Every Easter there are two tournaments run by the Association of British Scrabble Players.

The first is a 10 game tournament starting on Good Friday, and finishing Saturday lunchtime. There is then a larger event consisting of 23 games, starting on  Saturday afternoon and continuing until late Bank Holiday Monday afternoon.

This year, three East Berks Scrabble players attended the warm-up event playing in Division A. It should have been a 10 player round-robin for 9 rounds (followed by one duplicate pairing). However the numbers attending were not divisible by 10 and Division A consisted of 18 players.

Richard, Helen and Graham finished midway in the Division, with Richard and Helen winning 5 out of 10 games, and Graham 4. Surprisingly there was only one round when EBSC players played against each other, and here is a photo of Richard and Helen and their completed board.

Richard started well winning 4 of his first 5 games (scoring over 500 in two of those games) but then had to play the top 3 players which halted his progress to the prizes.

Helen’s highlight occurred in game 2 when she played the runner-up in last year’s world championships and won with a score of 496! 

Graham started off the tournament with several high scoring losses, but as the tournament progressed, his scores improved and managed a 9-timer dRAISENE for 122 in his penultimate game.

Some of the more unusual words laid in EBSC member games included :

COONTIE. CANTARS, ELINT, WINDAGE, TITMOUSE, VELARISE,RANZEL, JEELIE, YNAMBU, MANTOES.

A very enjoyable tournament!

PS : If you want to know what an YNAMBU is.... here is a picture!