The United States has won the Virtual World Cup!
When we first came out with this idea for a Virtual World Cup back in June, we went into it feeling cautiously optimistic. We knew the idea had great potential, but we were also a little nervous. No one had ever attempted an event quite like this before - an elite international team-based Scrabble tournament that took place entirely online. We thought the tournament could be a success, but everything felt so uncertain.
If things went well, we told ourselves, players all over the world would believe in the idea and sign up for it. If things went well, we'd have 16 really strong teams that all showed up to compete. If things went well, we'd have a dramatic tournament with lots of close matches, we'd get a decent turnout to view the action on Twitch, and maybe the event would play a small role in bringing the Scrabble community together during these difficult times.
Looking back, nine weeks later: Holy cow. Things went well beyond our wildest dreams.
The Virtual World Cup has come to a close, and we couldn't be happier with how the event unfolded, from start to finish. All 16 teams were eager to compete and they played their hearts out, and our viewing audience grew larger and more enthusiastic each week. In the end, we had 672 unique viewers tune in to watch Saturday's final, a number I never would have thought possible just a few weeks ago. It's clear that the community has an appetite for elite online Scrabble competition, and it's been really gratifying to play a part in feeding into that.
Oh, and not to bury the lede or anything, but: Congratulations to your Virtual World Cup champions, the United States!
Saturday's VWC final between the U.S. and India was a thriller, as expected. I went into the weekend expecting a close match, and these teams did not disappoint - though the path they took to arrive at their nail-biting finish was a circuitous one.
This looked like India's match for much of the way. The two teams started out even at 5-5, but India was clearly pulling away in rounds 3 and 4. India went 4-1 in the third round, opening a lead, and 3-2 in the fourth, putting them up 12-8 with one round to go. Team India appeared to be in total command, with Aditya Iyengar and Udayan Grover having another strong performance, both 3-1.
And then came round 5.
The Americans needed to win all five games to save their tournament. Here's what happened:
Conrad Bassett-Bouchard and Akshay Bhandarkar were close for most of the way, but Conrad snuck ahead late. A clutch bingo of NASARDS toward the end gave him a 59-point lead, and he then amazingly drew both blanks at the end to bingo out with SEDATING. Conrad's win, 486-391, narrowing Team India's lead to 12-9.
Will Anderson topped Nakul Prabhu in a game that was never really in doubt. An early CORTEGE put Will ahead by 71 on the second turn, and he immediately followed that up with big J and X plays. Nakul made it a little closer toward the end, but it was Will's win, 458-367. Now it's 12-10.
Jesse Day had all the firepower against Sherwin Rodrigues, dropping 3 bingos (ALTERNES, GLISTEN, RETINITE) as well as good scoring plays with the X, J and Q. Jesse won 468-346, which meant India was up by just one game, 12-11.
Dave Wiegand had a crazy one with Aditya. It was close the whole way, and toward the end, Dave got down OBEDIENT for 80, to which Aditya soon responded with PENSILE for 74. This left Dave down by 8 points with a rack of AFIOORS and only 35 seconds on his clock! He managed to find a winning endgame sequence of OFFA followed by SORI, and he completed it with a whopping 3 seconds to spare. It was Dave's win, 455-418, and we were all tied up!
It all came down to Austin Shin versus Udayan, and Austin led all the way. Thanks to big plays of OESTRAL for 80 and VOYAGES for 84 early on, Austin was never in trouble, and the game ended with Udayan holding the perfect rack of AEINRST but, to his dismay, down by 137. STRAINER from Udayan was the final play of the Virtual World Cup, and it was too little, too late.
The Americans completed the incredible comeback! From down 12-8, they emerged with a 13-12 win, and in miracle fashion, they have claimed the Virtual World Cup title.
It was a fantastic match, well played by both teams, and I couldn't have asked for a better finish to the tournament.
Honestly, I couldn't have asked for anything more at any point these last nine weeks. Everything went beautifully, and I have so many people to thank. I'm grateful to everyone who helped with streaming this event on Twitch (Will, Aditya, Jeremy Khoo, Ben Schoenbrun, Edward Okulicz); to everyone who helped organize things for their national teams (Rik Kennedy in Ireland, Howard Warner in New Zealand, Evan Berofsky in Canada, Ganesh Asirvatham in Malaysia, Odette Rio in the Philippines, Michael Quao in Ghana, Waseem Khatri in Pakistan, and others); to everyone who helped promote the tournament on social media; and of course, to everyone who played (all 97 of you, including alternates!). I'm also grateful to everyone who tuned in to watch this event on Twitch. Going in, I had no idea that this tournament could attract the kind of viewership that it did. It's been awesome to see so many of you all come along for the ride.
I suppose that after an event like this, the natural follow-up question is... what's next? And believe me, I've been pondering that a great deal myself. For now, Jennifer and I are both going to take a little time to relax and enjoy the success of this tournament (plus perhaps catch up on some sleep). But we will most definitely be back soon, and we'll want to have a conversation with the global Scrabble community about next steps.
We have a unique opportunity right now to engage the whole Scrabbling world with these online tournaments, and we want to do it in a way that people all over the world will find appealing. So in the coming weeks, what I want to do is share some tournament ideas, gather some feedback from all of you, and go forward from there. After all, these are your tournaments, and I want all of you to help shape them.
We will talk soon, I promise you! Until then, feel free to recap all the action from the VWC that was - the scores, the stats, the videos, and more.