Hi! Hello. I don't know if you noticed, but this year is flying by at warp speed. We're coming up on about one-third of the way through 2023 - and if you blinked, you might have missed a pretty action-packed start to the year, CoCo-wise.

We've already enjoyed our first-ever New Year's tournament in Los Angeles, our first time co-hosting the Crescent City Cup in New Orleans, our fifth annual Hood River Open in Oregon, our second annual Austin Tile X-Words, and our first tourney in Silver Spring, Maryland. And here's the crazy thing: We're just getting started. The tournament calendar is about to really pick up.

Let's take a moment and preview the rest of 2023 - the new tournaments we've added to the calendar, the old favorites that are coming back, and our big championship event that awaits at the end of the year.

A loaded field for Champions Cup

Coming up this weekend is one of the CoCo's marquee events - the Champions Cup, an elite tournament open only to players with peak ratings of 1850-plus. This will be one of the most competitive Scrabble tournaments in the world, a grueling event in which players face world-class opponents in every single round. It's not for the faint of heart.

All the credit goes to director Terry Kang for making this event happen - and for filling it to capacity. When Terry first came to me with her idea for this event - a 17-game round robin featuring 18 top players - I'll admit I was nervous. Good luck getting that many elite competitors under one roof, I told her. But she did it! The field is now full, and the 18 names constitute quite the murderer's row. Come Saturday, there will be national champions, world runners-up, grizzled veterans, young rising stars, and more, duking it out over the tiles. (Speaking as one of the competitors myself, I can't wait to get slaughtered.)

The beginning of Texas One-Days

Just a couple weeks later, there's another cool thing on the horizon - the start of our Texas One-Days series. One of our newest members of the CoCo directing team is Jesse Day, who's a relatively new resident of Austin, Texas, and he came to us with the idea of setting up regular one-day events for local CSW players in the area. We said awesome, go for it! The first tourney is on May 6, followed by another one soon after, on June 10.

These are the first CoCo one-day tournaments ever, but I'm optimistic they'll be far, far from the last. Jesse has hit upon a great idea - in a city like Austin, where there's a solid contingent of local players who will turn out and play Scrabble regularly, there's the potential for lots of small events that will draw decent fields. I'm optimistic that this model is one we can replicate in a few cities all over North America that have similarly strong player bases. This is something we plan to build upon in the near future.

O, Canada!

In addition to our first one-day tournaments coming up next month, we've got another milestone on deck - our first event north of the border! Our other newest director, Chris Tallman, is all set to run the first CoCo event in Canada over the weekend of June 10, in his native city of Vancouver.

I'm excited about this development on two levels - one, Chris is going to be a great director, and we're lucky to have him; and two, I'm optimistic this will be the start of something, as we begin to expand our operations northward. The CoCo has aspired from the beginning to be a Scrabble organization for all of North America, and that most certainly includes our Canadian friends. I hope we can offer them more and more tournament opportunities in the months and years ahead.

Old favorites and new events alike

Looking ahead to the rest of 2023, we've got a robust calendar of events ready for you, and it features a combination of classic events you know and love with new tourneys you can enjoy for the first time.

There's the Memorial Day Oregon Coast Open (MOCO), our beach house tournament on the Oregon Coast, back for the fifth time. The annual Saint Louis Open is back in June, as is the Portland-Alberta Beer Scrabble Thing (PABST). In July, we've got the second edition of the Seattle Summer Scrabble Tournament. In October, here's something new - our first-ever tournament in the great state of New Mexico, the Albuquerque/Rio Rancho area to be specific.

There's a little something for everyone on the calendar! Find a tournament that's right for you and sign up today.

Looking forward to the NACC

This is the big one. This fall, we're preparing to host CSW Scrabble players from all over the continent - and all over the world - at our flagship event. Starting Friday, Nov. 10, in downtown Seattle, it's the North American Collins Championship (NACC).

The NACC field is beginning to fill out nicely - as of this writing, we've got 17 players on the list, and the roster already includes a handful of national champions and other heavy hitters. And with almost 7 months still to go, we're looking forward to filling out this field plenty more as 2023 rolls on. You can expect a packed house come November. This is one event you will not want to miss.

Always more in the works...

As of right now, we've got 11 future tourneys on the calendar, ready to roll between now and the end of 2023. But our tournament calendar is far from a finished product - we're always working hard behind the scenes to recruit new directors, create more events, and offer the CSW Scrabble communities more opportunities to play.

And we're always eager to welcome more good people into that effort. So, please - if you're at all interested in working with us to direct Scrabble tournaments, give us a shout. We'd love to welcome you into the fold.

But for now, enjoy these 11 events.

We'll see you over the board.