Word nerds spend days chasing Thailand’s Scrabble crown
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Participants competing in the final of the Causeway Challenge Scrabble competition in Bangkok on June 1.
PHOTO: AFP
BANGKOK – If he were no longer physically able to play Scrabble, 86-year-old Tan Jin Chor said he would “shut the lights and call it a day”, but his love of the word game has kept the veteran verbophile competing.
The Malaysian senior started playing the globally popular board game with friends over beers, but has now spent tens of thousands of dollars travelling the world to Scrabble tournaments.
“Competitiveness, I like that, I enjoy that. Even though I lose most of the time,” he told AFP at the final of a major Scrabble championship in Bangkok on June 1.
When Tan started competing seriously 35 years ago, prizes could include a pair of socks, a necktie or sometimes a plaque.
“Nowadays, it’s for money... that’s the main thing I’ve found is different from the old days,” he said.
A US$10,000 (S$12,800) top prize brought some 450 serious Scrabblers from 30 countries to the Thai capital at the weekend for back-to-back matches at the four-day Causeway Challenge.
Onomatopoeia could not adequately describe the sound of Scrabble tiles being shaken in a bag, a logophilic rattlesnake hiss that filled the Bangkok hotel.
Singaporean organiser Michael Tang called his creation a “household brand name among the Scrabble community globally”.
“Scrabble is not about English,” he said.
“It’s really about memory, about strategy, it’s mathematics... you have to draw the tiles, so there’s a luck element.”
Tang’s favourite word from the tournament was “craziest” – a superlative he used to describe himself for his plan to host 1,000 competitors at the next tournament in 2028.
Players clutched red bags above their heads in a show of fair play as they chose their lettered tiles.
A participant picking Scrabble tiles from a bag held over his head during the competition.
PHOTO: AFP
“Scrabble for me, it has... there’s a certain je ne sais quoi,” said tournament winner David Eldar, adding that a lot depends on luck.
“I’m not the best player in the room, but I won,” the 36-year-old Australian added, saying he would be “paying for a lot of beers tonight”.
“It’s nerve-racking, it’s mentally stimulating, it’s challenging. It’s awesome.”
Tournament winner David Eldar from Australia posing with his Premier Division trophy in the competition.
PHOTO: AFP
‘A bit nerdy’
British woman Natalie Zolty was hesitant when she began competing professionally 10 years ago.
“I was thinking, ‘I don’t know... this is a bit strange’. Everybody’s a bit nerdy,” she said.
It takes “a lot of time” to get to a high standard in a competitive, male-dominated game, she added, and “some women don’t have that time”.
Scrabble has since changed the 61-year-old maths teacher’s life.
She said a lot of people at the event were not native English speakers.
“Most of the top players are maths-based because it’s all about the probabilities and playing the odds... you don’t need to know what the words mean,” she added.
The game demands eidetic knowledge of the English vocabulary – not necessarily spoken proficiency – and maths skills to exploit the points that letters are assigned.
“Unfortunately, I’m very bad at maths,” Malaysia’s Tan said. “So I’m not like those top players... I’m middling-rank.”
He said he would take part in a Malaysian seniors’ championship the coming weekend, despite being certain he would not win.
“I lose many more games than I win,” he said. “But I enjoy it. I love it.” AFP
