Recapping the first Portland Pub Scrabble event of 2024
The new year is a great time to hatch new ideas and explore new opportunities - such as new Scrabble tournaments. And to see that happening, there's no better place to look than Portland, OR, where the local Scrabble community has set out to play a series of local events throughout the year. Yes, that's right - Portland Pub Scrabble is underway, as the first tournament took place this weekend.
The idea is simple and beautiful - one city, one year, 10 Scrabble tournaments at 10 different breweries and pubs all over town. And when the dust finally settles on Dec. 7, your yearly Portland Pub Scrabble Champion will be crowned.
The first pub tournament went down at noon Saturday at Wayfinder Brewing, in the southeast part of the city. Eight competitors, ranging from a former national champion to a completely new tournament player, met to duke it out over six games, and in the end, we had a couple of top finishers who put some points on the yearly leaderboard.
In the end, it was co-director Conrad Bassett-Bouchard who finished first, and in exciting fashion. Conrad and Kolton Koehler were the top two seeds going in, and as luck would have it, they got paired with each other in the opening round. Conrad won in the most nail-biting of all nailbiters, 421-420, and that put him in the driver's seat. Both players then won three of their next four, setting up a rematch in the final game with Conrad at 4-1 and Kolton at 3-2. Conrad won that one to seal the tournament.
Meanwhile, Gunther Jacobi also put together a very nice tournament, at 4-2, to finish in second place. Travis Chaney also went 4-2, a couple hundred spread points back from Gunther, to take third. Props are also due to Anne Hopkins, who competed in her first-ever Scrabble tournament, and in round 5, she notched her first-ever win! Anne dropped an impressive 480 against an experienced player - not too shabby.
Stay tuned for more Portland Pub Scrabble events throughout 2024, as the yearly standings will continue to take shape. If I'm understanding the rules correctly, Conrad stands in first place for now with 2 tournament points, by way of his first-place finish, and Anne also records 2 points, being both new to tournament Scrabble and new to CSW. Gunther, with a second-place finish, has 1 point.
That's a wrap for pub tourney #1! We've got nine more still to come. 2024 is shaping up to be a fun year of Scrabble in the Pacific Northwest. I'll raise a glass to that.