Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns, and be included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.
The National Scrabble Association (NSA) was created in 1978 by Selchow & Righter, then the makers of Scrabble, to promote their game. It coordinated local clubs and Scrabble tournaments in North America, including the National Scrabble Championship, until 2009. The last director was John D. Williams, who is co-author of the book Everything Scrabble.
Mark Nyman is an English professional Scrabble player originally from London, England and now a resident in Cheshire. At the end of 2002, he was rated 205 and was top-rated in the ABSP ratings. As at 7 September 2015 he is rated 200. His 27 consecutive tournament game wins is an ABSP record. He is most widely known as the first British player to win the World Scrabble Championship, which he accomplished in 1993. He married in 2004 and has two children, Max and Kizzy.
The World Scrabble Championship (WSC) is the most-prestigious title in competitive English-language Scrabble. It was held every second year after 1991 until 2013 when it began to be held annually. It has been an open event since 2014. Although the official brand name and organizations of the event have changed over recent years, many Scrabble enthusiasts from more than 30 countries compete to become World Scrabble Champion. The reigning World Scrabble Champion is Nigel Richards, who won his fourth title at the 2018 Mattel World Scrabble Championships by winning the final in London in 2018.
Joel Wapnick is a Scrabble player from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, best known for winning the 1999 World Scrabble Championship (WSC).
The North American Scrabble Championship is the largest Scrabble competition in North America. The event is currently held every year, and from 2004 through 2006 the finals were aired on ESPN and ESPN2. The 2019 event was held in Reno from July 20-24, 2019, with Alec Sjoholm emerging as champion.
Adam Logan is a research mathematician and a top Canadian Scrabble player. He won the World Scrabble Championship in 2005, beating Pakorn Nemitrmansuk of Thailand 3-0 in the final. He is the only player to have won the Canadian Scrabble Championship five times. He was also the winner of the 1996 National Scrabble Championship, North America's top rated player in 1997, and the winner of the Collins division of the 2014 North American Scrabble Championship.
Pakorn Nemitrmansuk is one of Thailand's top Scrabble players and the 2009 World Scrabble Champion. An architect and resident of Bangkok, Thailand, Nemitrmansuk has competed at World Scrabble Championship six times between 1999–2011 and was the runner-up in 2003 and 2005.
Panupol Sujjayakorn is a Thai Scrabble player, an economics student at university and analyst at ExxonMobil. He won the Thailand Matchplay Championship 2002, World Scrabble Championship 2003, Thailand King's Cup 2005 and was runner-up in the American National Scrabble Championship 2005 to Dave Wiegand. He is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of words despite having only conversational English.
Joseph Edley is a professional Scrabble player and author, and the first player to win the National Scrabble Championship three times.
Joel Sherman, nicknamed "GI Joel", is a top American Scrabble expert and former world champion. He is chronicled in Stefan Fatsis's book Word Freak, in Eric Chaikin's film Word Wars, and in Scott Petersen's film Scrabylon. He is also mentioned in Collins Gem's reference book. He was born in The Bronx, New York, and is an alumnus of the Bronx High School of Science.
Brian Cappelletto is a Scrabble player who represents the United States in international competition. He was the runner-up at the inaugural World Scrabble Championship in 1991 and won the event in 2001. He also won the American National Scrabble Championship in 1998, and was the runner-up in 2008 and 2010.
David Boys is a top Canadian Scrabble expert. He won the World Scrabble Championship (WSC) in London, UK, in 1995, and the Canadian Scrabble Championship in 2003. He also finished third in the WSC in both 1991 and 1999. In 1996 and again in 2007, he lost a match to a computer. His competitive career began in 1986. He has played in over 1,800 tournament games, winning about 67%, and has earned over $40,000 in prize money.
Dave Wiegand is an American Scrabble player who won the National Scrabble Championship in 2005 and 2009.
Clive Spate is a British game show contestant. He was the winner of the eighth series of Countdown and has won many other TV quizzes, including the 2003 series Grand Slam, a contest between previous quiz show champions which also featured Olav Bjortomt, Mark Labbett, Graham Nash and David Edwards, among others.
Tile tracking is a technique most commonly associated with the game of Scrabble and similar word games. It refers to the practice of keeping track of letters played on the game board, typically by crossing letters off a score sheet or tracking grid as the tiles are played. Tracking tiles can be an important aid to strategy, especially during the endgame when there are no tiles left to draw, where careful tracking allows each player to deduce the remaining unseen letters on the opponent's final rack. The marking off of each letter from a pre-printed tracking grid as the tiles are played is a standard feature of tournament play.
David Lawrence Gibson was an American professional Scrabble player and mathematics professor. Ranked the top player in North America and widely regarded as one of the greatest Scrabble players, Gibson won the North American Scrabble Championship twice.
Nigel Richards is a New Zealand–Malaysian Scrabble player who is among the most successful players of all time. Born and raised in New Zealand, Richards became World Champion in 2007, and repeated the feat in 2011, 2013, 2018, and 2019, and remains the only person to have won the title more than once. He also won the third World English-Language Scrabble Players’ Association Championship (WESPAC) in 2019.
The North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) is an organization founded in 2009 to administer competitive Scrabble tournaments and clubs in North America. It officially took over these activities from the National Scrabble Association (NSA) on July 1, 2009.
Will Anderson is a Scrabble player who won the North American Scrabble Championship in 2017, winning 25 out of 31 games, finishing ahead of runner-up Mack Meller. Anderson is currently rated 2148 as of October 7, 2017, ranking him second in North America in the OWL word source.
