons are as real and as rich to those who
inhabit them as your world is to you. They exist. They are fascinating. And they are well worth
exploring, whether over a SCRABBLE board or otherwise.
Chris Sinacola is director of the Worcester (MA) NASPA SCRABBLE Club #600.
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Scrab-doku
By Jeff Kastner
In a standard Sudoku, your object is to fill in every square of the grid so that all nine rows across, all nine
columns down, and all nine 3-by-3 boxes contain the numbers 1 through 9, with no repeats.
Same rules apply to this Scrab-doku, but I’ve added a few twists to help you solve it. First of all, I use letters
to replace the numbers. These letters are part of a “Keyword,” which I’ve scrambled below. I’ve also
provided a clue to help you find the correct anagram. Once you’ve unscrambled the Keyword, one of the
rows or columns will contain all of its 9 letters in the proper order.
This month’s “Scrambled” Keyword: FORD GAINS
Clue: In SCRABBLE® it’s a great quality to possess;
It means “Imperturbability in the face of stress.”
SOLUTION on the page after next.
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Word-Finder Challenge:
Here’s an additional test of your anagramming ability. Your object is to find all the words you can
containing 6 or more letters and using only the 9 letters of this month’s (Scrambled) Keyword: FORD
GAINS.
Words can be 6, 7, 8, or 9 letters long, and must be OWL2 acceptable. Each letter of the Keyword may be
used only once within any word you find. So, for instance, DARING is acceptable, but not RARING.
Par Scores for this month’s Word-Finder Challenge:
25 Words (Novice); 38 Words (Intermediate); 50 Words (Advanced)
Once you’ve compiled your list, check out my SOLUTION on the next page.
See you next month with another Scrab-doku puzzle and Word-Finder Challenge! …Jeff Kastner
Jeff Kastner, originally from New York City, has been living in Phoenix, AZ since 1985. Jeff is one of
a handful of players who has ever been ranked in the USA-top-50 in both SCRABBLE® and chess.
He is the 2010-2011 Phoenix SCRABBLE® Club champion, the 2011-12 Phoenix “Floating” Club
champion, as well as the 2011 Scottsdale SCRABBLE® Club champ.
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SOLUTION
Keyword (Unscrambled): SANGFROID (64 Words Total)
ADONIS
ADORING
ADORNS
ANDROS
ARGONS
AROIDS
ARSINO
DANIOS
DARING
DARINGS
DINARS
DOINGS
DONGAS
DOSING
DRAGON
DRAGONS
DRAINS
FADING
FADINGS
FAGINS
FARDING
FARING
FIORDS
FORDING
FRONDS
GANOFS
GANOID
GANOIDS
GIRONS
GONADS
GONIFS
GRADIN
GRADINS
GRAINS
GRANDS
GRINDS
GRISON
GROANS
GROINS
INROAD
INROADS
INSOFAR
NADIRS
NORIAS
OARING
ONAGRI
ORANGS
ORDAIN
ORDAINS
ORGANS
ORIGAN
ORIGANS
RADIOS
RADONS
RANIDS
RASING
ROSING
SADIRON
SANGFROID
SARONG
SIGNOR
SIGNORA
SOARING
SORING
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The CJRP SCRABBLE® Challenge
By Cristian José Richart Piqueras
Since its first publication in June 2010, the CJRP SCRABBLE® Challenge remains unsolved. The
puzzle has been presented in The Last Word and on the websites http://fisescrabble.org/recursos/
novedades and http://www.scrabble-cjrp.comli.com. Please send your solution to Cristian at
[email protected].
Cristian José Richart Piqueras is an experienced Spanish-language SCRABBLE player who
competed in organized tournaments from 2004 to 2009 and who finished 28th and 13rd places in
two World Championships. He was one of the developers of the FISE lexicon.
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One Up! Cup for July
By Timothy Cataldo
Welcome back, vocabularians! Just like last year, we'll
post a One Up!® “game situation” every month so all you
doubledomes out there can show everyone how brilliant
and quick you are.
Here's all you need to know now to play: Take one or
more letters from the center and add them to an existing
word to make a new word. Send your entry to
[email protected].
Since there won't be a “right” answer, we'll be looking for originality, wit and wow! The winner will
receive a One Up!® and have his or her name put in the drawing for the Grand Prize at the end of
the year.
JUNE WINNER
June was a real bruiser, but a victor did emerge:
Hi Tim,
It's last month's co-winner, Linda Stephens, checking in with
my June contest entry.
I am starting with the word PAUNCH, maintaining purity by
using the uppity tile as the originally intended letter 'C'. To
that I add SEL to make the acceptable Scrabble word
SPLEUCHAN. It is an obscure term derived from the Gaelic,
meaning: a small pouch, especially for carrying tobacco or money. I think there's room in my
SPLEUCHAN for another One Up! prize, don't you agree?
Linda “One-Up-Girl” Stevens
Excellent job, Linda, and thanks to everyone who entered.
MAY WINNER
May was a real brawl, and a victor did not emerge. Instead, we're going to call it a tie, for different
reasons: we like Linda's word(s), and Jeff's clever history lesson:
Hi Timothy,
It's your 2012 One-Up! Cup Champion, as well as February
winner, Linda Stephens, checking in with my May contest
entry.
I am starting with the word FERN, one of my favorite plants.
Then I add ALU, and end up with the anagrammatical triplets:
FUNERAL, FLANEUR, and FRENULA.
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FRENULA is the plural of frenulum, which is a small fold of tissue that secures or restricts the
motion of a mobile organ in the body. There are several frenula in the mouth, and also on the
external genitalia. Okay, I know... too much information!
A FLANEUR is one who passes time idly. So, I hope none of these other flaneurs will attempt to top
my entry because, if so, it will be their FUNERAL!
Have a fun Holiday weekend,
Linda "One-Up-Girl" Stephens
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Hi Tim,
Since I'm hungry for another win, I'll start with HUNGER and then add the tiles C and A from the
center pool. The resulting word is UNCHARGE. It's an acceptable SCRABBLE® word, though
somewhat outdated, meaning: "to free from an accusation; to acquit."
I was inspired by O.J. Simpson returning to the courtroom this month in an attempt to "uncharge"
himself of the 2008 robbery/kidnapping conviction for which he is currently serving a long prison
sentence. Looking back at Simpson's double-murder trial of 1995, a turning point occurred when
O.J. tried on the infamous "bloody glove" and it was too small to fit his hand. Lead attorney Johnnie
Cochran famously concluded: "If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit."
So, how would history have changed had the glove been too big for O.J.'s hand? Perhaps then,
Cochran would have declared: "If the glove’s too large, you must uncharge." How "fitting" would that
have been!
I hope my entry leads the "charge" once again, and I earn my second victory in a row.
All charged-up,
Jeff "One-Up-Man" Kastner
Excellent job, Linda and Jeff, and thanks to everyone who entered. Moon, June, croon.
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SCRABBLE®: Thoreau & Thoreau
By Frank Lee Moody
Excerpts from “Critical Abecedarian Moments,” 1991, by Thoreau Maskin:
Mighty M’s lieutenant, John Darm, glanced quickly at the tiles on his rack. SATINE + A. And
a play to beat the king’s second-best word warrior. What was that sickly sweet odor?
Suddenly nothing made any sense to John. Confusion surged. What had he been thinking?
Win? What win? His clock continued to click. King E. Lee Tiist had trained his minions well.
*
SOWPODS, for example, is a marvelously devious weapon developed by elitist
SCRABBLE® players to counter a perceived threat by mediocre practitioners. Undercover
agents report the full brunt of the SOWPODS attack, which began in earnest in 1995, will be
felt sometime before the year 2000.
*
Once the superego gained control of the parlor game, SCRABBLE as we know it was lost to
the masses. As the hurdles became more profuse and the level of difficulty exponentially
increased with the likes of SOWPODS, it became clear that the eventual winner would be the
single person on Earth who could finish the impossible course, and if s/he died in the doing,
so much the better.
*
Excerpt from “Western Attitudes Toward Winning as Reflected in Tournament SCRABBLE®,”
1995, by Thoreau Maskin:
One table to her left a SCRABBLE player screamed then burst into paroxysms of coughing.
The tournament director rushed over, took one look and applied the Heimich maneuver.
Seven SCRABBLE tiles tumbled out of Frank’s mouth onto the table: Y W E Q R S T. By the
time Frank, Mighty M’s best friend, had recovered, his opponent with the 1950 rating had
disappeared.
Excerpts copyright ©1991, 1995, 1997 by Frank Lee. Reprinted here courtesy of Connie
Breitbeil.
Players interested in free copies of SCRABBLE®: Thoreau & Thoreau should contact Connie
at [email protected]
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Fill in the Blanks
By Jeff Kastner
Here’s a fun game that will put your bingo-finding and anagramming skills to the test.
Every one of these seven racks contains six letters and a blank (represented by the “?” symbol). There is
one (and only one) bingo in each. What letter do you make the blank in each case and what is the bingo?
(All words must be OWL2 acceptable.)
Secret Word: Once you’ve filled in all the blanks correctly, unscramble those seven letters to form another
unique bingo (the “Secret Word”). Even if you have only a few of the letters, you may still be able to uncover
the Secret Word with the following clue:
“A device that was popular around the time SCRABBLE® was created, but an antique today.”
TWAILS ? =
SNAGGY ? =
KYACKS ? =
CLIMAX ? =
ASDEAD ? =
QUEASY ? =
CATCHY ? =
ANSWERS on the next page
Jeff Kastner, originally from New York City, has been living in Phoenix, AZ since 1985. Jeff is one of
a handful of players who has ever been ranked in the USA-top-50 in both SCRABBLE® and chess.
He is the 2010-2011 Phoenix SCRABBLE® Club champion, the 2011-12 Phoenix “Floating” Club
champion, as well as the 2011 Scottsdale SCRABBLE® Club champ.
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ANSWERS
TWAILS ? = LAWSUIT
SNAGGY ? = SYNAGOG
KYACKS ? = SKYJACK
CLIMAX ? = EXCLAIM
ASDEAD ? = ADDAXES
QUEASY ? = SQUEAKY
CATCHY ? = BYCATCH
Secret Word: UOJEXKB = JUKEBOX
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Passages
Edited by Larry Sherman
DEATHS
JILL BROOKS
by Brad Whitmarsh
Jill Brooks, of Brookline, MA, died at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
in Boston on May 22. She was 43.
Jill was a friend of mine. We met at the Brighton (MA) club in 2006. BAT that
year was the first tournament for both of us. I finished first in the bottom
division. Jill finished last. She was not very good at SCRABBLE® but she
enjoyed it. Her skills were probably better suited to casual play, but she
wanted to play tournaments and I wasn't going to tell her that she couldn't.
She was borderline mentally challenged but she was functional in her
everyday life, and the SCRABBLE folks who met her can tell you that she
was a cool person. We went to a few tournaments together. She always had
a good time, even though she lost most of her games. She rarely scored over 300. I remember how
excited she was in Orlando in 2008 when she played a bingo in one of her games.
Her health was not good but we never expected this to happen. At least not now. She was only 43.
She was frequently in and out of the hospital due to lung and heart issues. Mostly lung. Her heart
had to work extra hard because her lungs didn't work very well.
We were planning to go to the Montreal tournament last weekend, but Jill went into the hospital
because she was having trouble breathing. This had happened several times in the past few
months, and each time they stabilized her and sent her home. I expected the same thing to happen
this time. On Monday, May 20, I renewed Jill's NASPA membership. Even if she wasn't well enough
to go to Montreal, we still had plans to go to Albany in July. Not less than an hour later, she called
me to say she had been moved to ICU. The next day, I went to visit her. She was having a lot of
trouble breathing, but she was awake and coherent. She couldn't talk much because of the
breathing and the oxygen masks but we talked a bit. I stayed with her for a couple of hours. When I
left, I told her I would come back the next day and visit her. Later that night (technically Wednesday,
May 22), she passed away. Her mom was with her. Turns out she had pneumonia, which was why
the breathing issues were so much worse than usual. Her lungs were in such bad shape, she
couldn't fight it off.
One of my favorite SCRABBLE memories is from Montreal last year. The night after the tournament,
Chris Lipe stayed with us because the three of us were not going home until the next day. We were
just chilling out in the hotel room, watching TV. I was giving Jill 6- and 7-letter words and having her
unscramble them. I would give her the tiles so she could try to solve them. She had a lot of trouble
with them, but eventually she would get most of them. Chris helped too, giving her words. I'm sure
there were things that Chris would have rather been doing, but I appreciated that he was trying to
help her. I know she did too.
Jill is survived by her mother, Ellen Brooks of Littleton, and was the sister of the late Beth
MacDonald.
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WENDELL SMITH
Wendell Smith, of Myrtle Beach, SC, died recently after a long illness. He
started playing tournament SCRABBLE® in 1992 and played in almost 150
tournaments, winning his division in 7 of them to achieve a peak rating of
1147. He competed in the 2010 National SCRABBLE Championship,
winning over half of his games, and in the 2007 Players Championship,
where he finished 18th of 81 in Division 5. He enjoyed SCRABBLE cruises
to the British Isles, Norway, the Mediterranean, and Alaska with his then-wife,
Linda Bianca.
Wendell is remembered by the many players he met as a gracious gentleman, who helped many
with their games. Win or lose, he would keep a smile on his face and make the game a pleasure for
his opponent. With his gentle demeanor, one would never know he had a military background.
Sherrie Saint John remembered Wendell on cgp as hardworking, detail-oriented, and task-focused.
He served on the NSA Advisory Board and was a NSC Division Leader. He also directed
tournaments with Linda Bianca.
He is survived by sons from a previous marriage.
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SCRABBLE®
Resources
INTERNET SCRABBLE®
CLUB
There are many study tools to
help SCRABBLE® players
hone their skills, including a
number of programs that can
be downloaded for free. This
section will offer suggestions
and links for both players and
directors.
Play Live SCRABBLE®
SCRABBLE® Tutorials
JOEL SHERMAN:
NEWBIES’ FIRST
SCRABBLE® LESSON
Expert Joel Sherman gives
invaluable advice to players
new to club and tournament
SCRABBLE.
MIKE BARON’S
SCRABBLE® TIPS
Mike Baron, expert player
and coach (and author of the
SCRABBLE® Wordbook)
shares tips from his book.
Play Online
SCRABBLE®
POGO SCRABBLE®
The official SCRABBLE®
online game. Created under
agreement with Hasbro in
2008.
SCRABBLE® ON
FACEBOOK
Select the SCRABBLE®
application on the Facebook
home page to play the official
SCRABBLE® game. Various
groups hold tournaments at
this site, including a group
called “Mad Scrabblers”.
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A Romanian-based site and
application for interactive
games. A favorite site for
many of the top players.
CROSS-TABLES
Lists all upcoming
tournaments, as well as
results of past tournaments.
Has SCRABBLE®
tournament aides.
NASPA CLUB LISTINGS
Lists competitive clubs
throughout North America
with their meeting times and
locations.
NSA CLUB LISTINGS
Lists casual clubs throughout
North America with their
meeting times and locations.
WGPO CLUB LISTINGS
Lists clubs throughout North
America with their meeting
times and locations.
Apps for Scrabblers
ZARF
A free multipurpose iPhone/
iPad utility for SCRABBLE®
players in any language. It
provides word list lookup,
pattern matching,
tournament-style adjudication
and a timer customized for
tournament SCRABBLE®
play.
ZYZZYVA/ZYZZYVA LITE
iPhone app for practicing
anagramming skills and
learning words. Zyzzyva
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includes Quiz, Search, and
Judge functions; Cardbox
Managment; Dropbox Sync;
Custom Lexicon Support; and
Lexicon Symbols. Zyzzva
Lite (free) includes Search
and Judge functions; Custom
Lexicon Import; and Lexicon
Symbols. You can sync quiz
data between the iPhone app
and the desktop program.
WORDLIST PRO 2.0
Android 2.2+ app for
practicing anagramming skills
and learning words. Also
functions as Word Judge.
Lightning fast word searches.
Supports TWL06, OSPD4,
CSW12, and CSW12 unique
words.
CROSSWORD GAME
SCORESHEET
This app keeps track of
scoring in crossword games
such as SCRABBLE®.
SCRABBLE®
Play SCRABBLE® on your
iPhone/iPad. Teacher feature
allows you to see what your
best word could have been
after every turn. Now also
available for Android devices:
click here.
SCRABBLE® TILE RACK
Turns your iPhone or iPad
Touch into a SCRABBLE® tile
rack. For use with an iPad.
WORDS WITH FRIENDS
The popular SCRABBLE®
variant for your iPhone/iPad.
Anagramming/Practice
Tools
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JUMBLETIME
A free web site for practicing
anagramming skills.
MAC USERS: After you do a
Jumbletime quiz on a Mac, the
scroll bar to view the results is
missing. To make it appear, go
to the lower right corner and
grab the striped triangle and
shrink the window all the way to
the top left corner. When you
pull it back, the scroll bar to the
right of the answers to the quiz
appears.
AEROLITH
A free application for practicing
learning words.
QUACKLE
A free application for playing,
simulating, and analyzing
games.
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A full-board SCRABBLE® wordfinder program that shows you
every word that can possibly be
made on an entire
SCRABBLE® board. Full
version available at http://bit.ly/
ecwHPt
FRANKLIN SCRABBLE®
PLAYERS DICTIONARY
An electronic handheld
dictionary and anagrammer,
with many helpful options and
games. Includes the latest
word lists, and can be adjusted
from OSPD4 to OWL2 lists with
a code.
SCRABBLE® DICTIONARY
Type a word to check for
acceptability. OSPD4 words.
LEXIFIND SCRABBLE®
HELPER AND WORD GAME
WIZARD WORDFINDER
FOR GOOGLE CHROME
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OSPD ([email protected]
m)
This group, dedicated to players
using The Official SCRABBLE®
Players’ Dictionary, offers lighthearted humor, daily word lists,
and more. Admission is to all
SCRABBLE® lovers.
WGPO Listserv
SCRABBLE® Blogs
A free vocabulary testing site.
For every correct word, grains
Mike Wolfberg’s computer
of rice are donated through the
program for anagramming, word United Nations World Food
judging, and word study.
Program. Feed hungry people
Includes lexicons for TWL,
as you expand your vocabulary!
CSW, OSPD4, Spanish, and
French. Available to buy at
Online SCRABBLE®
http://wolfberg.net/what/
Discussion Groups
A free application for practicing
learning words. Also has Word
Judge capabilities.
C
([email protected])
This group, open to all
members of the tournament
community, is a forum for issues
of interest to SCRABBLE®
players. No approval of any
CLICK HERE TO HELP END kind is needed to join, and
readers need not be members
WORD HUNGER AS YOU
of the Word Game Player’s
LEARN WORDS
Organization (WGPO).
WHAT
ZYZZYVA
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CGP ([email protected])
THE BADQOPH
DIRECTORY
This is a database of blogs by
known SCRABBLE® bloggers,
primarily tournament players.
As of March 29th there were
196 blogs in the directory.
Cheat Sheets
MIKE BARON’S CHEAT
SHEET
A great cheat sheet with 2s, 3s,
vowel dumps, short high-pointtile words, and good bingo
stems. Includes useful front
and back hook letters to make
3s from 2s.
This group, for NASPA
tournament players and
directors only, has the largest
membership of any online
tournament SCRABBLE®
discussion group. Admission is
MIKE BARON’S CHEAT
by approval only. Details can be
SHEET (for School
found at http://sasj.com/cgp/
SCRABBLE® and home
join.html.
play)
A great cheat sheet with 2s, 3s,
vowel dumps, short high-point81
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tile words, and good bingo
stems. Includes useful front
and back hook letters to make
3s from 2s.
COOL WORDS TO KNOW
A terrific cheat sheet from the
National SCRABBLE®
Association for School
SCRABBLE® and home play.
Gives useful information on how
to find bingos, plus the 2s, 3s,
vowel dumps, and short highpoint-tile plays.
ERICA MOORE’S COLLINS
CHEAT SHEET
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Jeff Widergren’s software for
managing tournaments.
TSH
John Chew’s software for
managing tournaments.
6,000 puzzles to help you
become a better anagrammar
for SCRABBLE® or Words with
Friends. (Reviewed in the
November 2012 issue.)
BOB’S BRITISH BIBLE
A terrific book to build word
power for tournaments.
BOB’S BIBLE, SCHOOL
EDITION
For School SCRABBLE® and
home play.
The ideal book for learning
CWL12 (Collins) words. (See
review in the June issue of The
Last Word.)
BOB’S COLOR-CODED
BRITISH BIBLE
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ENGLISH LANGUAGE
WORD BUILDER
Bob Jackman’s guide to
building a strong Collins
vocabulary, organized by word
length, familiarity, and part of
speech.
The ultimate guide to winning at
SCRABBLE@ by 3-time
National Champion Joe Edley
and John D. Williams, Jr.
Completely updated to include
all new words. (See review in
the January issue of The Last
word.)
HOW TO PLAY
SCRABBLE® LIKE A
CHAMPION
A guide to winning
SCRABBLE® from World
SCRABBLE® Champion Joel
Wapnick. Fantastic insights into
expert playing techniques. (See
review in the October, 2011,
issue of The Last Word.)
THE OFFICIAL
SCRABBLE® PLAYERS
DICTIONARY, FOURTH
EDITION
The ideal book for learning
CWL12 (Collins) words, with
The official word source for
color-coded entries for easy
School SCRABBLE® and
identification. (See review in the
casual play.
June issue of The Last Word.)
Tournament Management
Software
BROW-RAISERS II
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EVERYTHING
SCRABBLE®, THIRD
ANAGRAMMAR
Joe Edley’s new book with over EDITION
COLLINS WORD LISTS
Marc Levesque’s software for
managing tournaments. Also
has a Yahoo user group you
can join as a support option.
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Books
BOB’S BIBLE
DIRECTOR!
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TOURNEYMAN
A great cheat sheet, particularly
for players new to Collins.
Includes 2s, 3s, vowel dumps,
for players new to Collins.
Includes 2s, 3s, vowel dumps,
Q without U words, short JQXZ
words, and the top 250 7s and
8s by playability.
Useful links to Collins word lists
can be found at the following
websites: http://
www.absp.org.uk/words/
words.html; http://
www.math.utoronto.ca/jjchew/
scrabble/lists/; http://
www.scrabble.org.au/words/
index.htm; http://
members.ozemail.com.au/
~rjackman/.
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A brilliantly organized study
guide geared towards the
success of beginning and
intermediate players.
THE OFFICIAL
TOURNAMENT AND CLUB
WORD LIST, 2ND EDITION
The official word source for
NASPA tournament and club
play.
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SCRABBLE®
TOURNAMENT & CLUB
WORD LIST (COLLINS)
The official word list for
international tournament play.
(Available at SamTimer.com.)
SCRABBLE® WORDBOOK
A great word book for
SCRABBLE® players by Mike
Baron. OSPD4 words. (POO
Lists available with words
excluded from the OWL2.)
WINNING WORDS
A Scrabbler’s dictionary of
words to four letters, by length,
familiarity, hook status and part
of speech, with definitions for all
unusual words and shading to
indicate non-TWL words. By
Bob Jackman, author of English
Language Word Builder.
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Tournament Calendar
Our calendar format addresses two concerns: 1) Readers want as complete a list as possible of
tournament dates; and 2) Readers want to know easily whether a tournament is sanctioned by
NASPA, WGPO, or the NSA (or is unrated).
However, because new tournaments are constantly being added to the schedule, it is difficult to be
all-inclusive. Please be sure to refer to the Websites of the organization sanctioning the tournament
for a complete list. Click NASPA, WGPO, or NSA for the most up-to-date calendars. Links to
NASPA and some NSA tournaments are also posted at cross-tables.com.
Thanks to Henry Leong, who permitted The Last Word to adapt his calendar from the WGPO
Website.
Dates
Organization
Tournament/Location
JULY
6/28-7/4
NASPA
LAS VEGAS NV (TWL & COLLINS)
7/1-7
WGPO
WEST COAST CHAMPIONSHIP, RENO NV
7/2-7
NASPA
ALBANY NY (TWL & COLLINS)
7/5-6
NASPA
7/5-7
NASPA
OMAHA NE
7/6
NASPA
ROCKY RIVER OH
7/9
NASPA
LCT - INDEPENDENCE OH
7/13
NASPA
BAYSIDE NY
7/13
WGPO
LOVELAND, CO
7/13
NASPA
WHITESBORO NY
7/14
NASPA
BERKELEY CA
7/14
NASPA
DETROIT MI
7/19-24
NASPA
NATIONAL SCRABBLE CHAMPIONSHIP LAS VEGAS NV (TWL & COLLINS)
7/21
WGPO
MOUNTAIN VIEW CA
7/27
NASPA
AUSTIN TX
7/27-28
NASPA
NORTHERN CHAMPIONSHIP, MISSISSAUGA
ON CAN
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AUGUST
8/3
NASPA
NEW YORK NY
8/2-7
WGPO
WGPO WORD CUP
8/4
NASPA
BRATTLEBORO VT (TWL & COLLINS)
8/4
NASPA
GUELPH ON CAN (TWL & COLLINS)
8/4
NASPA
PHILADELPHIA PA
8/10-11
NASPA
TCC -- NORTH CAROLINA STATE
CHAMPIONSHIP, DURHAM, NC
8/10-11
NASPA
TCC -- MICHIGAN VS. OHIO, FINDLAY OH
8/11
NASPA
BERKELEY CA
8/11
NASPA
NEWARK DE
8/16-18
NASPA
LINDEN MI
8/16-18
NASPA
OLD GREENWICH CT (TWL & COLLINS)
8/17
NASPA
DALLAS TX
8/17
WGPO
MADISON WI
8/17
WGPO
PORTLAND OR
8/17
NASPA
STRATFORD ON CAN
8/18
WGPO
MILL VALLEY CA
8/24
NASPA
BAYSIDE NY
8/24
NASPA
INDEPENDENCE OHTCC
8/24-25
NASPA
TCC -- BC PROVINCIAL SCRABBLE
CHAMPIONSHIP, VANCOUVER BC CAN
8/25
NASPA
EDMONTON AB CAN
8/25
NASPA
GUELPH ON CAN (TWL & COLLINS)
8/25
NASPA
MOUNT LAUREL NJ
8/30-9/2
NASPA
PORTLAND ME (TWL & COLLINS)
8/30-9/2
NASPA
WILMINGTON DE
8/31-9/2
NASPA
ALPHARETTA GA
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8/31
NASPA
AUSTIN TX
8/31-9/2
NASPA
OTTOWA ON CAN (TWL & COLLINS)
8/31-9/2
WGPO
PORTLAND OR
SEPTEMBER
9/5
NASPA
OKLAHOMA CITY OK
9/8
NASPA
BERKELEY CA
9/10
NASPA
9/14
NASPA
CALGARY AB CAN
9/14
NASPA
HUDSON OH
9/14-15
NASPA
METARIE LA
9/15
NASPA
PHILADELPHIA PA
9/15
WGPO
MOUNTAIN VIEW CA
9/21-22
NASPA
TCC -- CAN-AM, VANCOUVER BC CAN
9/21
NASPA
DALLAS TX
9/21
NASPA
SYRACUSE NY (TWL & COLLINS)
9/22
NAPSA
NEWTOWN BENEFIT, NEWTOWN CT (TWL,
COLLINS & NEWCOMERS)
9/23-28
WGPO
GRITS IV, SURFSIDE BEACH SC
9/27-29
NASPA
TORONTO ON CAN (TWL & COLLINS)
9/28
NASPA
AUSTIN TX
9/28
NASPA
BAYSIDE NY
9/28-29
NASPA
FORT LAUDERDALE FL
9/28
WGPO
PHOENIX AZ
9/28-29
NASPA
REGINA SK CAN
OCTOBER
10/2-6
NASPA
CALGARY AB CAN
10/4-12
NASPA
PERU TOUR AND SCRABBLE
TOURNAMENT (TWL & COLLINS)
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10/6
NASPA
BERKELEY CA
10/11-13
NASPA
CHARLESTON WV (TWL & COLLINS)
10/12
NASPA
ASBURY PARK NJ
10/13
NASPA
PHILADELPHIA PA
10/17-20
NASPA
LAKE GEORGE NY (TWL & COLLINS)
10/19
NASPA
DALLAS TX
10/19
NASPA
CHICAGO IL
10/19-20
NASPA
BATON ROUGE LA
10/20
WGPO
MOUNTAIN VIEW CA
10/26
NASPA
AUSTIN TX
10/26-27
WGPO
DURANGO CO
10/26-27
NASPA
EUREKA CA
10/26
NASPA
KATONAH NY (TWL, COLLINS & YOUTH
DIVISIONS)
10/26
NASPA
SOUTH LYON MI
10/27
NASPA
BAYSIDE NY
10/27
NASPA
TENTATIVE -- WILMINGTON DE
NOVEMBER
11/1-3
NASPA
CAMBRIDGE MD
11/1
NASPA
WACO TX
11/1-3
NASPA
TCC--WACO TX (TEXAS RESIDENTS ONLY)
11/3
NASPA
BERKELEY CA
11/9-10
NASPA
ASHEVILLE NC
11/9
NASPA
ATCO NJ
11/9-10
NASPA
ORLANDO FL
11/9
NASPA
PITTSBURGH PA
11/12
NASPA
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11/15-17
NASPA
ESSEX VT (TWL & COLLINS)
11/16-30
WGPO
SOUTH CARIBBEAN ISLANDS CRUISE
11/16
NASPA
DALLAS TX
11/17
WGPO
MOUNTAIN VIEW CA
11/22-24
NASPA
SAN FRANCISCO CA
11/23
NASPA
BAYSIDE NY
11/23-24
NASPA
TCC -- TORONTO VS. MONTREAL,
KINGSTON (GANANOQUE) ON CAN (TWL &
COLLINS
11/24
NASPA
WILMINGTON DE
11/29-12/1
NASPA
STAMFORD CT
DECEMBER
12/1
NASPA
BERKELEY CA
12/7
NASPA
CALGARY AB CA
12/7-8
NASPA
FORT LAUDERDALE FL
12/7-8
NASPA
KNOXVILLE TN
12/8-13
WGPO
CABO SAN LUCAS MEXICO
12/8
NASPA
PHILADELPHIA PA
12/8
NASPA
STRONGSVILLE OH
12/15
WGPO
MOUNTAIN VIEW CA
12/21
NASPA
DALLAS TX
12/21, 22, 23
NASPA
WILMINGTON DE
12/23-25
NASPA
WILMINGTON DE
12/27-1/1/14
NASPA
JANUARY ’14
1/11
NASPA
DIVISIONS
1/17-20
NASPA
DURHAM NC
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1/18
NASPA
BAYSIDE NY
1/18-20
NASPA
TENTATIVE -- AKRON OH
1/18-20
NASPA
NEW ORLEANS LA (TWL & COLLINS)
1/25-27
NASPA
ATLANTIC CITY NJ
FEBRUARY ’14
2/1
NASPA
DIVISIONS
2/8
NASPA
SAINT LOUIS MO
2/13-17
NASPA
2/14-17
WGPO
PHOENIX AZ (TWL & COLLINS)
2/14-17
NASPA
EASTERN CHAMPIONSHIP, CHARLOTTE NC
MARCH ’14
3/15
NASPA
BAYSIDE NY
3/21-23
NASPA
POUGHKEEPSIE NY
3/28-30
NASPA
PRINCETON NJ
3/28-30
NASPA
ST. AUGUSTINE FL
APRIL ’14
4/11-27
WGPO
TRANSPACIFIC CRUISE
4/26
NASPA
DIVISIONS)
4/28-5/8
WGPO
HONOLULU TO VANCOUVER CRUISE
MAY ’14
5/3-4
NASPA
EDMONTON AB CAN
5/9-16
NASPA
QUEEN MARY 2 WESTBOUND
TRANSATLANTIC
5/17
NASPA
DIVISIONS)
5/17-18
NASPA
SASKATOON SK CAN
5/23-26
NASPA
TARRYTOWN NY
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5/24-26
NASPA
IRVING TX
5/25-27
NASPA
SACRAMENTO CA
JUNE ’14
6/4-18
NASPA
TCC -- TORONTO ON CAN
6/7
NASPA
BETHEL CT (TWL, COLLINS & YOUTH
DIVISIONS)
6/8
NASPA
BETHEL CT (TWL & COLLINS)
6/14, 15
NASPA
KANSAS CITY MO
6/19-21
NASPA
PRINCETON NJ (TWL & COLLINS)
6/27-7/7
NASPA
JULY ’14
7/3-6
NASPA
ALBANY NY
7/18-20
NASPA
OLD GREENWICH CT (TWL & COLLINS)
AUGUST ’14
8/9-13
NASPA
NATIONAL SCRABBLE CHAMPIONSHIP,
BUFFALO NY (TWL & COLLINS)
8/15-17
NASPA
WILMINGTON DE MADNESS/MILDNESS
(TWL & COLLINS)
8/30-9/1
NASPA
NEW YORK NY (TWL & COLLINS)
SEPTEMBER
’14
9/19-21
NASPA
WEBSTER NY (TWL & COLLINS)
OCTOBER ’14
10/16-19
NASPA
LAKE GEORGE NY (TWL & COLLINS)
10/25
NASPA
BETHEL CT (TWL & COLLINS)
10/27-11/10
WGPO
SPANISH TRANSATLANTIC CRUISE
NOVEMBER ’14
11/15
NASPA
90
DIVISIONS)
T
O
U
R
N
A
M
E
N
T
C
A
L
E
N
D
A
R
11/20
NASPA
BAYSIDE NY
11/28-30
NASPA
TARRYTOWN NY
DECEMBER ’14 NASPA
12/23-28
WILMINGTON DE
12/30-1/4/2015
NASPA
MARCH ’15
3/20-22
NASPA
POUGHKEEPSIE NY (TWL, COLLINS &
NEWCOMERS)
3/27-29
NASPA
PRINCETON NJ
JULY ’15
7/24-26
NASPA
OLD GREENWICH CT (TWL & COLLINS &
NEWCOMERS)
MARCH ’16
3/18-20
NASPA
POUGHKEEPSIE NY (TWL, COLLINS &
NEWCOMERS)
4/1-3
NASPA
PRINCETON NJ
91
A
R
C
H
I
V
E
S
Archives
To download previous issues of The Last Word click here.
92

June/July 2013 - The Last Word Newsletter

Transcription

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