2005 Canadian National SCRABBLE® Championship Photos: Final Round 1

A quick check of the tile distribution in the secluded finals room.

John Chew in yet another interview.

Robin Pollock Daniel, the Finals emcee, gets some last-minute encouragement from former CNSC and WSC superstar Joel Wapnick (Montréal QC).

Robin Pollock Daniel works the crowd in The Great Hall.

Adam Logan (United Kingdom), annotated by the team of John Stardom on paper and Kristen Chew on computer, shakes hands with Tony Leah (Ajax ON), annotated by the team of Mad Palazzo on paper and Rebecca Soble on computer. John Chew stands as a sign that it is time to begin.

Having drawn the tile closest to A, Tony Leah (Ajax ON) draws his tiles first while Adam Logan (United Kingdom) steadies the board.

The room the event's games were played in was transformed into a viewing room by moving tables to the sides and pushing a lot of chairs towards the middle. We are a few turns into the first game and Robin is getting fed play information from Pat Larash and Kate Boys, who were monitoring the annotators' output from the finals room.

Pat Larash and Kate Boys working their magic with the wireless connection. The annotators and John Chew from the finals room fed Pat, Kate, and Sherrie game flow information.

The gallery hangs onto every word and calls out possibile plays to Robin.

Game 1 from the perspective of the big board.

Robin runs into the finals room to congratulate the players on a great game. The relief that we made it through the first game without any major problems shows on the faces of the crew.