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
