LITMIR.BIZ

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A somewhat costly mistake as I was sitting with ADEINOR. Off went his word and down went DERA(T)ION for 140 points. I still can’t quite believe I won that game.

      Over the three days I stayed up and around the business end of the table. There were thirty-four rounds in total, with the top two going through to the obligatory best-of-five final. I was lying at third at the start of day four, when I played Nigel Richards and drew tiles from heaven to win comfortably and go first overall. I then had a chance to put a bit of daylight between myself and the rest of the pack when I faced Andrew Fisher next up. Things were looking good when I was 150 points up, before Andrew hit me with a blank bonus. I was kind of expecting it because he’d been balancing for a few turns. But I was still in control, until he followed it up with MOSSIES (mossie, noun, the common sparrow) and (L)UTEFISK (noun, Scandinavian fish dish) to combine for a run of nearly 300 points in three moves.

      I was still in with a shot at the end of that game, but couldn’t find the vowels in the bag that I needed. After that things fell away from me. With three rounds to go, I needed to win all of the remaining matches to make the final. Finishing in the top ten wasn’t even in my mind. My opponent started off with four consecutive bonuses and that was that. I just wanted to get out of there. I threw away any chance of winning in the last two games and ended up out of the prize money, down in eleventh place.

      The final was between Nigel Richards and Andrew Fisher the next day. I still enjoyed watching it, particularly as it went down to a decider. Bonus words such as ZENAIDAS, ACEROLA, GONDELAY, DAROGHAS, TOLARJEV, and OMNIFIED were played. Richards ultimately went on to win 3–2 and became the first player to win multiple World Championships. The ceremony was met with much less emotion and exuberance than Pakorn’s win, in keeping with Nigel’s Zen-like persona. Everyone, though, appreciated that it was a great achievement, recognizing that Richards was the best player on the planet by a distance.

      ZENAIDAS, zenaida, noun, a wild dove

      ACEROLA, noun, a West Indian shrub

      GONDELAY, noun, gondolier

      DAROGHAS, darogha, noun, (in India) manager

      TOLARJEV, tolar, noun, monetary unit of Slovenia

      OMNIFIED, omnify, verb, to make universal

      As more time passed, I got involved with running and organizing tournaments. It was a different experience, being behind a computer, typing results in, and generating fixtures whilst almost everyone else was busy playing. I’ve always found it interesting following tournament standings online, so being there and getting the results personally is kind of fun. Being a tournament director or referee, on the other hand, is extremely tedious. There are very few rulings to make. Scrabblers are a pretty well behaved bunch other than the odd grumble (although given the way the media dredged up controversy over the missing G tile at the 2011 World Championships you may think otherwise).

      The global Scrabble scene had grown with a lot more events taking place. MSI (Mind Sports International) had taken on the role of organizing and running the World Championships for 2013. The format had changed a little bit, with the top four going through to the knockout stage instead of just the top two playing a final. With an Open tournament taking place alongside the invitation-only World Championships, there were an awful lot of Scrabblers about in Prague, Czech Republic. It was probably the best overall event I’ve ever been to. Lots going on, a charged yet friendly atmosphere, and comfortable surroundings.

      I bobbed up and down the standings without ever being in the first four places. It was strange really, I should have been the best prepared I’d ever been. I had games I felt in control of towards the end that could have given me a great shot at making the finals, but I didn’t feel up to it. I was struggling with mental tiredness and it was affecting my word knowledge. Which meant I was stressing myself out trying to work out whether a word I’d found was valid or not, and it felt like my intuition had gone, like I was almost word-blind, and I just didn’t fancy being under the spotlight in that frame of mind. It was a relief once I was out of the running. I drew the bag to finish fifth and then relaxed and enjoyed the semis and final.

      It again went down to the fifth game in the best-of-five final to decide the title. One unlikely move followed another. ADEGMPU went perfectly with a Z for GA(Z)UMPED. Then BEJEWEL. Then an outrageous play of AUR(O)REAN (adjective, relating to the dawn), with six overlaps (played words that overlap with other words) for ninety-eight points. Ultimately Nigel Richards ran away with the game and was crowned World Champion for a third time, beating Thailand’s Komol Panyasoponlert 3–2.

      So what happened in 2014? I did almost no word studying all year. I moved away to Guisborough with my partner Karen and three soppy mutts. I had played in one tournament since the 2013 World Championships, when the 2014 event took place in the ExCeL, London, organized by MSI. Being a complete cheapskate I booked coaches for £9 or so each way and stayed in a £12-a-night hostel.

      Each morning I awoke miles from the venue, with an ever-growing pile of rucksack, carrier bags, and clothes near a window. I was still in cheapskate mode, and on the first day made it into a two hour walk to the ExCeL Arena by going the wrong way several times. Fortunately the tournament was running a lot later than I was and I had time to freshen up and compose myself.

      This time the top eight players would go through to a knockout stage. I felt like I had a decent chance of achieving this, and then basically anything could happen. I got off to a great start, winning my first five games, four of them by a good margin. I lost out to a fellow Englishman before a nightmareish game at the end of the first day, losing by more than 200. I shouldn’t complain, though, because I scored 728 against the very same opponent a few years earlier. The hammering pushed me down to twelth, but it was a reasonable start.

      I won a couple of very tight games early the next day. My heart skipped a beat when I thought I’d miscalculated and, instead of winning by two, I was about to draw a game I’d picked great tiles in. But I went through the maths a third time and got the more favourable scoreline. I lost a game here and there, but won six out of eight for the day, and twelve overall. This left me in sixth place, and more or less where I needed to be.

      By now I was getting into a routine of bacon butties (aka sandwiches) for breakfast, picking off sausage rolls during the day, and chicken fillets on the way back to the hostel. I’m sure there are better diets for keeping the brain going. I had plenty of support from home, lots of effervescent texts coming in regularly from Karen, being dead-batted by me.

      As well as seeing how far up or down you’ve gone on the live scoreboard, players take a keen interest in how others are doing. You always want to see compatriots do well, but a lot of focus had also been on who was struggling. It never escapes anybody’s attention for long when a top player is languishing down the table, and the best player in the world was having a bad tournament. Nigel Richards was well off the pace. He’d rallied slightly but was in twenty-ninth on only nine wins. Everyone was expecting him to still make the knockout stage; however, he was running out of games.

      After some head scratching, I decided I’d need to win five games on the third day to make the top eight. I got off to a winning start, edging a high scoring game 487–479. A blowout next match put me three wins away. I’d crept up to third but it didn’t really matter to me. Anywhere in the first eight positions was good enough. I won some more tight games and before I knew it I’d won the five games I’d needed. At this point, a few of us kind of wondered what would happen. I was hoping to sit out and rest up for the next day. But we all kept playing, and I tried my best to switch off a bit.

      I got a nine-timer of DYNAMITE for 167 in the game that followed and eased to a comfortable win. A few people placed their attention firmly on how Nigel was doing and who looked

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