Revision as of 07:21, 23 November 2010

Tournament SCRABBLE® play in Canada and the United States is administered by NASPA and its Tournament Committee. All questions about tournaments should be sent to that committee’s mailing list.

Playing in Tournaments

Tournaments are organized by NASPA-sanctioned Directors and listed on our calendar. You must be a NASPA member to play in a NASPA event. All players are expected to know and follow the Official Tournament Rules.

First-time tournament players (i.e. those who do not have a tournament rating) may buy either a full NASPA membership or a trial six-month membership (US$15) through their tournament organizer. If they opt for a trial membership, they have the option to extend it to a full membership by sending in an additional $15 at any time during the six-month trial period.

Score sheets and other player forms are available for download from the Player Resources page.

Directors: As players want to register for your tournament, you will need to check the Membership Database to be sure their NASPA membership is current.

Directors endeavor to accommodate players with special needs.

Tournament Results

Tournament results and ratings will be posted at the NASPA website and later at cross-tables.com. The first step to viewing results is to consult the monthly list of tournament results.

You can also find tournament statistics at cross-tables.com.

Directors: Submit tournament results to NASPA

Coordinating Tournaments

In order to organize a tournament, you must be a NASPA member and certified as a director or tournament coordinator.

Directing Tournaments

In order to direct a tournament, you must be a NASPA member and certified as a director. For more information about and for directors, please see our Directors page.

Most tournaments are open to all and fully rated by the NASPA; these are referred to as Open Rated Tournaments (ORT). However, there are also a few other tournament types that are sanctioned and rated. See table below (excerpted from the Director's Manual and expanded) to compare them:

Sanctioning Tournaments

NASPA maintains its calendar of sanctioned tournaments as an information resource for its members. You may use the Tournament Listing Form to gather information about your tournament for sanctioning. Registered directors must apply to the Tournament Committee to add all rated tournaments to the calendar by emailing the committee mailing list naspa-tourney@yahoogroups.com.

The tournament and director running the tournament must satisfy the following conditions for ORT and TCC events:

• Multi-day Tournament: No other multi-day SCRABBLE game tournaments occurring within two weekends and 200 miles of your proposed tournament. No other one-day tournament on the same day within 200 miles of your proposed tournament (tours/cruises with similar itineraries need 90-day separation).
• One-day Tournament: No other tournament on same day within 200 miles.
• Exception: if the organizers of conflicting tournaments are agreeable, NASPA will sanction both.
  • The term “200 miles” in tournament distance calculations shall mean 200 miles driving distance from venue address to venue address, as measured by Google Maps using the default driving directions. The Tournament Committee may consider appeals for exception in the event that Google Maps is shown to be in error, and may select an alternative mileage calculation tool should Google Maps be deemed unreliable.
• the application is submitted six weeks before the planned event
• the director’s membership expires after the end of the planned event

Local Club Tournaments (LCT), which are 1/3-rated, require advance sanctioning and will be listed in the calendar. LCT's have the same Player Participation fee as Open Rated Tournaments.

As of Jan 2010, NASPA is sanctioning and rating tournaments using the SOWPODS word list (now more commonly known as the Collins SCRABBLE Words, or CSW). If you would like your tournament to use CSW, please specify that when requesting sanctioning.

Processing Memberships or Renewals

All tournament players, whether a newbie or someone with a rating who hasn't joined NASPA yet, must join NASPA in order to play in your tournament. Here are some scenarios that might apply to your tournament:

1. You are gathering entries for your tournament and you look on cross-tables to see if they are members. Cross-tables says "check with NASPA". You check on the NASPA member database, accessible by clicking on "Member Search" on the sidebar. If they have a member number in the NASPA database, they are good to go. Occasionally a membership does not show up on Cross-tables right away but will already be listed on the NASPA database.

2. You are gathering entries for your tournament and you agree to let someone join NASPA at the door. If you know ahead of time that one or more people are going to do this, go to Member Services and click on the “Add New Member” button in the Director section. Fill out all the membership information and then choose “Payment with your next tournament’ participation fee” payment method. Your players’ memberships will be activated right away, and a charge will be placed on your account with NASPA, so that it will be totalled with your participation fee after your tournament.

3. You are checking in players the day of the tournament and you have a walk-in who is not a member.

Check to make sure that all of your players are listed on the NASPA site as members. Rating data will not be accepted if any players are not members. Ask nonmembers to fill out printed membership forms, then activate their memberships as in case 2 above. If you have players who say they have recently mailed membership checks to NASPA, do not pay that portion of the amount shown owing; it will be removed from your director account when their checks clear. If their checks do not clear, you will be liable for their membership fees and will not be able to run a tournament until we receive full payment.

By “director account” that simply means there will be a list of directors and what they owe for the new members and your “account balance” will go away once you have paid. This does not go on your credit card when you submit your results.

You also have the option of authorizing the membership monies to be charged to your credit card, which you might do to help a club member join NASPA when you do not have an upcoming tournament.

4. A tournament entrant says he has joined NASPA. Ask what his membership number is. If it starts with AA followed by 6 digits, you're fairly sure he joined NASPA and not the NSA. Occasionally people join the NSA thinking that it will entitle them to play in NASPA-rated tournaments.

Web Coverage

Major events, such as national championships, are webcast on this website, and web coverage is archived in perpetuity.

Web coverage typically consists of standings updates continuously throughout an event, commentary about the event’s highlights, photos and interactive games where you can follow along at the top board in real time.

Sponsorship Policy

Tournament sponsorship is permitted with the prior approval of the Tournament Committee. In pursuing sponsors, please remember that we are licensed users of a registered trademark for a board game which is primarily marketed to families, and that sponsors should be appropriate for that demographic.