Читать книгу Word Addict: secrets of a world SCRABBLE champion - Craig Beevers - Страница 7

My World

The journey really began when I reached my late teens. I had played Scrabble™ once in a while during childhood, but it couldn’t compete with joystick-waggling on the ZX Sinclair Spectrum, button-bashing on the Sega Mega Drive, and later those countless hours juggling virtual memory in DOS, occasionally interrupted by playing the computer game I was trying to get working. By the late 90s, the internet was starting to take off, and that’s when I got into word games.

Dial-up modems were the order of the day. I can still remember the high-pitched tone it generated on attempting to connect to the web, then me holding my breath on whether the attempt was successful or not. I loved playing games online. It certainly wasn’t for the faint-hearted, but it never really bothered me. I spent many an hour chatting, playing, and arguing with Americans. I felt those across the Atlantic needed to be enlightened about cricket and rugby – much better than that baseball and gridiron malarkey. After racking up hundreds of pounds in phone bills, I went to university in Sheffield and discovered the joys of computer rooms with what was then super-fast internet. I moved from playing a range of games, particularly the card game Spades, to almost exclusively playing quick word games. I mostly played a clone of Scrabble, which had more tiles, a different board, and a love of dishing out Cs, Is, and Gs, which were all worth a measly one point. You also had to place each letter by hand. It was an adrenalin rush to beat people with seconds remaining at the end.

One thing that hasn’t changed unfortunately was the level of cheating going on over the internet. It was mostly what’s called “anagramming”: putting a set of letters into a word-finder and playing what comes up. The quick games just made even more obvious the disparity between the obscure finds and the bad moves. Some even went further, having macros to place tiles almost instantly and programs (or bots) that played the game for them. It was a free-for-all. From the chaos emerged a number of players who have gone on to win big titles in the World of Scrabble.

Towards the end of my three-year spell at university I made the decision to look for a Scrabble Club. Being an exceptionally lazy individual, I was fortunate that all the details of a local club were on a website, only one of a handful that were. I’m not sure I’d have pursued it if I’d had to chase up the info. I always wonder how many people there are who would love the club and tournament scene but don’t realize what is out there.

One of the issues of playing online was the difference in the dictionary, or word list as it’s also known. The games I’d enjoyed over the internet used an old American word list. The international word list (Collins Official Scrabble Words) is made up of the American one, plus UK sources. I had a good knowledge of the most useful American words, but all the British-only words were new to me. Even more word games are available these days, with a variety of dictionaries in use, although the vast majority of words are common to all of them. So one cold dark night towards the end of winter, I ambled to Sheffield Psalter Scrabble Club, which met every week at a local pub. I didn’t have a board but it wasn’t a problem as there is always plenty of equipment to go round at clubs and tourneys. So I turned up with my pen and paper (the only essentials as both players need to keep score) with no idea what to expect. After a few timid hellos I sat down and played. There was a nice friendly atmosphere with a whole spectrum of people there from different backgrounds, from young students to pensioners. I won most games, but they were closely fought, competitive matches and I lost a fair few too. I fared reasonably well against everyone at the club except for one player, who beat me every time. In the UK, most Scrabble clubs and tournaments are overseen by the Association of British Scrabble Players (ABSP), who maintain a website, rules, tournament calendar and publish a magazine, amongst other things you’d expect from an association. The player who beat me each time, Lewis Mackay, was one of the top ranked players in the country.

One of the things most people don’t realize is just how much skill is in Scrabble. At this club Lewis would beat the next best player nine times out of ten, if not more. The next best player would beat some other players nine times out of ten, and they in turn would beat the weakest player nine times out of ten. On a good night a dozen players would turn up but still this broad range of abilities existed. This is typical of most clubs.

After a few months a group of us from the club travelled to a charity tournament. I still remember flashes of it, such as the car journey passing Chesterfield’s wonky spire. There are an awful lot of these charity events in the UK. They are not official in the sense of contributing to the national ranking system, but they’re interesting little excursions, usually quite short, taking place in churches or similar venues and often raising money for a good cause. Whilst clubs and tourneys have a broad range of demographics collectively, certain events appeal to some more than others. So I arrived in what was something akin to a church hall. Raffles and cakes adorned the sides, with Scrabblers and Scrabble boards in the middle. I would be lying if I said there weren’t a good number of light-grey perms about too. After an introduction, the first round of fixtures was read out aloud and pinned on the wall, accompanied by a fair bit of squinting.

I don’t remember a great deal about the games, only that I had three of them. I won my first two matches by a comfortable margin. This gave me a high positive spread. Spread is what Scrabblers call the points difference. If you win a game 400–325 then you’re said to have a spread of +75. It is accumulated over a competition, so if you win again by fifty then your overall spread is +125, lose and the spread is reduced and can become negative if you concede more points than you score. Wins are the first factor in determing a rank position. If two people have the same number of wins, then spread is the tie-breaker.

My third and final game was against a similarly young fellow called Chris. I was leading by 50–60 points and feeling reasonably confident when he tried JEANED. I had a feeling it was invalid, but as a relatively new player, you rarely feel certain either way about plausible words like that. So there’s always some anticipation when a move is adjudicated. I challenged the word, and fortunately for me it wasn’t allowed. Chris was ahead of his time, because JEANED was added to the word list a few years later.

That gave me a bit more breathing space and I went on to win comfortably. I then needed to see if other results went my way. If someone else on two wins had won big they would have overtaken me. Luckily that didn’t happen, and I was quietly chuffed that I’d triumphed in my first ever tournament. I say quietly because I have never known what to do with myself when I should be celebrating, although I’m not sure how youthful exuberance would have gone down on that occasion anyway.

So after a few more weeks at the club I kept on improving, but still getting beaten by Lewis. One of the beauties of Scrabble is that it has everything, luck included. On my final night at the club before returning home I did what Scrabblers describe as ‘drawing the bag’. I picked everything against Lewis whilst he was crippled by awful letters. I’d defeated my nemesis and later sheepishly waved goodbye to everyone. I’d got the bug for Scrabble. I am a very competitive person, but also lazy, introverted, and passive. My academic studies had finished. But then they had never really got going. I was absolutely terrible at putting my head down and studying, so I relied on natural ability to get as far as I did. My skills growing up had all been about numbers, not words. Indeed, I had to redo my English Language qualification from school. (I thought I’d sneak that a few pages in and hope anyone reading has already bought this.)

Back home I’d been invited by Pauline Johnson to Cleveland Scrabble Club in Middlesbrough, a few miles from where I lived. Pauline had been the driving force behind the club since its inception in 1981 – the year I was born. In the early years the club played twice a week, playing High Score Scrabble. In the 80s this was the main method of play competitively – where wins and losses were irrelevant, only the aggregate of your scores mattered. This changed the game entirely, meaning wide open boards and lots of exchanging tiles until a big score came along.

Thankfully for me, Matchplay Scrabble took over soon after. Matchplay is the more technical name for what most of us would consider a ‘normal’ game of Scrabble, where the goal is simply to win. Cleveland Club is one of the biggest clubs in the UK and back then it had thirty members. It was more formal than Sheffield Psalter. Timers were used, all the fixtures for the night were organized in advance, and the games all counted towards an overall league or to the A/B/C divisions. Many of the members had been attending for over thirty years.

The best player at the club was undoubtedly Pete Finley. He had represented England in a number of World Scrabble Championships going back as far as the second event in 1993. He had a very posh board to show for his success. Pete and his wife Laura had met through competitive Scrabble more than a couple of decades earlier. I’ve since learned they were just one of dozens of couples who’d met through the scene. I always particularly enjoyed playing Pete. I loved the challenge. I was doing quite well. I was promoted into the A division and then soon after had my first ‘official’ tournament, which was organized by the club in the same venue.

This time, however, I struggled against a much stronger field, my racks didn’t seem to flow, and I got bogged down in awkward, scrappy games. I won two games out of five, finishing eleventh out of sixteen. Since it was an official tournament I got a provisional rating of 135, but I knew I was a better player than that. The ratings ranged from fifty up through to the early 200s. Almost every national association has a rating and ranking system. Many players take a very keen interest in their rating and whether it goes up or down after a tournament. I loved my numbers, so I was among them.

Given my ample free time – I was unemployed and living at home with my parents – I got into studying words with a program called LeXpert, developed by M. G. Ravichandran. This mostly consisted of being presented with a jumbled rack on the computer. I then had to type in all the anagrams. Anything I missed was displayed. There’s a bit more to it, because you try and learn words in a particular order, so you’d start out with the most useful first, and there are a number of methods to this.

It can be hard going when there are a lot of words coming up that you don’t know, but initially it’s rewarding because it significantly improves your anagramming skills, and you’re learning words that will come up fairly often. Back then I wasn’t really bothered about what the words actually meant, but there are always one or two outlandish words that come up and pique your interest.

The other program I used a fair bit was Maven, created by Brian Sheppard. Maven allowed you to analyse Scrabble positions. I found this particularly interesting, seeing how a computer evaluated the game. It also helped me to think about Scrabble; the value of keeping letters or sets of letters. And it showed me where I was making mistakes and improved my play on a more fundamental level, away from simply learning and then finding those words.

I felt like I was playing better each week. Later I played in my second tournament, where I won four out of five games and finished third. The year ended, and for the next – 2004 – I made it my goal to win a local event. I made a good start at the club, getting a new highest game. I’d won the match 660–260 with six bonuses against an opponent who’d beaten me by one point a few months earlier. It’s a funny old game, and one that always keeps you grounded. I soon became Pete’s bogey player. He was superior, but I kept beating him. More tournaments followed. I tried my first weekend event in Durham, organized by Pete and assisted by his wife Laura. It was a different experience to what I’d faced so far. Over 100 players in a university building, staying overnight, and seeing all those faces from further afield across two days. I did moderately well, but nothing to write home about.

Soon I was playing more and more events. I’d taken part in a national head-to-head knockout competition. I’d won my first match 4–0 but was eliminated soon after, losing 4–2 with a poor run of tiles. Looking back, it was easy to get carried away with drawing badly, obsessing over not getting any Ss or blanks. But ultimately you have to just do the best with what you’ve got and accept whatever happens. Soon after I had a great run of games in a local five-round event at Newcastle. I ended up winning all five matches and won the tournament. I had had my first win in only April, so it was a surprise and it only spurred me on to do more.

I had a great year. I won other nearby one-day tournaments in Peterlee and Middlesbrough. At the club I had completed all my overall league games. I was top, but Pete would overtake me if he won his last couple of games. Whilst I was sitting at a table elsewhere, he walked over to me and congratulated me. Laura of all people had just beaten him. I had my name engraved on the club shield and got to keep it until the same time next year.

Whilst for me the competitive scene was largely about pitting my wits against other people and striving for success, you do get a lot of different things out of it. Whatever level you’re playing at, there is something to play for, with divisional structures in most competitions. Since Scrabble has so many elements, it has a wide range of benefits which aren’t immediately obvious. Scrabble certainly developed my language skills, got me out in the world and seeing more of it. It helped me a lot socially.

I kept on playing and studying, winning the odd local tourney here and there. I enjoyed the occasional weekend event, usually pitting myself against a few of the top players from further afield. It was always a bit of a buzz to play a big name. I remember holding my own against 2005 World Champion Adam Logan before he pulled away towards the end of the game.

In late 2006 I found myself in contention to qualify for the World Championships. This was a really big deal for me. To make the England team I had to finish as one of the nine highest English players in the ratings at the end of the year. Unfortunately, in practice it meant players would get their rating up to a point they were happy with and then not play at all in the last three or four months of the year, so as to not risk a rating drop.

My last tournament of the year came along, a national team tournament involving England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Because of so many players turning it down I got invited to the English side. I had a horrible tournament and missed out on the World Championships place. I could take the disappointment as I hadn’t expected to make it, but how it happened – the fact that such an obviously flawed qualification procedure was in place and that people were gaming the system so blatantly – made me angry. It was one of very few bitter moments I’ve had with Scrabble.

Soon after I switched my attention to a different game: the UK words and numbers TV show Countdown. I had a break from Scrabble and tried to accustom myself to a completely different dictionary. I did my best to ‘forget’ the tens of thousands of obscure words which wouldn’t be valid on Countdown. Unlearning words is much harder than learning them, because most Scrabblers are so reliant on instinct – just seeing words and not having to think about it any further. But I was now seeing words and having to work out whether they would be allowed or not. I was comfortable in front of the lights and cameras. Under such circumstances, with the pressure on, I felt in control and in the zone. This was important to me, as it’s not something you can really learn. I did well in the main series, winning my eight games before coming back for the finals. After putting a lot of pressure on myself I ultimately won the series and felt extremely relieved. I also left a load of my shirts and goodies in the studio. Oops. It was a great experience and I feel proud to be associated with Countdown, a TV show with a long and illustrious history, one of the few things that everyone in the country is familar with. So I returned to Scrabble for 2008, amid lots of congratulations and handshakes. I felt like I was really gaining momentum and would soon be able to compete on level terms with anyone. My studying kicked in and I was on track to qualify for the World Championships held the following year. I had managed to scrape through to the National Scrabble Championship final, which was a best-of-five held in London and relayed to an audience in another room – a common setup in Scrabble.

My opponent was Allan Simmons, an Englishman living in the Scottish Borders. He’d been playing in competitions and writing about Scrabble longer than I’d been breathing. He was a familar face and we’d played a number of times before. After the odd bit of radio and some newspaper interviews, we were introduced to a few dozen spectators by TV presenter John Craven. The audience would be watching through a combination of close-circuit television, on-stage commentatry, and a giant Scrabble board covered in velcro.

After a couple of games the match was tied 1–1, with the first to three being the winner. The pivotal point came when Allan laid down ?NDIRON for over seventy points. I hadn’t heard what he’d declared the blank as, so I asked for clarification. ANDIRON and ENDIRON are both words meaning the same thing: a metal support for logs in a fireplace. I was holding a Z and the blank was one square below a triple letter score. He announced ‘A’ and I immediately threw down a cheap comeback with the Z making ZA onto the A for over sixty points. But I’d completely failed to notice that Allan had played an invalid word NAIAS* in the process of laying down his big move. It dawned on me soon after and I couldn’t believe what I’d done.

I could have challenged his play off the board, although whatever I did he still would have got a similar score next turn because he had other options. But I would also have had the chance to counter with a big score of my own, depending on what tiles I’d have picked out. I went on to lose that game and the final 3–1. I had played moderately well, but a few holes in my word knowledge and that silly mistake had hindered my chances. I was disappointed and frustrated, but felt my chance would come again. Knowing I would be playing in the World Championships in Malaysia the following year helped keep me focused and positive. I resolved to do better, but the next year I got off to a terrible start in the National semi-finals. Played across fourteen rounds, two players out of sixty made it through to the final. I had lost two of my first three games and I had a mountain to climb. Things started to flow for me, and with one round to go, my fate was in my own hands. If I won I was in the final again.

I played another up-and-coming relative newcomer in Mikki Nicholson. She needed to beat me by at least 100 points to have a chance of qualifying. Mikki gambled a couple of times early on with dodgy words and lost. In a bit of an anticlimax I comfortably ran out a winner and found myself in the National final again.

This time I faced David Webb from Hertfordshire. He was not far from being a hometown favourite, living a commutable distance from London. It seemed to generate a bit more publicity and I found myself doing more interviews, in particular one surreal experience with a London radio station. I had been brought down earlier so I could take part in a live game played over the radio. There’s nothing like playing a visual game on audial medium right? After a good few minutes of heated debate delivered in fluent cockney between a radio presenter and assorted eaterie staff next door, it was decided the contest should relocate into the back of the radio van. A few moves spanned a couple of hours and I eventually returned to my hotel to laze around and eat sausage rolls.

After a reasonable night’s sleep in what loosely resembled a tenth floor caravan in the heart of London, I got on with the main event. David had been playing brilliantly all year and had risen to the top of British rankings. I anticipated a tough final. Fortunately for me, the tiles fell my way and I held the edge in the first game. I worried about getting caught up by a big Z-play from David, but ultimately I only had to avoid doing something stupid to go up 1–0. In the end, David not only couldn’t get a big Z play, he couldn’t play Z anywhere at all.

The next game followed and went comfortably in my favour whilst David struggled with poor racks. We had a break for lunch and did our bit of socializing and chatting on-stage. I got to trot out some of those tedious lines they must teach to sports stars in media training. Still, it really was anyone’s game, as there are few absolutes in Scrabble. The third game followed a similar path to the second, and I triumphed 3–0. It was a harsh scoreline, as David couldn’t really have done much more. It just went my way. I won £1,500, and after a bout of playing Word Soup on pub quiz machines with a friend and having no idea where the hell I was going, I got my train home and found a couple of rather nice camera lenses to spend my money on.

A matter of weeks later and the World Scrabble Championships (WSC) were upon me. It was held in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, just over the border from Singapore. I felt proud to be going over representing England as National Champion. This was the first time I’d ever left Great Britain and I’d never flown before. The twelve-hour flight over to Singapore wasn’t too bad and gave me a chance to watch some films, but crossing the border was tiring. Two sets of customs and an insane amount of traffic. Motorbikes and scooters essentially filled every available space for miles in the lane next to me. As well as the Worlds, I had been invited to another tournament. The Causeway Challenge had been growing exponentially year on year, organized by the tireless Michael Tang. He had helped to organize the WSC in the same hotel as the Causeway, so the players had the two biggest international events almost back to back. Around forty different nations were involved, hundreds of different players, thousands of Scrabble games, and millions of points scored. The hotel where it all took place was part of a larger self-contained complex, with armed personnel outside the building guarding the only way in through a small car park. I had a wander about inside and out, but there wasn’t a great deal to do. I’d managed to locate something which played a crucial role in my sustenance over the eleven days: a toaster, an orange plastic model aspiring to be a kitsch Bakelite number. I got by on a plateful of mini croissants at breakfast with toast, Maltesers and crisps during the day. I’m an incredibly fussy eater, and Malaysia being a mainly Muslim country, it cut down my options further, otherwise I’m sure there’d have been plenty of pork pies and sausage rolls to keep me going.

Scrabble or Scrabblers were pretty much everywhere you looked. Outside there were frequent thunder storms. I had a wander now and again just to try 90 per cent humidity. There were a few colourful birds and the odd butterfly to try and take photos of, but it was a pretty boring place once the novelty wore off, albeit incredibly cheap if you got away from the complex. I remember getting in two games of ten pin bowling for less than a pound, whilst the technology on the alley threw me back to the days of playing on the ZX Sinclair Spectrum.

After some glamorous ceremonies and free goodies (I’ve still got the shirt), 108 players from forty-one countries got shaking tile bags and the World Championships were under way. Twenty-four rounds were played over three days, then the top two went through to a best-of-five final. My goal was to try and finish in the top ten. The prizes started at tenth, which was of course a factor, but it was also an achievement to finish that high. I started off with a scrappy win before being drawn against two UK players … 8,000 miles to play Allan Simmons again and Phil Robertshaw from north west England! I narrowly lost both games, despite scoring 460 and 452.

I beat a player from Zambia to go in at the break 2–2. A couple of horrible games followed before I edged one back and drew great tiles in the final game of the day to finish on an even four wins and four losses, pretty much middle of the pack in fifty-fourth place. I got through my first day without having a disaster. I knew I hadn’t been lucky and it felt like a damage-limitation exercise. I felt positive that things would get better.

After so many high-scoring open games, the next day started with an absolute stinker. You don’t get many blocked boards at the top end of Scrabble, but this was one of them. I had the initiative with a small lead, but it evaporated as I couldn’t capitalize on the openings that my opponent was forced into making. In the end I won 347–277 with my opponent losing forty points in time penalties. I followed with a routine win and defeat. Then I played two time runner-up Pakorn Nemitrmansuk from Thailand.

I was surprised to be playing Pakorn, because I expected him to be at the top of the field, which means he’d generally be playing other people at the top. It was exciting and tense, but I hadn’t really been in the game. A few spectators crowded round and I nearly played a showy nine-letter word, ITINERANT, but managed to mangle the order of the vowels in my haste to avoid time penalties. Four straight-forward games followed, with me taking three of them, and I finished day two on 9–7 and up to thirty-second place.

I felt like I was still in with a shot of finishing in the top ten, but it was an outside chance and I’d have needed to win virtually every remaining game. Unfortunately, the next day started with a blowout in my opponent’s favour. I kept plugging away, though, and managing to win one way or another. Meanwhile Pakorn had managed to win an amazing fourteen games in a row. I happened to be his fifth victim.

Suddenly I’d won six straight games and had made it up to ninth place. With one round to go I was drawn to play Andrew Fisher, a familiar name because he lived in England a number of years ago before emigrating to Australia. If I won I would get my top ten finish. Like the previous few games things seemed to flow my way. I had a good lead, and Andrew’s bigger plays weren’t scoring much whilst I was able to hit straight back.

I ran out a comfortable winner and watched the other results come in to see where I finished. Nigel Richards, the reigning World Champion, had finished top, Pakorn second. Both were on eighteen wins. I finished on sixteen wins and eight losses but had only moved up a single place to eighth. I was just happy to finish in the top ten though, with so many other big names. It also happened I was the highest finishing European player, which I was quietly proud about. After copious handshakes and a rushed ceremony, things got turned around for the final between Nigel and Pakorn the next day. I now had the opportunity to be on the other side of the showpiece clash, watching with the audience as two players battled it out over a best-of-five contest. I always enjoyed following games and tournaments online. A number of previous tournaments had included annotated games. These were games where helpers had written down racks and moves, which had then been put online and could be played through move by move.

Video cameras were set up so you could watch everything happen live. It was surprisingly dramatic, even things like tiles being placed one by one on the rack. Cheers as blanks and great letters appeared, groans as vowel after vowel or triplicate after duplicate were revealed. More noisy reactions as big scores went down, confused murmurs as moves we didn’t see or expect got placed on the board. It was a great atmosphere and I loved it.

I won’t go into too much detail about the first game, because it’s covered in the playthroughs later in the book. So as you can imagine it was a humdinger. To stereotype a little bit, Nigel was the machine. He was Scrabbling perfection; he had his own style and would often baffle people with a move, only for it to then turn out to be the best play. Nigel did everything at a sedate pace. Pakorn was much more erratic. He once famously took seven minutes to decide where to place a word on his first turn. He was a very deep thinker. Frantic and fidgety as he was, he would often go right down to the last second on his clock, playing and picking tiles very quickly.

The second game was in complete contrast to the first. Pakorn was already 203 points up when Nigel’s aura slipped a little. Richards had played PIG but had also made IR* in the process, an invalid word. Of course Nigel knew it didn’t exist. It was a careless mistake and his just happened to be on the biggest stage. Later in the game Pakorn rubbed it in further by pretending to play DINE onto the bottom left triple word score, before saying it’s not enough points and extending it to PALUDINE (an adjective meaning ‘of the marshes’) to hit two triple word scores for 167 points.

Another blowout followed, then game four came along. Pakorn, who had lost in two previous finals, led 2–1 and needed one more to take the title. The audience was on his side. The game flowed beautifully. ADVENES, GRIFTERS, GENETRIX, DOYLEY, FREEHOLD, and BOHEMIAN. But the board was getting closed down. Nigel led by fifty-four points and was looking good to force it into a deciding game. But there was still time for one more big move. Pakorn held AABCNOT, there was a floating I to play through, but it was obscured and any move would have to fit under J and O. Fortunately his eight-letter word slotted sweetly, making (J)A and (O)N. BOTAN(I)CA went down for ninety-four points.

ADVENES, advene, verb, to add over and above

GRIFTERS, grifter, noun, swindler, one who makes money through deception or fraud

GENETRIX, noun, mother

DOYLEY, noun, same as doily or doyly, an ornamental napkin

FREEHOLD, noun, permanent tenure of land or property

BOHEMIAN, noun, an unconventional person, especially one involved in arts

BOTANICA, noun, a shop that sells herbs and magic charms

Pakorn was now on the brink of becoming World Champion after twice being the bridesmaid. Nigel took a long time to try and find any way of winning. He made the best move, but it was futile. Pakorn only had to play any reasonable valid play. He declared the blank – ‘S as in Singapore’. Pakorn Nemitrmansuk from Thailand was 2009 World Scrabble Champion. He was overcome with emotion in the playing room and then later as he walked through to where all the spectators had been watching. Flashes everywhere, endless cheers and applause. It was amazing. It was not over though. After a lovely day spent in Jurong Bird Park, Zoo, and Night Safari across in Singapore, we had the Causeway Challenge to play in. Just five days and forty-five games of Scrabble to go. I got off to an indifferent start and felt more and more drained as the games ticked by. I was on the verge of another top ten finish and some prize money, but it was always just out of reach. There was still the team aspect of it though. I was part of the second UK side. We’d managed to secure the top spot and received a rather nice gold medal each. We all got up on stage and raised a massive marble and glass trophy aloft. I narrowly avoided putting my back out and dropping the thing. Unfortunately it didn’t quite fit in my hand luggage and we all left it to Lewis to take home.

After nearly two weeks away I returned home, sneaking my gold medal out now and then on the flight back. I hadn’t been at the Olympics but it still felt pretty important to me, along with the top ten finish in the Worlds. I felt like I’d given a good account of myself in my first real foray on the international stage. In the years that followed I was increasingly involved with the ABSP and WESPA (the World English-Language Scrabble Players Association), the British and World bodies for Scrabble respectively, being part of committee discussion as well as designing and updating websites. I kept up with the playing side too, making the World Scrabble Championships again in 2011. This time it was held in Warsaw, Poland. It was generally around freezing the whole time. I can’t say it was high up on my list of places to visit but it was pleasant enough and quite cheap.

My first game was a bit of a shocker. I was over 200 points behind and still trailing by well over 100 when in desperation I opened up a nine-timer (a move that links two triple word scores) – the only way I could score enough to win. I placed a T in the fifth position and then watched my opponent put down what I thought was TRUDGE and turned the board around, only to see he’d actually transposed two tiles and made (T)RUGDE*. 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 like making the knockout stages. Richards had ominously clawed his way back to tenth place with two rounds to go, but still needed to win both remaining games to qualify. As I lost comfortably and quickly in my next match, my opponent and I had a look at how other games were going.

Brett Smitheram had beaten Nigel Richards; the three time and reigning World Champion was out. Even though we were all aware anything could happen in the knockout stages, it felt like the tournament had been broken wide open. I was among those quietly indulging in Schadenfreude. Later, after an extraordinary sequence, I won the last game by eight points after my opponent Dave Wiegand bonused to go 60–70 ahead and drew absolute tripe. I finished on nineteen wins and first place. The rest of the top eight emerged. Two Englishmen, two Americans, three Australians, and one Canadian were in the quarterfinals. As I finished top I played the eighth place finisher, Alastair Richards from Australia, in a best-of-three match. On one hand, I was trying to enjoy the fact that I’d finished top in such an amazing field, but I also realized that it would mean absolutely nothing the next day. I tried to look at it as having already won £250, and whatever will be will be. No-one from the UK had won the title for twenty-one years and nobody had come close for fifteen – before I took up the game.

I remembered how frustrating it was having no-one to root for when I followed big events from home, not just Scrabble, but sport generally. I grew up during a pretty lean period in the 90s: a few glimmers of hope in the football being cruelly ended by penalty shootouts; a cricket team that was awful year after year; an also-ran rugby team; barely winning a gold medal in the Olympics. Whilst I knew that maybe a few hundred or thousand people would be interested in what I was doing, it still mattered.

I watched England win the Rugby World Cup, and the Olympic medal count increasing every four years.

Cricket was my main sport of interest though. I’ve supported my local, county Durham, since their inception as a first class team. They’d gone from struggling at the bottom end of the table to winning a number of championships. I particularly remember the amazing 2005 Ashes, and Durham player Steve Harmison getting out Kasprowicz in the famous Edgbaston Test, when both teams were one blow from winning. It wasn’t just the success or failure, it was how it inspired other people, the dignified way they went about their craft.

I had made peace with myself that I wasn’t going to be playing at my best. I accepted that it isn’t really about what you deserve. You play out a game of Scrabble. If you can do it well, you’ll give yourself a better shot of winning, but there are no guarantees. When England beat Australia in the 2005 Ashes, it would be fair to say that Australia were by far the better team, and probably played better too. But none of that mattered when compared to the actual result. There are rankings for determining the best, but ultimately it is trophies that count. Sport is about producing a winner and a spectacle. I sat down for my quarterfinal match against Alastair. I was expecting to start the first game due to finishing higher in the main event. Instead we drew and I lost. Which pretty much summed up the game that followed. I was never in it. I was hit with APIARIES, CRUBEEN, NEOTERIC, PTERION, and HARTALS. The 166 point margin made it sound closer than it actually was. I resisted the urge to feel sorry for myself and resolved to win the next two games.

The next went my way. I started with AADELTU and quickly put down ADULATE. More big plays followed soon after. I was over 100 ahead, and every time Alastair got within striking distance I bonused straight back. I won comfortably 491–399 and got ready for the deciding game.

Once more I got off to a good start. Getting to a critical part of the game, ahead by seventy-five points with thirty tiles left in the bag, I was trying to shut the board down and clinch the game. I was going through a number of possible four-letter words I could play. Couldn’t play GLED, because that would set up OGLED onto a triple lane. Didn’t like the rack leave of DREG. Eventually settled on REDD and assumed my brain was playing tricks on me by quietly flagging up AREDD. It wasn’t.

At this point I got very lucky. There were lots of As to come and I’d just provided a great opportunity for my opponent to wipe out my lead in one big move. But he didn’t have an A. In desperation he tried BREDD* which I challenged off. I had a bit more of a buffer, but was caught between whether to risk AREDD and lose a turn, or to try and obscure it. I did neither, but nothing materialized for Alastair to bring him back into the game. I’d made it to the semifinal.

APIARIES apiary, noun, a place where bees are kept

CRUBEEN noun, a pig’s trotter

NEOTERIC noun, a modern author

PTERION noun, a place where several skull bones meet. Plural pteria

HARTALS hartal, noun, a stoppage of work

GLED noun, a bird of prey

REDD verb, to put in order

AREDD aread verb, to declare

Elsewhere the two other Aussies had lost, American Chris Lipe and Canadian and 2005 World Champion Adam Logan being the victors and meeting in the other semifinal. I was up against Dave Wiegand after he’d beaten Brett Smitheram 2–0. The semifinals were best-of-five, or first to win three.

I had played Dave a number of times elsewhere, not to mention the three matches earlier in the tournament. I got off to an inauspicious start by going second and challenging FARCY (a disease of horses), giving Wiegand an extra five points. With the aid of the blank, I soon got down bonuses of (L)UNARIST and VITAMINS to give me a decent lead. Eventually MOTLIE(S)T followed and I was in control. Not obscuring a cheap X play allowed Dave to catch up and put me under a bit of pressure, with the Z and blank unseen. It got a little bit edgy, but fortunately I drew the Z and that sealed the game.

One up, we both started the next game by exchanging. After a bit of a staircase pattern Wiegand hit me with IN(G)LOBED and MIELIES. The E in the latter gave me TAILGAT(E), but crucially Dave could cash in on the hook to grab the initiative. I gambled by setting up a juicy S hook, but it backfired and I was left needing an improbable bonus. It didn’t materialize. 1–1.

Not much to say about the third game. I couldn’t do a great deal and quickly found myself 2–1 down and again needing to win the next couple of games to stay in the World Championships. The fourth game was nip and tuck throughout. I’d got ahead with ERISTIC and Dave edged ahead with RELINES. I was twelve points behind when I played ORACLE, keeping an E back. I drew DFFST? and sat waiting for what felt like an eternity to see what Wiegand would play. Would he mess up the easy ST?FFED bonus? I wracked my brain in the meantime trying to find an alternative elsewhere just in case. I pondered over DESTAFF* and DAFF(I)EST. Finally Dave played and my easy seven-letter word was left untouched. I put ST?FFED down, declared the blank as A (I don’t know why, I’m well known for saying ‘get stuffed’), and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Two all.

The decider didn’t really get the game it deserved. I ran away with the game. It was anti-climactic, but I didn’t care. I was in the final and had the rest of the day off. In the other semi, Adam Logan had come from 2–0 down to force a decider, but Chris Lipe blitzed him in the fifth game, opening up with RECRUIT, REGENTAL, POLEWARD, and JUNK to be 314 after four moves and eventually winning 562–443. So the final was set: USA’s Chris Lipe versus Craig Beevers of England.

LUNARIST noun, a person who believes the moon influences weather

INGLOBED verb, to enclose as in a globe

MIELIES mielie, noun, an ear of maize

ERISTIC noun, a person who engages in debate

DAFFIEST daffy, adjective, another word for daft

REGENTAL adjective, relating to regent, a ruler or administrator

POLEWARD adjective, aimed at or towards a pole

Lots of handshakes and wishes of good luck ensued, then I walked the three miles back to the hostel. All the time I’d been away my partner Karen had been texting me with messages of support. As the event progressed, I was on the online-streamed game more often, so a few friends and family got to watch me live. I can’t begin to imagine how stressful that would be. I was grateful for all the remarks and attention, but also trying to keep level-headed. I tried not to let myself think about what it would mean to other people, as that would put on more pressure than just doing it for me. The next day I awoke to the sound of water dropping on the ground. It was raining and walking suddenly lost its appeal. I got all my best wetproof gear on and a change of clothes and ambled my way to the ExCeL. The weather never relented. I think my shoes were still soaking when I put them back on in the evening.

After a few bits and pieces Chris and I sat down at the smartboard – the Scrabble set with all the technology and cameras pointing at it. It would be our home for the next few hours. We were both wandering about in socks, slightly amazed at getting this far. I’d earlier made a comment about us being the two ‘weakest’ players of the eight quarterfinalists. In terms of rating I was the seventh best player and Lipe eighth. But it was all meaningless now. The first player to get three wins would be crowned World Champion. I won the draw to start and hoped that no more ING-S words would come up. A top player should really study those sorts of words specifically, so they know which ones take an S and which don’t, but I felt like I didn’t have a clue. I was mentally fatigued and just wanted easy stuff to show up. My first rack came AAMNOO? – aarrghh. My other weakness. MANOAO had been added only three years previously and I knew I was bad on the new words. I spent over five minutes trying to work out whether it was good or not. The game situation made it a much bigger error to play a phoney. So I chickened out and exchanged.

I got the bonus next turn, but more mistakes followed. I missed AUX(I)NIC for sixty-four. Unbeknownst to me, Chris had missed a few things too, but he moved ahead with LY(R)ICIST and I struggled with triple Is. Eventually my rack balanced out and I hastily played (U)NRINSED to go sixty-seven ahead. I kicked myself when it allowed Lipe to hit back immediately with SINTERE(D) onto the D, although in hindsight he would have got a bonus even if I’d played a more defensive option.

I was getting really low on time now. I knew my tile tracking was out but didn’t know by how much. I played off my only two vowels, knowing there were still six more to come with four tiles in the bag and seven on Lipe’s rack. I went eighteen points ahead and picked three tiles out. All consonants. I was sitting there with BFLNSTT with AADEOOUQ unseen. I thought for sure I’d blown it. He’s bound to have QU and score. Even if he doesn’t he can play out whilst I’m crippled with seven consonants.

Then (Z)OOEA went down. I’m still in this. I had less than a minute left. I knew QUA was out but wasn’t sure what the other letter on Chris’ rack was. I quickly played B(E)LTS through the E provided by ZOOEA and in the process blocked Lipe’s outplay. His last tile was a D. I just assumed he would block my only winning play of F(O)NT making (I)F, but I was willing him to go somewhere else. He put QUA down elsewhere and my heart skipped as I thought he was going to extend it to QUAR(E) or QUAT(E). I quickly threw F(O)NT down. Twenty-four and out. I was bewildered. I had won hadn’t I? How did that happen? Why didn’t my outplay get blocked? We confirmed scores, 403–389 in my favour.

MANOAO noun, a coniferous forest tree

AUXINIC adjective, relating to auxin, any of various plant hormones

SINTERED sinter, verb, to form lumps or masses by heating or pressure or both

ZOOEA noun, the larval stage of crabs

QUARE adjective, remarkable or strange

QUATE noun, fortune, destiny

I was still getting my head around the fact that I’d won the opening game when the next one kicked off with Chris’ opening bonus of BUNGLES. I played safe again, not being 100 per cent sure of FIRK and being rewarded with a bonus of my own. I lost around eight minutes trying to work out if BLOKARTS was the new word that’s allowed, or the old spelling (which had a W in) that got deleted. Eventually I played it and Lipe held the play before accepting it. I exhaled deeply and proceeded to draw my new tiles. I picked the second blank and got OPERATIC soon after.

Soon after I put down PAYOUT, knowing it was volatile but the right move, and created two big triple word lanes. Fortune favoured me as I drew the Z and got down ZETA for sixty-nine. Things were really going against Chris. He was over 100 down now and tried to open things up, but gave me one of the two floaters (letters through which you can play an eight-letter word) needed to go with EEHQRSU. I had been contemplating whether QUEERISH was good, but the C provided me with a nice safe CHEQUERS and the game was effectively over after seven moves each. I eventually won game two 524 to 419. I was now one game from being World Champion.

We had a break for food and I was able to think about the permutations, pondering how bad it would be to lose from this position, but knowing anyone could lose three games in a row. Better players than I had lost five or six consecutive games in the past. Even though I was out of the spotlight I felt tense and just wanted to fast forward to the end result and prize ceremony.

After what felt like an age, we got back to the Scrabble board and began the third game. I was going first and picked out my tiles. My brain was feeling laggy. UPDRAGS popped up in my head, but not straight away which generally makes me more likely to think I’ve made it up. Again I oscillated between going for it and thinking it wasn’t a word. I chose poorly and opted for PUG instead. Chris immediately followed it with JOLLIES. I was playing catch up for the rest of the game, which flowed well for both of us. GUENONS, SQUIZ, FELONIES, LIMBATE, and BIVALENT for Lipe and SHEDDERS, WRACK, OVEREYE, and UPTRAIN for me. But I was kicking myself the whole time for passing up the chance to try the bonus first up. Chris had won 509–464 in a game lasting only nineteen moves. Sure enough I discovered UPDRAGS was good immediately after. I was left wondering if I’d blown my chance.

FIRK verb, to strike with a whip

BLOKARTS blokart noun, a single seat wheeled land vehicle with a sail

UPDRAGS updrag, verb, to drag upward

GUENONS guenon noun, a genus of monkeys having long hind limbs, tail and long hair surrounding the face

SQUIZ noun, a look or glance, especially an inquisitive one

LIMBATE adjective, having an edge or border of a different colour from the rest

OVEREYE verb, to look out over

UPTRAIN verb, to train up, to teach or educate

Chris started the next game off with HYENA, which mildly amused me as it is a nickname my sister has given me. Apparently I laugh like one, as well as being entertained by the downfall of others. I’ll leave others to judge. Anyway the play gave me the floater I needed as I sat there with NORSTUV. After a bit of double checking I put down V(E)NTROUS. I immediately drew a blank, but a load of vowels to go with it. I got another low scoring bonus down though GAIE(T)IES, whilst Lipe kept scoring with thirties. Blank number two came out and this time I had more options.

Holding DEIIOR? I could score seventy-seven by playing a word starting from a T on the board. But it meant creating a massive hotspot. I didn’t like any of my options, but I eventually settled for DIORITE and held my breath to see if I got hit by a big reply. Sure enough X(E)NIC went down, and despite starting with three consecutive bonuses I was only up by thirty-seven. I picked out two Us but had some scoring potential. A few more twenties and thirties followed for each of us before Chris hit me with DIRECTE(R) and my lead cut to just six points.

I spent a long time on the next turn knowing how crucial it was. I held the ugly EEGLLLT. It’s one of those racks where you’re desperate to play something tight but you can’t really score either. I wanted to shut down the board but it wasn’t possible to do it right away. I went for GLEET in the top right corner. It looked like an aggressive move but it turned tiles over, scored, and next move I knew I would be able to shut most of the board down. Sure enough, next turn I played VI(L)LA through the L I’d provided, killing an -S bonus lane which was always a big worry. I felt like a heavy favourite. Then I picked the Q.

I scoured the board looking for options whilst I waited for Lipe to play. He was only thirty-six behind, but I might have had to change the Q and waste a turn, or worse get stuck with it at the end. With fifteen tiles in the bag, I searched hard for ways of playing it off one, two, if not three moves ahead. Then I saw the T sitting next to the bottom centre triple word score. I could play (T)ALAQ there for forty-two!

I hoped desperately that Chris would go elsewhere. the T was a good scoring spot, so if he hit a good score there and took out my Q play I was in big trouble. I had no decent alternative. There were no Is or Us to come and none I could use on the board. Finally LORN went down and I got my forty-two points and shedded the Q. I had a buffer now, and only an unlikely bonus or a big mistake could take the title away from me.

VENTROUS adjective, adventurous

GAIETIES noun, the state or condition of being merry, bright or lively

DIORITE noun, a dark coarse-grained igneous plutonic rock

XENIC adjective, denoting the presence of bacteria

GLEET verb, to discharge pus or mucus from the urethra

TALAQ noun, a form of divorce under Islamic law

I looked for highly improbable nine- and ten-letter words, very awkward eight-letter words. I couldn’t see anything and decided just to score and empty the bag. Now I just wanted Lipe to play something boring, not try a ridiculous bonus word that I’d have to wait a few seconds to challenge and wait for a big red cross to come up. He played DENSE. I played BARFS, making (HYENA)S. He then went out with ET. He had 414. It was 438 for me. I was World Scrabble Champion 2014.