Sunday, September 4, 2011

WSC 2011 - interesting facts (2)

And here comes fact no 2:

Average age of WSC contestants is 39.
Most players are 31 or 32 years old.
The youngest player is 16 and the oldest is 68.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

WSC 2011 - interesting facts (1)

This is the beginning of a series of posts about the forthcoming World Scrabble Championship 2011 to be held in Warsaw between October 12th-16th.
The information presented herein will be based on the data from two main sources:
1. World Scrabble Championship site: www.wscgames.com
2. World English Scrabble Player's Association (WESPA): www.wespa.org

So here comes fact no 1

98% (or 114) of all 117 eligible players have signed up for the WSC 2011.
The missing three players are from Guyana, Qatar and Uganda.

Scrabble Bilingual Edition


















With 38 days to the start of the first ever World Scrabble Championship taking place in Poland Mattel decided to celebrate this fact with a special bilingual Polish-English edition of Scrabble.
What's so special about it? In addition to the standard Polish edition they added an English set of tiles plus an extra rules leaflet in English. It isn't much really but I suppose this little effort could finally help Scrabble on its feet in Poland. We'll see...
Anyway, a good try Mattel :)

Friday, August 12, 2011

Malaysia - my heart for Asia

Exactly to the day - 2 years after I left Malaysia I'm coming back there again.
My registration for the last ever Causeway tournament has been confirmed.
Just like on the occasion of WSC 2009 I'll be flying to Singapore via Munich on exactly the same flights. The good news is the plane ticket cost 30% less than in 2009 thanks to Asia special offer from Lufthansa.
What I'm also excited about is that when coming back I'll be flying an Airbus A380 from Singapore to Frankfurt. I booked the window seats and am hoping for great outlooks.
Meanwhile I finally got back to consistent studying. I set myself a goal of finally learning all the JQXZ words up to 8 letters. I'm confident with the Js and Qs and am currrently studying the Zs and Xs.
I hope that in 61 days (WSC 2011 start) I'll know them all and maybe something more too :)
I wonder why no Thais have signed up for the WSC...

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

it's anybody's game

An interesting situation unfolded in the National Scrabble Championship in the US.
After 27 rounds the first 5 players are on 19 wins, the next five players are on 18 wins, the next five are on 17 wins and the next 10 players are on 16 wins. 
This means that with 4 rounds to go any of the 25 players still stands a chance of becoming the US champion.
UPDATE:
1. As Wojtek pointed out to me this last sentence cannot hold true because top players will always be matched against each other in the final rounds in accordance with the rules of king-of-the-hill system.
Nevertheless the situation was very interesting :)
2. Nigel Richards won the NSC 2011:)
3. Zbigniew Wieckowski took 4th place in Division C.



Here are the contenders:
(http://www.scrabble-assoc.com/tourneys/2011/nsc/build/standing/1/27.html)
1 Jesse Day Berkeley, CA 19.0-8.0 +1272
2 Nigel Richards Malaysia 19.0-8.0 +1085
3 Jim Kramer Roseville, MN 19.0-8.0 +956
4 Kenji Matsumoto Aiea, HI 19.0-8.0 +954
5 Brian Bowman Villa Hills, KY 19.0-8.0 +625
6 Nigel Peltier Seattle, WA 18.0-9.0 +1385
7 Scott Appel Trenton, NJ 18.0-9.0 +1071
8 Peter Armstrong Milwaukee, WI 18.0-9.0 +1038
9 Orry Swift Houston, TX 18.0-9.0 +722
10 Scott Jackson Minneapolis, MN 18.0-9.0 +168
11 Ian Weinstein Coral Springs, FL 17.0-10.0 +1367
12 Trey Wright Sierra Madre, CA 17.0-10.0 +919
13 Joey Mallick Cape Elizabeth, ME 17.0-10.0 +733
14 Chris Cree Dallas, TX 17.0-10.0 +568
15 Joe Edley Port Jefferson, NY 17.0-10.0 +105
16 Will Anderson Croton, NY 16.0-11.0 +1216
17 Kevin Rickhoff Saugus, CA 16.0-11.0 +1096
18 Carl Johnson Beaverton, OR 16.0-11.0 +911
19 Jason Keller Highland Park, NJ 16.0-11.0 +888
20 Brian Cappelletto Chicago, IL 16.0-11.0 +757
21 Joel Sherman Bronx, NY 16.0-11.0 +667
22 Rod MacNeil Cambridge, MA 16.0-11.0 +295
23 Tony Leah Ajax ON 16.0-11.0 +269
24 Kate Fukawa-Connelly Kittery, ME 16.0-11.0 +194
25 Dave Wiegand Portland, OR 16.0-11.0 +151

Saturday, August 6, 2011

me, Marych and my medal :)


















(2011) This is the third photo in the series. This time Stary Marych is wearing my silver medal.


















(2009) This second photo was taken two years ago. It was the gold medal.


















(2007) Photo taken after the first Polish Scrabble Championship I've taken part in winning the bronze medal.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Ivan

I was very happy to learn that after Romania and Poland third country from the former Soviet bloc will have its representative in the World Scrabble Championship.
This time it's Slovakia - Poland's southern neighbour.
Ivan Pastucha is a 40-year-old technician from Ruzomberok and has won all three Slovak qualification tournaments thus assuring a place in the WSC 2011 taking place in October in Warsaw, Poland.
Veľa šťastia, Ivan! 
I'll be happy to meet you in Warsaw!