Previewing an action-packed 2025 CoCo tournament calendar

There's no denying that at the beginning of 2025, the CoCo tournament calendar was looking a little sparse. We had a few events on the schedule, but overall it was pretty limited.

This could have been for any number of reasons. From my vantage point, the general vibe felt like a lot of directors were feeling sluggish to get moving and organize tournaments. These are trying times for a lot of people across North America right now, and it's understandable that running a Scrabble tournament isn't always the most top-of-mind thing. People are dealing with work obligations, and family obligations, and just, well, [gestures at everything].

Now, though, I'm happy to report that it feels like people are coming out of their collective funk a little bit. And if you take a quick glance at the CoCo calendar, you'll see the results of that. Case in point: Just last week, we put seven (7) (SEVEN!) new tournaments on the docket in the span of just a few days. In other words: We're back, baby.

All of a sudden, we've got a pretty robust tournament calendar again. So today, let's take a moment to walk through it all, so you can take in the complete, panoramic view of all your tournament Scrabble-playing options.

Let's get into it...

Breaking new ground in Providence (...and Boston?)

In an exciting new development this spring, we're starting to hold regular tournaments in New England for the first time. New director Niel Gan, with an assist from Matthew O'Connor, held a 1-day last week in Providence, RI, and there's another one lined up for April 5.

It sounds like Niel and Matthew are going to make regular 1-days a thing - and they're also hard at work planning tournaments just up the road in Boston, which is super exciting. So, if you're in New England and you're looking to get your CSW Scrabble fix, you should definitely check out what these guys have cooking.

The return of the Portland Pubs

After a wildly successful run of 1-day tournaments last year, the Portland Pub Scrabble crew is back again. Led by directors Dave Wiegand and Conrad Bassett-Bouchard, the PDX contingent is returning to action with a pair of 1-day tournaments at local breweries in mid-April.

These tournaments are a great way to enjoy a laid-back afternoon with friends, treat yourself to some delicious food and drink, and get in 6 competitive games of Scrabble while you're at it. And now, they're back again in 2025. I, for one, can't wait.

Champions Cup #3 awaits

Champions Cup is an event unlike any other on the CoCo calendar - an exclusive tournament, open only to players who have achieved peak ratings of 1850-plus. It's not easy to qualify, but if you do, you earn the right to compete in a prestigious tournament, featuring top players at every single board.

To anyone who's able to meet that 1850 threshold and earn a spot, I recommend playing Champions Cup at least once. There's nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of playing top expert after top expert, game after game - if you like a challenge, you'll love this one. Plus, director Terry Kang is a fantastic organizer and host.

A tournament debut in Georgia

Another new CoCo director! We're excited to welcome Guy Ingram into the fold - Guy just signed on to run a tournament for the first time last week, and he's looking forward to hosting players in his hometown of Rome, GA coming up in May.

This is Guy's first time directing, and it's the CoCo's first time sanctioning an event in Georgia directed by anyone. But there's a solid local base of players in the area, and Rome by all accounts is a charming little Southern town that people should really enjoy visiting. So we're super optimistic that the new "Romega Classic" tournament will be a success.

Another Memorial Day in Seattle

Jennifer and I always enjoy hosting Scrabblers at our home in Seattle. We held a 3-day tournament over Memorial Day weekend last year and it was a blast, so we figured - why not run it back?

If you played last year, you already know what to expect this time around. But just in case you didn't, here's a crash course - you can look forward to some good hospitality, some home-cooked meals, a really fun group of people, and 20 games of Scrabble against a pretty strong field. If that sounds like something that'd interest you, hit us up.

The fourth installment of ATX

One of the longest-running CoCo events is back again! It's hard to believe that we're already coming up on the fourth annual Austin Tile X-Words (ATX) - it feels like the first one was just yesterday. But here we are, with co-directors Jesse Day and James Curley set to run it back again in 2025.

The thing is, time flies when you're having fun. Austin is one of the most fun cities on the tournament calendar every year - it's a cool college town with great culture, food, and sunny weather. If you haven't made the trip down for ATX before, I recommend you change that in 2025.

Two new tournaments in Colorado Springs

Another new city, and another new director! Tony Boyle is a relative newcomer to the Scrabble community, but he's already gung-ho about CSW, and he's eager to start running events in his native Colorado Springs, CO. He's set to make his debut with a pair of 1-days on June 21 and 22.

Like with Niel in Providence and Guy down in Georgia, it's always exciting to see new people launch CoCo tournaments in new places. So we're thrilled for Tony to start getting tournaments underway in his neck of the woods, and we're wishing him the best.

A most enjoyable Bend Weekend

Thanks to organizer Travis Chaney, we've got an event coming up in Bend, OR this summer that's more than just a Scrabble tournament - it's an entire Bend Weekend that's packed with word-gaming fun from start to finish.

There's an "Oregon Anagrams Championship" on Friday night. There's a pub crawl of downtown Bend on Saturday. There's a Human vs. Machine Challenge, in which players test their mettle against Woogles bots. And then, finally, there's a Scrabble tournament on Sunday.

I mean... seriously. What, out of all of that, is not to love?

Nothing, I tell you.

Looking ahead to Word Cup

This is the big one - our major championship for 2025, and we couldn't be more excited. This year's locale will be St. Louis, MO, and we're psyched to host a world-class competition featuring a world-class field of CSW competitors.

We've seen a whole lot of players trickling into the field over the last couple of weeks, and as of this writing, we now have a total of 32 people in the mix, including both confirmed and tentative entrants. And we've still got almost 5 months to go! We expect that this field is only going to balloon larger and larger between now and August.

So if you want to throw your hat into the ring for Word Cup - or for any of the other exciting events above - there's no time like the present. Hop on over to our tournaments page and get yourself signed up for an event (or three) today.