TLW 87 - Nomads Results

BEST 2002: The Final...They’re simplyTHE BESTMark Nyman(England)vPaul Allan(Scotland)After six months of regional matches, followed by a series of national quarter-finals andsemi-finals, the two finalists in the British Elimination Scrabble Tournament (BEST) are nowknown: Mark Nyman will take on Paul Allan for the title of BEST Champion 2002.In their respective semi-finals, Mark defeated Andy Davis 9.5 - 6.5, after losing the firstthree games, while Paul saw off Terry Kirk 9.5 - 5.5. In contrast to Mark, Paul took the earlyinitiative by winning the first five games, giving Terry too steep a mountain to climb.Earlier in the tournament, unseeded Phil Appleby produced a major upset by knocking outhighly fancied Brett Smitheram in the South-West and Wales region, only to fall to GarethWilliams in the zone final. Other zone winners in addition to the semi-finalists includedDavid Acton (North East), Jared Robinson (East Midlands) and Andy Roughton (WestMidlands).Unlike the previous year’s BEST, ratings prizes were awarded for the best performances byplayers with ratings below 170. Pride of place went to Maureen Chamberlain, whosesplendid win over Steve Perry was the basis of her tournament rating of 178, 35 above herstarting rating of 143.At the time of publication, the date and venue for the final has yet to be decided. Theintention is to provide live move-by-move coverage on the internet. Full details will bepublished on the BEST web site (http://www.scrabble.demon.co.uk/).record smashed at centre:mkAt midday on Sunday 18th August, 12 year old Austin Shin (Milton Keynes) and ChrisHawkins (Peterborough) unofficially set a new world record for the most points scored bytwo players in 24 hours, achieving a total of 162,171 points, surpassing their own officialworld record of 135,758 points set back in December.Both players were thrilled with thefinal score, as they thought150,000 might just be attainablebefore they started the attempt, soto push the record up as high asthey did beyond that mark reallycame as a surprise. They say theywere much more disciplined withtheir break-taking this time roundcompared to last time, and thestandard of play was better too(they averaged nearly 1040 pointsper completed game this time,compared to just under 1000 inDecember).The previous record score was surpassed just after 8.00a.m., following 20 hours of play,and the total number of games played was also well up on last time; time ran out duringthe 157th game, compared to the 136th last time. No very unusual plays occurred this time(unlike the DEMAGNETIZING play from the first attempt), the highest scoring word wasChris’ ABSENTLY for 203, and the word which broke the old record was Austin’s WINY.The big difference between this attempt and the last one was the playing conditions; at onepoint on Saturday afternoon the temperature in centre:mk shopping centre, where theattempt took place, reached 42 degrees Celsius! The event raised £165.48 for charity, theproceeds going to Willen Hospice in Milton Keynes.Chris and Austin would like to publicly thank all the people who helped this attempt bethe success it was: Chris’ wife Jo, Austin’s dad and his sister Evelyn who all did long scorekeepingstints, as did Pippa and Peter Yates, club players from Peterborough, Nick Dellerand Philip Nelkon. They would also like to thank the staff of centre:mk shopping centre forproviding them with a venue for the attempt, and Mike Willis for his very generousdonation on behalf of the Loughton and Linford Scrabble Club to the charity collection.The pair may attempt to break the record again at some point in the future, but Chris is alsothinking about creating a new record category in the Guinness Book of Records, for thefastest single game of Scrabble by two players. During their practice sessions on theInternet Scrabble Club, Austin and Chris managed to completed one game in 3 minutes 23seconds, and although this was ‘virtual’ Scrabble, where drawing and placing tiles isquicker, Chris feels that a similar time (or better) should be possible ‘over the board’. Fornow though, both players are content to keep on entering ABSP tournaments, where thespeed of each game is comparatively leisurely!1213