With the UK Open, Grand Slam and other early-year events behind us, the spring tournament season is packed with events across the UK and Ireland over the next few months.

Here's a round-up of the events coming this spring. All the information, entry forms and contact details are on the main ABSP calendar.

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Neil Scott's Aberdeen tournament is a one-day, 7-game event at the Aberdeen Bridge Club.

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Fazile Zahir's Romford Liberty is a one-day, 7-game tournament in Romford. Please note there is railway engineering work announced in the local area for this weekend - check your travel arrangements if you are planning to travel by train.

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James Burley is running back-to-back one-day tournaments in Essex: Manuden on the Saturday and Elsenham on the Sunday, each featuring 7 games. A discount is available for entering both - see the entry form for details.

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Also on the same weekend, Chris Broderick's Cork tournament is a 15-game, two-day event returning to the Address Hotel in Cork, again.

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The last weekend of March offers another chance for a weekend double. Wayne Kelly's Warrington event on the Saturday is followed by James Burley's Runcorn tournament on the Sunday - just 8 miles apart, so convenient for a weekend of Scrabbling!

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Wayne Kelly is organising the Easter Matchplay at the Holiday Inn Coventry M6. The Warm Up features 10 games over the Friday and Saturday, whilst the Main Event runs from Saturday through to Monday with 23 games. A discount is available for entering both - see the entry form for details.

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Grant Wallace's Cumbernauld tournament is a one-day, 7-game event at Milton of Campsie Parish Church.

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Fancy a trip to the seaside? Nicky Huitson's ever-popular 2-day Broadstairs tournament is in April this year. This year, the theme is TV and Film Star Special

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The MGI International Scrabble Classics UK takes place over the May Day bank holiday weekend at the Leonardo Hotel in Milton Keynes. Lukeman Owolabi has quickly built this into one of the highlights of the tournament year. The 7-game Early Bird gets underway on Thursday, with the 32-game main event kicking off the following day. Early bird discounts are available - see the registration website for details.

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James Burley's York tournament is a one-day, 7-game event at Clifton Community Hall. Players aged under 16 will receive a 50% discount. There is also a tie-in with the FOCAL CO:York Countdown event on the previous day - see the entry form for details of cross-event discounts.

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Simon Gillam's Scottish Open is a 14-game, two-day event at the Carlton Bridge Club in Edinburgh. Note that the Scottish Scrabble Association has new bank account details as of early 2025 - please verify that you use the payment details on the entry form.

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James Burley's Durham tournament is a weekend double at Hamsteels Community Centre, with 7 games on Saturday and Sunday. A discount is available for entering both days - see the entry form for details.

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The stage is set for the 2026 Grand Slam in Warrington this coming weekend.

The stage is (almost) set for the 2026 Grand Slam, which is certain looking to be another strong field. With the expansion of this year's side event it is definitely the biggest of the four events so far - the main event is likely to be 36 or 38 - the best so far is 40.

Even with some high profile players not able to attend the midpoint of the ratings is 169!

So far no one has won the event twice - Harshan and Brian Po have been the top dogs for majors in the last year - can Brian stop Harshan retaining the title, or will there be someone else's name for the newly commissioned perpetual trophy courtesy of Elie Dangoor.

New names for the competition include Mark Nyman, Piotr Andronowski and Raymond Gbaraba who are all in the top 10 rated players in the event,

The side event also has a new perpetual shield in Adrienne Berger's name thanks to a donation by Sydney Berger.

This looks like it could also be very competitive with only 11 ratings points separating the top 7.

This year's "theme" is changing of the seasons as meteorologically day one is in Winter and day 2 is in Spring... let's see who is thawing out ready to spring into action!

Tournament organiser and director James Burley presenting the UK Open 2026 winner's prize to Brian Po
Photo credit: Nicky Huitson

Brian Po clinched victory at the UK Open with one round to go with a stunning performance, marking his first UK major win and best career win to date.

Brian defeated tournament top seed and runner-up Harshan Lamabadusuriya 531-396 in the pivotal penultimate game, going on to finish the tournament with a 20-4 (+1924) record. Both players scored multiple bonuses in the game, although the key play may have been in the middle of the game when, leading by 149, Brian chose to sacrifice 20 points to play YEA(n) for just 12, crucially blocking an open triple-triple lane. This proved hugely consequential, as Harshan had the word GUNGIEST lined up on his rack ready to play for 140 points that would have brought the scores almost level, but he had to settle for GUNITES for about half that score.

Brian's bonuses in the game were (F)RITZInG for 94 points, STARLIT for 72, INFECTS for 93, and AMEBOiD for 96, whilst Harshan's bonuses were DECURION for 82 and GUNITES for 72.

You can watch this game again on the UK Open day 3 stream on ABSP Tournament Scrabble UK YouTube channel . The game build-up begins at 7:09:30 into the video.

Harshan finished in second place with a 17–7 (+1289) record, just ahead of Gary Oliver on spread (17-7, +871) who won their final round game, but could not make up the spread deficit. Mohamed Kamara was fourth (16-8, +693) with the final place prize going to David Webb (15-9, +1477). Donna Stanton, Chris Davies and Fidelis Olutu won the ratings prizes for division A.

In division B, Matthew Pinner took top spot (17-7, +959) one win ahead of runner-up Niamh Warde (16-8, +812). Third place went to Amy Byrne (15-9, +578), with the ratings prizes going to Breda O'Brien and Jake Berliner.

Division C was won by Michael Thomas (20-4, +1855) from Jake Haidar (19-5, +1672) and Rose Northmore (16-8, +1061). Alvin Moisey won the ratings prize. Jake's second place is particularly impressive, as he is only 12 years old!

The 3-day main event, taking place in Reading, Berkshire is the centrepiece of an 8-day Scrabble festival from 3rd to 10th January, building on the success of last year's event at the same venue. The event has attracted more than 100 players over the course of the week's three events, with players from around the world competing. Players staying for the whole week will contest 61 games over the 8 days across three tournaments: the Main Event, the Midweek Triple and the Final Fling.

Festivities conclude on Saturday 10th January 2026.

UK Open Main Event Final standings: Division A | Division B | Division C

Firstly, many thanks to the Stewart Houten and Rachel Bingham for their parts in the maintenance of the database over the last year. This year we may very well have a new ratings system and database but in the meantime here is how 2025 panned out regarding titles and awards.

Titles

There are no new titles to give out this year unfortunately so let’s look ahead to next year where we could very well have 3 or 4!

Potential Experts (5 years of 170+ ratings)

• 4 years:

  • Chris Cummins
  • Jack Moran
  • Brian Po (including first 180+ rating)
  • Chris Lipe (including 2 180+ ratings in 4 years)

• 3 years:

  • John Ashmore
  • Chris Vicary

• 2 years:

  • Sam Crispin
  • Joel Davey
  • Marlon Prudencio
  • Ryan Wee (including 1 180+ rating in 2 years)

• 1 year:

  • Rasheed Balogun*
  • Mike Baron*
  • Nick Deller
  • Raymond Gbaraba*
  • Graham Haigh
  • Kong Chock Heng
  • Nsikan Iyanam*
  • Bob Linn
  • Samson Okosagah*
  • Ben Schoenbrun*

* - first 170+ rating

Rasheed, Nick, Raymond, Samson & Ben all recorded a 180+ rating which is also the first step towards GM.

Potential GMs (5 years of 180+ ratings)

• 1 year:

  • Calum Edwards

There are some with potential to get back on the ladder but with a rating higher than their previous best so they have been excluded. Let me know if you think there is anything amiss.

Highest Rated Player Award

The Highest Rated Player Award is given to the highest rated ABSP Member on January 1st of each year, provided that they have played at least 30 games in the previous year.

The winner is Harshan Lamabadusuriya (193)

Harshan has had a phenomenal year winning several majors, and currently only Brett Smitheram who didn’t play in 2025 and Ben Schoenbrun, who isn’t a member and has not played 150 games yet, are ahead of him on the current active players list.

Most Improved Player Award

The Most Improved Player award is given to the ABSP member (as at 31st Dec) who has a full rating at the start of the calendar year, plays at least 30 games throughout that year and improves their rating the most. The player's rating at the end of the year must be higher than any previous end-of-year full rating.

The winner for 2025 with an improvement of 30 from 137 to 167 is Ronan Dance. He played 282 games in the year and also increased last year by 18 ratings points when he was not eligible to win due to low number of games in the previous year. It is a strong improvement and I am not sure it is done just yet!

Four other players met the criteria and improved by at least 10.

• +14 (159) Richard Spencer
• +13 (109) Lisa Atkins (who has been top 5 years in a row after winning last year)
• +12 (180) Chris Cummins
• +11 (122) Richard Appleyard

Some other stats:

• Most games played and most prolific Expert: Craig Solomons (518)
• Most prolific GM: Phil Robertshaw (224)

Unweighted ratings for those with a rating over 150 plus details of highest games scores for 2025 can be found on the ABSP database. Well done to all winners - and those that missed out - keep trying!

Wayne Kelly

Happy New Year ABSP Members!

Here's to another great year ahead, kickstarting with the UK Open at the weekend.

Many thanks to all on the committee, organisers, clubs and players for spreading the word - membership seems to be rebuilding gradually so hopefully that will continue.

The Committee welcomed Rob Blundell as the new secretary to replace Fazile Zahir, and recently Rik Kennedy who has come on board to develop streaming across the UK.

This exciting development will be in full force at the UK Open - you can watch here from Saturday: https:// www.youtube.com/@ABSPScrabble

Thanks also to Stewart Houten and Rachel Bingham for the database upkeep and ratings, and hopefully more developments there as the year progresses.

Don't forget to renew your membership as today you will have lost access to the database if you haven't yet renewed, but Nuala will be at the UK Open to collect any subscriptions if you are attending.

The newsletter seems to be bedding in nicely thanks to Ross Mackenzie, but we always need more articles!

Easter is now on the calendar, with BMSC negotiations underway also in the new venue we used in 2025. NSC is still to be decided.

Hope everyone has a great year and as always, spread the word!

Wayne Kelly
1st January 2026

Tune in live (or catch up whenever) this Saturday from 10.45am for 3 days' coverage of the UK Open on the ABSP's very own YouTube channel!

Just click our channel link to go straight there: https://www.youtube.com/@ABSPScrabble

Additionally, most smart TVs these days have YouTube already installed, enabling you to watch the action in decadent comfort!

Please also click the 'subscribe' button on our YouTube channel to be alerted of broadcasts and help us grow the channel.

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The ABSP Stream Team
31st December 2025