2007 WSC

2007 World SCRABBLE® Championship: Team U.S.A.

The NSA congratulates the following players who have earned the right to represent the United States at the 2007 World SCRABBLE® Championship:

Here are the rules under which they qualified.

  1. Fifteen players will be eligible for the next WSC. Of these 15, the 12 American players who earn the Highest Peak Ratings during the Qualifying Period (QP) of January 1, 2006 through May 1, 2007 will be invited. A player's Peak Rating (PR) is his/her highest rating earned from NSA Open Rated tournaments during the QP after the first 60 tournament games have been played. In other words, each player must first play 60 tournament games during the QP before a legitimate PR is earned.

  2. If a PR includes bonus points earned from the second half of a tourney 17-32 rds. long (or from the final third of a tourney 33-48 rds. long), then those specific bonus points will be subtracted from the player's final rating that tourney before reaching the PR for that tourney only. Subsequent tourneys will again include the bonus points from the previous events.

  3. In the event of a tie for the last PR-based place, such ties will be broken based on regular tournament ratings as of May 1, 2007.

  4. The remaining players will be chosen from a WSC Qualifying Tournament (WSCQT), which in all likelihood will be held some time in June 2007. The top 3 players of the WSCQT will be invited to the next WSC and the 4th place finisher will be the American Alternate, should any of our other invitees not participate. If a second invitee decides not to attend, the player with the next highest PR will be invited, and so on down the PR list in the case of additional dropouts.

  5. In order to qualify for the WSCQT, players must be current members of the NSA and must have played in at least 3 NSA Open Rated Tournaments, including 50 games, during the QP. However, 20 of those games may have been played at unrated NSA SOWPODS divisions organized at NSA sanctioned Open Rated Tournaments for the benefit of our WSC players as an adjunct to the main event. These SOWPODS events must have a minimum of 4 players to count toward qualifying for the WSCQT.

  6. As announced in issue 209 of the newsletter: The NSA will post a “Final Cancellation Date (FCD)” shortly after the details of the WSC are publicized. (On May 22nd, the FCD was announced. It is June 15th, 2007.) Any player who officially lets the NSA know he or she will play in the WSC and then chooses not to play in the tournament after the FCD will be ineligible to qualify/play in the following World Championship. To clarify: players may say they will go, make plans to go and stil cancel, with no penalty, if they do so before the FCD. However, if the FCD passes, and they then cancel, this puts a huge, undue burden on the next player eligible to go. If there are extenuating circumstances, the canceler may petition the NSA for reinstatement of their eligibility, and the NSA Advisory Board will investigate the situation for a possible reversal.

Current qualification standings are updated monthly, with the publication of each new ratings list.

The following players registered, but withdrew before the FCD: Dave Wiegand, Brian Cappelletto, Jim Geary and John Luebkemann.

The following players have announced their intention to play if eligible, but were not among the top 12 to qualify on rating: Nick Ball and Marty Gabriel.

Qualifying Tournament

John Fultz was to direct a 15-round qualifying tournament in Urbana, IL on July 20-22, but only three players registered for the three available places, so they qualify automatically: Amit Chakrabarti, Marty Gabriel and Steve Polatnick.

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