Tournaments

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 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.

Tournament Results

Tournament results and ratings are currently posted at the NSA website, but we will start posting them on the NASPA website in early July.

You can also find historical tournament data at cross-tables.com.

Directors: Submit tournament results to NASPA

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 (exerpted from the Director's Manual and expanded) to compare them:

	Open Rated Tournament (ORT)	Local Club Tournament (LCT)	Restricted-entry Rated Tournament (e.g., Challenge, Championships)
Advance Notice	8 Weeks	None required	None Required (for now)
Tournament calendar listing	Listed on NASPA calendar	Not listed on calendar	Not listed on calendar
Rating Method	fully rated	1/3 rated	fully rated
How Often?	No other multi day SCRABBLE game tournaments occurring within two weekends and 200 miles of your proposed tournament. No other one-day tournament on same day within 200 miles.	At most, once per month	[TBA]
How Many games?	At least 4 games	At least 3 games	At least 4 games
How Many players?	At least 4 players in each division, at least 2 rated players in each division	At least 4 players in each division, at least 2 rated players in each division	At least 4 players in each division, at least 2 rated players in each division
Player restrictions	All players must be current NASPA members	All players must be current NASPA members	All players must be current NASPA members Entry restricted by club/region (for team challenge) or region/rating (for championship).
Participation Fee	$.50 per player per game	$.50 per player per game	$.50 per player per game
Examples	National Scrabble Championship, most tournaments	One-day tournament that is created on short notice	Portland-Seattle Interclub Challenge, Texas State Championship, Can-Am, Kingston Cup

Sanctioning Tournaments

NASPA maintains its calendar of sanctioned tournaments as an information resource for its members. You may use the Tournament Listing Information to gather information about your tournament. Registered directors may apply to the Tournament Committee to add fully rated tournaments to the calendar, provided the following conditions are met:

• the director’s membership expires after the end of the planned event
• For a multi-day event, no other events are already sanctioned within two weekends and 200 miles of the planned event. For a one-day event, no other one-day events are already sanctioned on the same day within 200 miles of the planned event, and no other multi-day events are already sanctioned on the same weekend within 200 miles of the planned event.
• the application is submitted eight weeks before the planned event

Furthermore, unless there are exceptional circumstances and permission is obtained in advance, an event cannot be rated unless:

• each division has at least four players
• each division has at least two rated players

Local Club Tournaments (LCT), which are 1/3-rated, do not require advance sanctioning and are not listed in the calendar. LCT's have the same Player Participation fee as sanctioned Open Rated Tournaments.

Web Coverage

Major events, such as national championships, are webcast on this web site, 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.