Note on the Oddness of Human Nature

People are nicis

In a crisis.

Neil Renton

Punch, September 1939

HIMPRTU!

After I visited the UK Open in Coventry I noticed there was a small local Scrabble tournament coming up so i decided to enter. That was the Sutton Coldfield tournament that took place yesterday at Stonnall Village Hall. And guess what, beginners luck struck bigtime and I won my section. That despite spending the last three weeks carrying round a list of 3-letter words without actually looking at it…

I enjoyed my day (obviously!) and met a lot of nice people, several of them members of the local club, but many also having travelled considerable distances to be there. I didn’t start off too well, losing my first game by 7 points, despite having gained 50 bonus points early on for playing HORNIER.

After that my run of good luck began, with opponents struggling with awful letters. This included David Woolley, the leader, who I was shocked to beat in my penultimate game.

That left me in the lead with only the mercurial Chris Hands to play. After one move each it was 72-74 but the game degenerated from there and I was lucky to finally squeeze out a win. Victory (and £20) was mine!

Coventry Scrabbleathon

Yesterday I visited the UK Scrabble Open in Coventry. It was interesting to compare the event with a poker tournament. It certainly didn’t look much different (although the average age of the participants was somewhat higher) and the sound of tiles being rattled in bags echoed all the toying with chips that goes on in a poker room. The event is taking place over five days, which is the same length as the top poker tournaments, but the prize money isn’t in the same league. The winner will receive £3,000, compared with the £500,000 Vicky Coren received for winning last year’s European Poker Tour event in London.

The elite end of the room

Paul Allan & Nigel Richards – the start of a 975-pointer

Azu Ogbogu and Mark Nyman discussing their game

Still, the sight of 100 people simultaneously cogitating against the clock was pretty impressive, and even a little exciting. It’s a shame that there’s no giant scoreboard displaying everyone’s progress – statistics always give me a thrill!

While I waited to have a chat with Mark Nyman – the only Briton ever to have been world champion – I made myself useful by ferrying word-challenges to the adjudicator. One of these was when current world champion Nigel Richards – who’s flown in specially from New Zealand for this event – made the play “pheesing”. (I’ll let you find out whether it’s valid.) Some of the challenges on other tables seemed a bit desperate – “yam”?? – as did some of the plays, proving that Scrabble-players can be bluffers too.