Tournaments

Tournament SCRABBLE® play in Canada and the United States is administered by NASPA and its Tournament Committee. If you have questions about tournaments that are not answered here, please email the committee.

What is a tournament?

At a tournament, NASPA members get together to play several rounds of SCRABBLE according to tournament rules under the supervision of a tournament director. The player who wins the most games usually wins a prize, and the results of the event are submitted to NASPA to update everyone’s rating. There are several tournaments each week somewhere in the United States and Canada, and most clubs hold at least one big tournament each year.

Playing in tournaments

Tournaments are organized by NASPA-sanctioned Directors and listed on our calendar. In order to play in a tournament, you must:

1. be a NASPA member in good standing (US$15 for first-time players)
2. be familiar with the tournament rules
3. contact the director listed in the calendar to register for the event

If it is your first time playing in a tournament, you should make sure your tournament director knows this. Ask the director how you should prepare for your tournament; and do not hesitate to ask the director for help, if at any time during your tournament you aren’t sure what to do.

If you have special needs, our tournament directors will do their best to accommodate you, if they receive enough notice. In particular, almost all tournament venues are accessible to the physically handicapped, and players are entitled to use assistive equipment or sit at the most convenient table to accommodate a handicap.

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

Finding tournament results

If your tournament director is using correctly configured modern tournament software, you will probably know your new tournament rating before you leave at the end of your event. Your tournament director will then submit the results to the NASPA website, where the ratings and tournament results will be updated as soon as the rating officer reviews the results. (This can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours.) Tournament statistics are copied regularly from our website to our partner site cross-tables.com on an hourly basis.

Scheduling a tournament

In order to have a tournament sanctioned (added to the calendar of upcoming scheduled events), you must:

1. be a NASPA member in good standing (your membership must be current through the end of your planned event to submit tournament results)
2. be certified as a tournament director or tournament coordinator
3. contact the Tournament Committee at naspa-tourney@yahoogroups.com to request sanction, in advance of the deadlines listed below. The tournament listing form may be used to gather information about your tournament for sanctioning. If your tournament will use the Collins (SOWPODS) lexicon, see the page on directing SOWPODS tournaments for the additional information required.
4. ensure that a certified tournament director will be present throughout your event.

Kinds of tournaments

We currently recognize four different kinds of rated tournaments:

• An open rated tournament (ORT) is open to anyone and is fully rated.
• A local club tournament (LCT) is open to anyone but one-third rated.
• A team challenge is restricted to members of specific clubs or residents of specific regions, and is fully rated.
• A championship is restricted to members of a specific club or residents of a specific region, and is fully rated.

Any of these types of tournaments may also be played using the Collins (SOWPODS) lexicon (see directing SOWPODS tournaments).

The following table (excerpted from the Director’s Manual and expanded) describes the different kinds of tournaments in more detail.

	Open rated tournament (ORT)	Team challenges or championships (TCC)	Local club tournament (LCT)
Advance notice/ sanctioning	6 weeks with no exceptions (see note below)		10 days with no exceptions (see note below)
Tournament calendar listing	All rated events must be listed on NASPA calendar
Rating method	fully rated		1/3 rated
Frequency/ geographic restrictions	Multiday tournaments: no other multiday event occurring within two weekends and 200 miles of your proposed tournament; no other one-day event on the same day as one of your tournament days. One-day tournaments: No other tournament on same day within 200 miles. Tours/cruises with similar itinerary need 90 day separation. Exception: If the organizers of conflicting tournaments mutually agree, NASPA will sanction both.. Exception: The Executive Committee has determined that the Can-Am Challenge does not conflict with other events, due to its structure. Therefore, Can-Am can be scheduled at the convenience of the organizers, without regard to proximity to other events.		Must be sponsored by a NASPA-sanctioned club. No more than one event per club, per month.
How many games?	At least 4 games		At least 3 games
How many players?	At least 4 players in each division, at least 2 rated players in each division
Membership requirements	All players must be current NASPA members
Player restrictions	None permitted	Entry restricted by club/region (for team challenge) or club/region/rating (for championship).	None permitted
Participation fee	$.50 per player per game
Examples	National SCRABBLE Championship, most tournaments	Portland-Seattle Interclub Challenge, Texas State Championship, Can-Am, Kingston Cup	One-day tournament that is created on short notice

In the above, the phrase “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. Note: In general, no exceptions will be made to advance notice guidelines. However, in extraordinary cases, the Executive Committee has the right to grant sanction to a tournament that does not meet the guidelines.

Unrated Events and Newcomer Divisions

Many directors wish to have unrated Scrabble tournaments and/or newcomer divisions that run concurrently with the main event. The following information is provided to help directors identify whether or not such an event is permitted under NASPA guidelines.

The Tournament Committee will not sanction events that include mirror images of the proposed NASPA-sanctioned event, save only for NASPA sanction. In general, unrated or newcomer events should be of significantly shorter duration than the main event with which they run concurrently. These events are accorded special consideration because they are designed to build interest in competitive play for newcomers, and grow our ranks. After-hours unrated events, tag-team events, etc. are generally fine.

Because of the large number of sanctioned directors, and the creativity with which they approach crafting events to meet the wishes of their constituencies, it is difficult to define every type of event and declare each as either prohibited or allowed. For that reason, directors who plan to offer unrated events are encouraged to contact the Tournament Committee at naspa-tourney@yahoogroups.com with any questions about the suitability of a particular event.

Directors should always include details about all Scrabble events (whether rated or unrated) to be run in conjunction with any event, when seeking sanction for the event.

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.