SCRABBLE - The Last Word Newsletter

S U M C L A B B E R S T O U R N A M E N TSUM Clabbers TournamentTournament winner Paul Epstein with RodneyNivison, co-organizer and 3rd place finisher.Six players competed in a 5-game Round Robin clabbers tourneyat Michigan State University Sunday, November 22. Organized byJeff Clark and Rodney Nivison, the event attracted a small but starstuddedentry, including Peter Morris, the winner of the first WorldScrabble Championship (1991) and one of the outstanding 5 whohave won both that and a National Scrabble Championship (1989).Rod Nivison was another top player making a return toSCRABBLE® after almost a decade away from tournament play.They were joined by Paul Epstein, Jeff Fiszbein, MargaretSutherland, and Diane Kraynak, a clabbers “newbie.”Despite posting the tourney high average score (650) and the 3 highest scores (718, 716, 696),Peter Morris was not able to beat Paul Epstein (Polyp Stain).Jeff Clark does not think we will see Peter back onthe scrabble circuit. “We designed this clabberstourney to encourage Peter to attend,” said Clark.“We picked a site less than 10 miles from hishouse. Peter admitted his scrabble is rusty. Heplayed (and got away with) a phoney 4. He playedEDUX thinking that DEUX might be a new word.But he still has great bingo knowledge. He playedILEZIBNE for 137 and added YR to IZENCIT for 69.Paul Epstein is a great player as well, but I believethe numbers show that it was a fluke that Peter didnot win the tourney. Had this been more than a 5-game tourney we would have had different results.Tournament co-organizer Jeff Clark welcomes PeterMorris, one of SCRABBLE®’s all-time greatest players.“Paul had a nice 10-letter bingo. Thru FYE, Paul played PtUFYERGIN 2x2 for 122 points.“Kudos to Diane Kraynak who had never played clabbers before. She arrivedthinking that clabbers was ‘collaborating scrabble,’ a version where players helpeach other out. She was given a brief intro before she was thrown to thewolves. She handled the new experience like a veteran.”For those readers not familiar with clabbers, the game is a variation onSCRABBLE® popular with tournament Scrabblers. The name derives from thefact that the words CLABBERS and SCRABBLE are anagrams. The rules areidentical to those in SCRABBLE®, except that valid plays are only required toform anagrams of acceptable words--the letters can be in any order. If a word“Newbie” Diane Kraynakis challenged, the player who played the word must name an acceptable wordthat anagrams to the tiles played.Because the number of "words" that can be formed is vastly larger than those in the OWL2, theboard usually ends up tightly packed in places, and necessarily quite empty in others. Game scores20