Go to: Finals Commentary Games Players Photos Profiles Standings Teams Press

Congratulations to the 2001 World Champion, Brian Cappelletto!

Back to WSC 2001 Live Coverage

WSC 2001 Commentary: Round 8

Go to: Before Round 1, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24, Final Game 1, Final Game 2, Final Game 3, Final Game 4.

Word judge Rick Wong just walked by the internet table. He says he spied ANITHERO* on a board. He attributes the fact that it is still there to the lack of free challenges. It is only the first day, but we are noticing less challenges than in WSCs of the past. John and I agree that for a tournament this size, there has been slightly less challenges than a crowd this size would generate at an OSPD tournament. We'll see how much this observation holds up over the next few days.

Jeff Grant (New Zealand) defeated Mario Miranda (Philippines), 524-345. Jeff's embarassed to have opened their game with the phoney HOOPIeR*. However, he did get down CALEFIED through an E. He pointed out that he made the play SECURITY through the I and Mario added IN making INSECURITY, a 10-letter word that reached the triple. On their board I also spot ORDiNATE through the R and ShELTERS. Mario played this last word.

I walked by a winding down game between Matt Graham (United States) and Dixon Assesa (Kenya). The Kenyan's last rack was AAEEEOU and Matt held EILQRT?. Matt played QuERY to the Y, Dixon was happy to get down AQUAE through the Q, and then Matt went out with TAIL through the A. Matt won 410-334. His opening play was PITURIS, which he claims to have learned just this past week. Later in the game he got down TODDlERS on the triple lane.

I think that the players from Ghana might have the largest cheering section. Today we had Chrys Placca, Mike Ofori (the President of the SCRABBLE^® Association of Ghana), Joshua Addo, and Bennet Kpentey, the latter missed the photo op in front of the big board.

David William Boys (Canada) mentioned that he only made four challenges today. Three he won, and the fourth cost him a two-point game loss to Joel Wapnick (World Champion). Perhaps Dave is less enamored of the new point penalty plan than others in the room.

Rick Wong claims that Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (Thailand)'s success today is directly attributable to chocolate cake. It turns out that Pakorn hit the lunch room a bit late and missed out on the main course. He was observed eating "piece after piece" of chocolate cake. John Chew points out that he was able to stop after eating only two pieces when he spilled his vegetable wrap juice atop the cake.

Ever the word maven, Adam Logan (Canada) points out that this location is perfect for a WSC. He explains, "VENETIAN is OSPD only, LAS is in both dictionaries, and VEGAS is in OSW only." See, there is a SCRABBLE^® explanation for everything. And, lastly, Adam confesses that between he and Joey Mallick (United States), they led me astray (it is pretty easy to do). Turns out that in the game where Adam played PREFACER and he said it was not good. Well, it is good. Joey looked it up in the OSW, but it is in the OSPD, so Adam did not get away with a phoney after all.

Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (Thailand), undefeated until this round, fell to Howard Warner (New Zealand), 354-414. As it turns out, Howard handed Adam Logan (Canada) his only loss of the day, too.

We end today's play with the current world champ, Joel Wapnick (World Champion) in first place, 7-1 +550, and fellow Canadian Adam Logan (Canada) is 7-1 +508. Also at 7-1 are Brian Cappelletto (United States) +396, Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (Thailand) +299, Howard Warner (New Zealand) +163.

HASBRO is the owner of the registered SCRABBLE^® trademark in the United States and Canada. © 2001 HASBRO. All rights reserved. "SCRABBLE^® Brand Crossword Game" is the proper way to refer to this unique group of word games and related properties marketed by HASBRO. "SCRABBLE^®" is not a generic term. To use it as such is not only misleading but also does injustice to the company responsible for the trademark's longtime popularity. All we ask is that when you mean SCRABBLE^® Brand Crossword Game, you say so. 

The SCRABBLE^® trademark is owned by J.W. Spear and Sons, PLC, a subsidiary of Mattel, Inc. outside of the United States and Canada. 

For more information about SCRABBLE^® or the NSA, or to comment on or correct the contents of this page, please e-mail: info@scrabble-assoc.com 
To report technical difficulties in reading this page,  please contact webmaster John Chew at: jjchew@math.utoronto.ca