Recapping a truly unforgettable Champions Cup event
One thing that's cool about creating a new Scrabble organization entirely from scratch is that seemingly every tournament brings with it new historic "firsts." When you've had so few events in your history, just about every single one of them makes history in one way or another. It's your first tournament ever in this city, or that state. Your first one with X players, or Y games, or $Z in prize money. Heck, just last month was our first tournament ever in which several players ran a 5K race right before competing in a Scrabble tournament. It's always something.
But this weekend at the Champions Cup, one of our marquee events, we saw a truly distinctive CoCo first, an occurrence that might not come a second time for quite a while - our first tournament in which two players tied for first place with identical records, spreads and all. It's a fitting outcome, in a way - this event featured nothing but top players, in every single seat at every single board, and in the end it proved too competitive for any one player to finish on top. The Champions Cup has two champions - Conrad Bassett-Bouchard and Ben Schoenbrun.
This tournament began as the brainchild of CoCo director Terry Kang, who came to us many months ago with the idea for a truly elite Scrabble tournament. All top players, all up and down the roster. We quickly hammered out a set of rules - 18 players, 17 games, full round robin, peak rating of 1850-plus required to qualify - and launched the event in November. Eventually, the player list filled to capacity, and the Champions Cup was ready to roll.
The assumption going in, at least in my mind, was that parity would rule the day. When you've got so many great players in one field, and absolutely anyone in the tournament can beat anyone, you're going to have a lot of players in the middle of the pack and few pulling away. But this assumption turned out to be only partially true. While many players hovered around .500 for much of the weekend, there were three notable competitors who jumped quickly to the top, and unsurprisingly they were the top three seeds going in - Conrad, Ben, and Rob Robinsky.
At the first lunch break on Saturday, there were five players tied for first place at 3-1 - Brad Whitmarsh, Brian Bowman, Rob, Conrad, and Ben.
When the first day was complete, Conrad had taken sole possession of first place at 8-1, and there were just two players nipping at his heels at 7-2 - Rob and Ben.
On Sunday morning, Rob went on a tear and won all four of his games, while Conrad and Ben each took three of four.
It was clear by the end that we had a three-man race for the title. And at about 5 p.m. Sunday, with one round still to go, I posted the following on the CoCo Instagram feed:
This, I thought, was pretty comprehensive. You had a complete breakdown of all the possible scenarios in the final round, spelling out in detail how each player might win the tournament.
Of course, the one scenario I glossed over was the one that ended up happening - Ben beat Conrad in the final round by exactly 1 point less than that magic number of 158, meaning that instead of winning the tournament, he'd managed to tie it.
Ben was kind enough to break the game down for me. The way he told it, it was a close game early - his opening rack of ACEROSE put him ahead 74-0 right out of the gate, but Conrad responded immediately with DIMEROUS. Ben kept tempo with high-scoring plays like HOOFED and HUTZPA, but Conrad again kept it close with a high-scoring YEW and a bingo of TIMELESS. The turning point was when Ben bingoed with CURRANTS and drew BFIORU? out of the bag, giving him TUBIFORM for 98 from the T in TIMELESS. That, Ben told me, "made catching him on spread a real possibility." And catch him, he did - just barely. A fairly straightforward endgame of INDIA, LINK, and YE produced a final score of 541-384, meaning Ben had won by 157 points exactly.
When Rob lost his game, a 503-353 blowout at the hands of Brad, that confirmed it. We had two champions. Ben and Conrad were together in first place at 13-4, +743. Rob finished third at 12-5, +831, and Matthew Tunnicliffe was fourth at 10-7, +589.
Thus ends one of the most memorable tournaments in the CoCo's history! We probably won't see another one like it for quite a while.
A few other odds and ends from the Champions Cup:
How many other tournaments in Scrabble history have ended in ties? I'm suddenly dying to know. I know I've been in the building for three of them - there's this one, a Vancouver tourney won by Carl Johnson and Doug Brockmeier in 2017, and a one-day in Lexington, Mass., back in 2010 in which two Bens - Harrison and Greenwood - shared the title in Division 3. I bet there are many others. Feel free to chime in on social media and share any tied tourneys you might know about.
Here's a cool thing about a tournament full of top players - you get to see lots and lots of nine-letter bingos (and longer, even!). It seemed like nines were getting slapped down left and right this weekend. To name just a few: Ben played REECHOING. Matthew played PARENTAGE. Rob played DISTHRONE. Stefan Rau played AUREITIES. I myself got down QUERCITIN. Conrad played both TRIDENTED and RETAILINGS (a ten!) in the same game. Everywhere you looked, there were awesome plays happening.
New people! As always, we extend a friendly welcome to the new people. This was the first ever CoCo event for three players - Matthew, Stefan, and Josh Sokol. For Josh, it was the first multi-day Collins event anywhere! Stick around - don't let it be the last.
Last but certainly not least, all the credit in the world for this event goes to our director, Terry. She came up with a great idea for a Scrabble tournament, did a great job organizing and recruiting players, and was even greater at hosting and catering for everyone. The food was spectacular all weekend long! Players noshed on bacon and eggs, beef bourguignon, pasta with shrimp, Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, and more. And there was a lavish, um, all-you-can-drink buffet. Terry knocked it out of the park. Awesome directors like her are what make the CoCo world go 'round, so I can never express thanks enough.
As for the CoCo, this train keeps moving. There are lots more tournaments coming right up, including a total of 6 in May and June.
The inaugural Champions Cup was a blast! And we hope to see you at the next event soon.