Friday October 30, 2009
Major happenings
Scrabble:By TAN JIN CHOR
IN THE next few weeks, Johor Baru will be the cynosure of all eyes as far as the Scrabble world is concerned. In the space of a fortnight, three major tournaments will take place there, at the Zon Regency Hotel. Billed as “The Iskandar Malaysia Festival of Scrabble”, the three tournaments will be hosted by the Johor State government with Iskandar Regional Development Authority as the main title sponsor.
First up and scheduled for Nov 26-29 will be the 10th World Scrabble Championship (WSC). This biennial event, organised by Mattel Inc, generates much excitement and passion among avid scrabblers worldwide.
This year, 112 top players from 44 countries around the world will be vying for the much-coveted title of World Champion and the winner’s purse of US$5,000. They will play a total of 24 games during the four-day tournament with the top two players playing in best of 5 Final commencing at 9am on Nov 29.
Malaysia’s representatives to the WSC will be A. Ganesh, Suanne Ong, Vannitha Balasingam, Henry Yeo, Alex Tan and Michael Tang. Ganesh will be one of the favourites to win the title which has so far eluded him. However, he will have his work cut out for him as he has just come back to the game from an 18-month sabbatical.
He will encounter strong opposition from the reigning world champion, Nigel Richards. Richards is in irresistible form, having just won the 33-game Baguio Centennial Word Builders’ Tournament in the Philippines with a whopping seven games to spare.
The other top contenders for the title will be: Pakorn, winner of this year’s iGATE International in Bangalore, India, and the King’s Cup in Thailand; Andrew Fisher, who has been playing scintillating Scrabble and sweeping all before him in Australian tournaments; and Mark Nyman, winner of the British Matchplay Scrabble Championship (BMSC) in August.
Nyman’s achievements in the game are worthy of note. He has won more than 20 major Scrabble championships in his native England and abroad, including the WSC in 1993.
He is also the holder of the longest winning streak – 27 games – in tournament play in England. However, like Ganesh, Nyman has been away from competitive Scrabble for a long time – in his case, to get married and raise a family. All eyes will be on him to see if his comeback win at this year’s BMSC is a strong indication that he has regained his former brilliance in the game.
The WSC will be followed by the 8th Causeway Scrabble Challenge from Dec 2-6. This year there will be 50 top players from around the world in the by-invitation-only Masters division, and some 150 players in the Open Division.
They will all compete over 45 games during the five-day event, and the winner in the Masters division will be rewarded with prize money of US$20,000 while the Open winner will walk away with RM10,000. Small wonder that the Causeway Scrabble Challenge has become the most eagerly anticipated event in the Scrabble calendar for lovers of the game worldwide.
Ganesh will again be one of the top favourites to win the Masters title. He has won it a record five times and he also holds the record of highest game score – 709!
Richards, on the other hand, has never won the Causeway Challenge; he will no doubt be looking forward to altering that niggling statistic come December. Australians Fisher and David Eldar as well as “comeback kid” Nyman will also want to have a say about whose name gets carved on the trophy this year.
Finally, the 4th World Youth Scrabble Championship will take the stage from Dec 8-10. The event is organised and run by Karen Richards from Down Under.
This year’s edition is expected to see some 80 young players under the age of 18 pitting their skills against one another for the title of World Youth Scrabble Champion.
Malaysia’s Suanne Ong will start as one of the top favourites to win the title. She failed to win it last year, even though she was the raging favourite then, having beaten Nigel Richards 2–0 in the final to win the King’s Cup in Bangkok in June. She will certainly want to make amends this time around, although she may face stiff opposition from the Thai contingent.
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