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| Triple-word threats: Australia’s Scrabble players fight for a crack at world title | |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Showdown in Melbourne sees a new single-word score record of 194 as Naween Fernando sees off former world champion David Eldar | |
| Upstairs at the Windy Hill bistro in Essendon, some of the world’s best Scrabble players have been battling it out in a three-day tournament for a $1,000 cash prize and a coveted spot in the world cup. | Upstairs at the Windy Hill bistro in Essendon, some of the world’s best Scrabble players have been battling it out in a three-day tournament for a $1,000 cash prize and a coveted spot in the world cup. |
| “We have a very high quality of players [here],” says Carol Johnsen, the secretary of the World English Speaking Scrabble Association and organiser of the weekend’s event. | “We have a very high quality of players [here],” says Carol Johnsen, the secretary of the World English Speaking Scrabble Association and organiser of the weekend’s event. |
| In fact 18 of Australia’s top 20 players have flown in from all around the country, along with two international competitors from New Zealand and Spain. | In fact 18 of Australia’s top 20 players have flown in from all around the country, along with two international competitors from New Zealand and Spain. |
| Behind Johnsen, four rows of tables stretch the length of the room. As 40 or so simultaneous games in this round start to wrap up, some get up to stretch their legs while others pull out laptops, inputting all their tiles and words and checking their stats. | |
| “Yeah, most of them, well, a lot of the males are nerds ,” Johnsen laughs sheepishly. | “Yeah, most of them, well, a lot of the males are nerds ,” Johnsen laughs sheepishly. |
| “You get a surprise when they tell you ‘Oh yeah I’ve got a wife and kids,’ and you go ‘Oh OK, I thought you played Scrabble day and night.’” | |
| But as Johnsen is quick to point out, they’re also incredibly intelligent. | |
| “A lot of them are, unsurprisingly, in the world of statistics … but strategy is a big part of the game. People don’t understand it’s not just word knowledge.” | |
| Unlike casual Scrabble matches, here every turn is timed with a chess clock. Each player has 25 minutes to make all their moves, with a 10-point penalty for every minute they run into over time. | Unlike casual Scrabble matches, here every turn is timed with a chess clock. Each player has 25 minutes to make all their moves, with a 10-point penalty for every minute they run into over time. |
| “It’s a much fuller set of rules than appear on the box,” Johnsen says. | “It’s a much fuller set of rules than appear on the box,” Johnsen says. |
| The other thing that sets this version of the game apart is, of course, the scores. While most would be happy with nine or 10 points per word at a family board game night, here they can stretch into the hundreds. | |
| “I managed to get a triple triple in an earlier game,” says Naween Fernando, a Melbourne accountant who is one of Australia’s top players. “There was a ‘v’ hanging out and I had a rack of ‘a, i, i, g, m, n, p’ and I managed to score 194 for ‘improving’”. | “I managed to get a triple triple in an earlier game,” says Naween Fernando, a Melbourne accountant who is one of Australia’s top players. “There was a ‘v’ hanging out and I had a rack of ‘a, i, i, g, m, n, p’ and I managed to score 194 for ‘improving’”. |
| This move now holds the record for the highest-scoring single word in Australia this year, tying with Jane Taylor’s “edify” and Andrew Fisher’s “ceterach” – the scientific name for a certain genus of ferns. | |
| But for 2017 world champion, and Australian Scrabble’s resident cool-guy, David Eldar, it’s been a frustrating weekend. | But for 2017 world champion, and Australian Scrabble’s resident cool-guy, David Eldar, it’s been a frustrating weekend. |
| “I’ve started off pretty poorly, lost a number of games stupidly” he says. | “I’ve started off pretty poorly, lost a number of games stupidly” he says. |
| On the first day he made the fatal error of playing a false word, losing him his turn and eventually the game. “[It’s] a big mistake and it’s pretty costly… that could end up costing me the whole tournament.” | |
| Eldar, who broke an Australian record when he cracked the country’s top 10 players at just 14, is still among the youngest in the room at 32. Paula Messer, who’s been coming to tournaments for 25 years and played more than a thousand games, says she and the rest of the dedicated Scrabblers have watched him grow up competition by competition. | |
| “He was such a sweet little boy. He’s still sweet but he’s … ,” she says, raising her arm up to indicate how much taller he is nowadays. | |
| Sitting just to the side of table 25 is Julie Brice, who flew in from Townsville for the event. She’s been a competitive Scrabble player for 19 years, but after an accident in 2012 limited her arm and hand movement and required her to use an electric wheelchair, she now directs a support worker where she wants her tiles placed. | |
| “The Scrabble community has been amazingly supportive,” Brice says. “I had a lot of friends in the background raising money to help me after my accident. I had a lot of wonderful people in Brisbane who used to come in and play Scrabble with me in hospital … they even set up some Scrabble tournaments for me there.” | |
| As the afternoon stretches on, the tense cut-throat competition that hung in the air during the early games gives way to comradeship, as old friends congratulate each other on their scores, share commiserations over missed triple-word scores, and update each other on their lives. | |
| Brice even confides that a “cheeky pinot noir” now fills the cup attached to her chair in place of water. | Brice even confides that a “cheeky pinot noir” now fills the cup attached to her chair in place of water. |
| In the end Fernando takes home the championship trophy, his first national title since 2010, winning 19 of his 24 games with a margin of 1,332 points. | |
| “It’s good,” he says smiling. “It probably hasn’t sunk in yet, but you know, we’ll go down stairs, have a few beverages and see how we go.” | “It’s good,” he says smiling. “It probably hasn’t sunk in yet, but you know, we’ll go down stairs, have a few beverages and see how we go.” |