An international battle royale at the CURE3

From the very beginning, having a healthy relationship between us North Americans and the rest of the Scrabble world has been a key goal for us. There's a whole planet of enthusiastic Scrabblers out there, and we've always wanted to offer tournaments that will appeal to all of them.

Initially, we thought of this as a long-term goal. After all, it takes a lot of time and money and advance planning to travel internationally, so we figured it would take years before we saw many players from outside North America entering our tournaments.

As it turns out, we've discovered a silver lining to the entire world being quarantined in their homes. Now that our tournaments have gone virtual for the time being, it's been easy to invite players from all over the world to compete - all they need is an internet connection. And this past weekend, we're proud to say we had players from seven different countries competing in a one-day tournament, including some from the opposite side of the world. Players joined us from the U.S., Canada, England, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Singapore. Special props are due to Ryan Wee from Singapore - when our tournament finally came to a close at 3:30 p.m. local time here in Seattle, it was 6:30 a.m. the next morning in his time zone. Ryan pulled an all-nighter to join us!

The tournament went smoother than ever this time, and the competition was thrilling to the end. Ultimately there were three main contenders with a shot to win the tournament - Canada's Jackson Smylie, Malaysia's Cedric Lewis and Alec Sjoholm from the U.S. With two rounds to go, Jackson and Cedric were 5-1, with Alec close behind at 4-2. Here's what went down:

• In round 7, Alec scored a big win over his opponent, Indunil Sanjeewa Amarasinghe of Sri Lanka. Alec got down four bingos in his first seven turns - REACCEDE, NIGHTIE, ABSORBS and UPSOARED - and cruised to victory, moving him into second place.
  Cedric kept himself in contention by winning a thriller against Jackson. It was close the whole way, and then Cedric decided to fish for a bingo at the end to deliver the knockout punch. His fish worked, giving him bingos in two spots - ROADIES and AERADIOS - to ensure the win.

• Jackson went into the final round in third place, 5-2 with a good spread; he beat Colin Northmore in the final game to move to 6-2. Meanwhile, Cedric and Alec had a barn-burner. It ended up with Cedric creating a gorgeous setup to give himself a bingo of JAYGEES. He found himself in a difficult endgame, needing only to tie to win the tournament; instead he lost by 19. This meant that Jackson, just barely, was able to pass both players and win the tournament on spread!

• When the dust settled, the final standings were Jackson at 6-2 +764, Alec at 6-2 +650 and Cedric at 6-2 +510. None of them netted any prize money, but Jackson is the deserving winner of a customized wooden plaque, engraved with the nickname of his choice.

Aside from the battles at the top, there were other hilarious hijinks. As always, there were amusing phonies - Zachary Dang made headlines by challenging the invalid II* off the board in round 5, only to play the exact same phony two himself in round 7! Players also had a lot of fun vying for the Best Food Word theme prize - Terry Kang Rau won the competition with her entry of QUAHOG, beating a host of other strong entries. People's submissions ranged from food staples (BEEF, FISH, ARROZ) to descriptive cooking terms (TOASTING, ZESTS, UNTHAWED, YEASTIER) to creative contenders (FEIJOA, GUTFUL) to edible high-probability bingos (ROASTIE, ETAERIO). Fun all around! Terry wins the honor of selecting the Best Word category for the next CURE.

In closing, I'll just say that we're thrilled to have drawn such a diverse field of international players to our events, and we hope that continues in the weeks to come. In fact, we're pondering the idea of adjusting the timing of our future events and making it easier for players in other parts of the world to compete. Stay tuned on that.

If you've got any feedback for us on how we should plan our future online events, our inbox is always open. And if you'd like to receive email notifications when we announce future tournaments, that option is now available as well.

Thanks to everyone who participated from afar in this weekend's event. We hope to see you all at the next one!