Word Addict: secrets of a world SCRABBLE champion. Craig Beevers

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ role in my sustenance over the eleven days: a toaster, an orange plastic model aspiring to be a kitsch Bakelite number. I got by on a plateful of mini croissants at breakfast with toast, Maltesers and crisps during the day. I’m an incredibly fussy eater, and Malaysia being a mainly Muslim country, it cut down my options further, otherwise I’m sure there’d have been plenty of pork pies and sausage rolls to keep me going.

      Scrabble or Scrabblers were pretty much everywhere you looked. Outside there were frequent thunder storms. I had a wander now and again just to try 90 per cent humidity. There were a few colourful birds and the odd butterfly to try and take photos of, but it was a pretty boring place once the novelty wore off, albeit incredibly cheap if you got away from the complex. I remember getting in two games of ten pin bowling for less than a pound, whilst the technology on the alley threw me back to the days of playing on the ZX Sinclair Spectrum.

      After some glamorous ceremonies and free goodies (I’ve still got the shirt), 108 players from forty-one countries got shaking tile bags and the World Championships were under way. Twenty-four rounds were played over three days, then the top two went through to a best-of-five final. My goal was to try and finish in the top ten. The prizes started at tenth, which was of course a factor, but it was also an achievement to finish that high. I started off with a scrappy win before being drawn against two UK players … 8,000 miles to play Allan Simmons again and Phil Robertshaw from north west England! I narrowly lost both games, despite scoring 460 and 452.

      I beat a player from Zambia to go in at the break 2–2. A couple of horrible games followed before I edged one back and drew great tiles in the final game of the day to finish on an even four wins and four losses, pretty much middle of the pack in fifty-fourth place. I got through my first day without having a disaster. I knew I hadn’t been lucky and it felt like a damage-limitation exercise. I felt positive that things would get better.

      After so many high-scoring open games, the next day started with an absolute stinker. You don’t get many blocked boards at the top end of Scrabble, but this was one of them. I had the initiative with a small lead, but it evaporated as I couldn’t capitalize on the openings that my opponent was forced into making. In the end I won 347–277 with my opponent losing forty points in time penalties. I followed with a routine win and defeat. Then I played two time runner-up Pakorn Nemitrmansuk from Thailand.

      I was surprised to be playing Pakorn, because I expected him to be at the top of the field, which means he’d generally be playing other people at the top. It was exciting and tense, but I hadn’t really been in the game. A few spectators crowded round and I nearly played a showy nine-letter word, ITINERANT, but managed to mangle the order of the vowels in my haste to avoid time penalties. Four straight-forward games followed, with me taking three of them, and I finished day two on 9–7 and up to thirty-second place.

      I felt like I was still in with a shot of finishing in the top ten, but it was an outside chance and I’d have needed to win virtually every remaining game. Unfortunately, the next day started with a blowout in my opponent’s favour. I kept plugging away, though, and managing to win one way or another. Meanwhile Pakorn had managed to win an amazing fourteen games in a row. I happened to be his fifth victim.

      Suddenly I’d won six straight games and had made it up to ninth place. With one round to go I was drawn to play Andrew Fisher, a familiar name because he lived in England a number of years ago before emigrating to Australia. If I won I would get my top ten finish. Like the previous few games things seemed to flow my way. I had a good lead, and Andrew’s bigger plays weren’t scoring much whilst I was able to hit straight back.

      I ran out a comfortable winner and watched the other results come in to see where I finished. Nigel Richards, the reigning World Champion, had finished top, Pakorn second. Both were on eighteen wins. I finished on sixteen wins and eight losses but had only moved up a single place to eighth. I was just happy to finish in the top ten though, with so many other big names. It also happened I was the highest finishing European player, which I was quietly proud about. After copious handshakes and a rushed ceremony, things got turned around for the final between Nigel and Pakorn the next day. I now had the opportunity to be on the other side of the showpiece clash, watching with the audience as two players battled it out over a best-of-five contest. I always enjoyed following games and tournaments online. A number of previous tournaments had included annotated games. These were games where helpers had written down racks and moves, which had then been put online and could be played through move by move.

      Video cameras were set up so you could watch everything happen live. It was surprisingly dramatic, even things like tiles being placed one by one on the rack. Cheers as blanks and great letters appeared, groans as vowel after vowel or triplicate after duplicate were revealed. More noisy reactions as big scores went down, confused murmurs as moves we didn’t see or expect got placed on the board. It was a great atmosphere and I loved it.

      I won’t go into too much detail about the first game, because it’s covered in the playthroughs later in the book. So as you can imagine it was a humdinger. To stereotype a little bit, Nigel was the machine. He was Scrabbling perfection; he had his own style and would often baffle people with a move, only for it to then turn out to be the best play. Nigel did everything at a sedate pace. Pakorn was much more erratic. He once famously took seven minutes to decide where to place a word on his first turn. He was a very deep thinker. Frantic and fidgety as he was, he would often go right down to the last second on his clock, playing and picking tiles very quickly.

      The second game was in complete contrast to the first. Pakorn was already 203 points up when Nigel’s aura slipped a little. Richards had played PIG but had also made IR* in the process, an invalid word. Of course Nigel knew it didn’t exist. It was a careless mistake and his just happened to be on the biggest stage. Later in the game Pakorn rubbed it in further by pretending to play DINE onto the bottom left triple word score, before saying it’s not enough points and extending it to PALUDINE (an adjective meaning ‘of the marshes’) to hit two triple word scores for 167 points.

      Another blowout followed, then game four came along. Pakorn, who had lost in two previous finals, led 2–1 and needed one more to take the title. The audience was on his side. The game flowed beautifully. ADVENES, GRIFTERS, GENETRIX, DOYLEY, FREEHOLD, and BOHEMIAN. But the board was getting closed down. Nigel led by fifty-four points and was looking good to force it into a deciding game. But there was still time for one more big move. Pakorn held AABCNOT, there was a floating I to play through, but it was obscured and any move would have to fit under J and O. Fortunately his eight-letter word slotted sweetly, making (J)A and (O)N. BOTAN(I)CA went down for ninety-four points.

      ADVENES, advene, verb, to add over and above

      GRIFTERS, grifter, noun, swindler, one who makes money through deception or fraud

      GENETRIX, noun, mother

      DOYLEY, noun, same as doily or doyly, an ornamental napkin

      FREEHOLD, noun, permanent tenure of land or property

      BOHEMIAN, noun, an unconventional person, especially one involved in arts

      BOTANICA, noun, a shop that sells herbs and magic charms

      Pakorn was now on the brink of becoming World Champion after twice being the bridesmaid. Nigel took a long time to try and find any way of winning. He made the best move, but it was futile. СКАЧАТЬ