Recapping two Seattle October 1-Day Scrabble tournaments
It's become a bit of a fall tradition to host a weekend tournament (or two!) at our home in Seattle in late October. This year, we tried a new format, running two one-day events back to back on Saturday and Sunday.
The format was a success for a couple reasons. First, for those of us who had a rough run of games on Saturday, we got to start over with a clean slate on Sunday. More practically, for people with other life obligations that prevented them from playing in a two-day event, they could pick and choose which day to play. That ended up working well for Ather Sharif and Bharath Balakrishnan, who both opted to play one day out of the two. Everyone else in our 16-person field signed up for the whole weekend, and it was a fun time for all.
Saturday began with fresh-baked biscuits courtesy of Chef Clinchy. We played three games and then fanned out throughout the neighborhood, walking to local food establishments for lunch. Players enjoyed tacos, meaty burgers, meatless burgers, chicken nuggets, fries, salads, and more before returning to the house for four afternoon games. By early evening, Kolton Koehler emerged as the champion of the Saturday tournament, winning with a record of 6-1, +551. Josh Sokol came in second place with a 5-2, +454 record. Chris Grubb and Rob Robinsky also finished in the money with 5-2 records, with a +370 spread for Chris and +257 spread for Rob. Betty Cornelison clinched a well-earned class prize with her solid record of 4-3, -287, finishing six places above her seed.
For dinner, most players went out to Reuben's Brews and Serious Pie to enjoy great beer and fabulous local pizza with potatoes, mushrooms, sausage, and other tasty toppings. After-hours games of So Clover, Cascadia, and Anagrams ensued before everyone headed to bed.
On Sunday, we were back at it, kicking off the morning with a huge stack of chocolate chip pancakes. We once again played three rounds, then took a refreshing outdoor jaunt for lunch. After the meal, we played four afternoon rounds. This time, Chris bested the field, winning with a record of 6-1, +742. Impressively, both Chris and Kolton cashed on both days. Kolton came in second on Sunday with a 5-2, +654 record. Alec Sjöholm and Evans Clinchy rounded out the winners' podium with 5-2 records, +374 for Alec and +245 for Evans. Carson Ip won the class prize, posting a 4-3, -133 record and finishing four places above his seed.
The first place and class prize winners on both days took home engraved wood leaf trophies as proof of their October achievements. Throughout the weekend, we also had a running prize for Best Word. Due to a lack of consensus and an excess of ideas for the category, we went with "Best Baked Good/Bread/Pastry or Other Cozy Fall Enjoyment Word." (Try saying that five times fast!) We received several entries, including the unexpectedly much-discussed ULMIN, played by Eric Fox. Many players, even top experts who should theoretically know their five-letter words, had never heard of this word before. It is "a brown amorphous substance found in decaying vegetation." Though it's not that cozy, ULMIN is a good term for the brown muck that fallen leaves in Seattle become after they decompose.
Perhaps less unexpected, ULMIN lost the Best Word competition to Eric's more cozy play of FLEECES. Lola McKissen also won a prize with her highly relevant bread entry of YEASTS. Both players took home engraved wood bookmarks with lists of edible and playable words.
This annual tradition continued the fall fun in Seattle, and we appreciated all the players who traveled to play. It's cool and uncommon to play someone you have never played before, and that happened for many people at this event, including me. I was especially glad to welcome Ather Sharif, Carson Ip, Josh Sokol, and Stefan Kac, none of whom had played a tournament at our home before.
If you missed the action, you can check out the results from both days below.