Harshan Lamabadusuriya wins UK Open
An Oxfordshire man has won the first UK Open Scrabble Championship for
five years. Harshan Lamabadusuriya, a 45 year-old paediatrician from
Abingdon, took the title and the £500 prize in the 27-game championship
with two rounds to spare, finishing with a record of 21 wins and just
6 defeats.
The 3-day main event, taking place in Reading, Berkshire is the
centrepiece of an 8-day Scrabble extravaganza from 3rd to 10th January,
which has attracted nearly 100 players over the course of the event,
with some travelling from the USA, Ireland and Hong Kong to attend. Those
who have stayed for all 8 days of competition, playing four different
events in that time, will have played 67 games of Scrabble each by the
time the event concludes on Friday 10th January 2025.
This has been the first major tournament in the UK to officially use
the new CSW24 word list. For the first time, words such as COVID, RONA, FAM, UNMUTE and ZOOMERS, as well as SEALION,
can be played legitimately in the game as valid words.
Speaking about the large event, Tournament Organiser and director James
Burley, 37, said "It is great to be able to bring people together to
play the game they love. This game has created a community, lifelong
friendships and even marriages. It is very important to continue to
bring people together over shared passions such as these."
Amongst words played to win the tournament, Harshan extended the
word BA to make the 9 letter word BACKSTORY. He also scored 645 points in one game
against American Scrabble player Bob Linn. In round 21, he played Bob
Lynn, from the UK, with the American Linn emerging victorious.
In a moving acceptance speech to fellow players, Harshan championed the
Scrabble community by saying "The diversity in this room in terms of
age, occupation, country, ethnicity, continents is unbelievable. The one
thing that we have in common is the love of this wonderful game. The
one thing that's better than the game is the community. It's an
incredible community."
Other high scoring moves included CHICKENS
played across two triple word score spaces, by Amy Byrne from Edinburgh,
for 122 points and CABBAGES, played by Fiona
Titcombe from Hampshire, scoring 167.
The highest game score was from author Barry Grossman, with 683 points in
his round 13 game. Barry's publications include books teaching others
how to improve their own Scrabble Game.
The second division was won by Paul Cousins from Bristol, who finished
with 20 wins out of 27.
Amongst the players in the UK Open was Ellie Mackin, a blind player
who uses Braille tiles in her games. Ellie finished 14th in the event
having started 28th. She received a prize for the highest performance
above her start rating.
The event was hosted for the first time by the Holiday Inn, Reading
South. Sales and Marketing Manager David Berry said "It was a great
honour and pleasure to host players over the world at this fantastic
tournament. We look forward to welcoming them again next year."
Quotes from participants:
Rick Blakeway, Birmingham: "It was an excellent tournament, superbly
organised. I would definitely come again."
Ian Coventry, 49, Cheshire: "A welcome antidote to the post-Christmas
lethargy."
Anonymous: "Fantastic venue which is really accessible for all and an
excellent tournament."
Victoria Kingham, Hastings: "This was a very exciting tournament,
and it was lovely to see outsiders taking an interest in the game."
Penny Downer, Isle of Wight: It was great to meet up with old friends
throughout the country. My opponents were charming!"
Amy Byrne, Edinburgh "It was a very enjoyable and well organised
tournament."
James Burley
8th January 2025
Last updated: 8 January 2025
New Year's Honours List
Happy New Year ABSP members! The start of a new year means it's time
for Wayne Kelly to reveal the updated
titles and awards after 2024.
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 a new ratings system and database but in the meanwhile
here is how 2024 panned out regarding titles and awards.
Titles
There are no new titles to give out this year, unfortunately, so let's
look ahead to this time next year.
Potential Experts for 2025:
- 4 years
- Colin Northmore (4 170+ ratings)
- 3 years
- Chris Cummins (3 170+ ratings)
- Jack Moran (3 170+ ratings)
- Brian Po (3 170+ ratings)
- Wale Ilori (3 at 175 average)
- 2 years
- John Ashmore (2 170+ ratings)
- Stewart Houten (2 170+ ratings)
- Chris Vicary (2 170+ ratings)
- Ryan Wee (2 170+ ratings)
- 1 year
- Toke Aka
- Sam Crispin (1st 170+ rating)
- Joel Davey (1st 170+ rating)
- Becky Dyer (1st 170+ rating)
- Lee Jones (1st 170+ rating)
- Olaiya Kabir
- Jeremy Khoo
- Ross Mackenzie
- Ebi Sosseh
- James Squires
Potential GMs for 2025:
- 1 year
- Marlon Prudencio
- Tony Sim
- (Also Ryan Wee recorded a 180+ rating)
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
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 Brett Smitheram (199)
In
Brett's first fully active year for a while, he managed 4 190+ ratings
in the 4 tournaments he played with his best rating at Belfast in January.
Most Improved Player
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 2024 with an improvement of 27 from 69 to 96 is Lisa
Atkins. Lisa played 90 games in the year and was second in last year's
list with a rise of 18. This makes a 45 point leap over two years!
Four other players met the criteria and improved by at least 10:
- +21 (172) Samuel Crispin
- +20 (137) Peter Hill
- +16 (114) Jake Haidar
- +10 (79) Mary-Ann Bennett
Also Ronan Dance increased by +18 to 137 but had not played 30 games
before the start of the year.
Some other stats:
- Most games played and most prolific Expert – Craig Solomons (519)
- Most prolific GM – Phil Robertshaw (189)
Unweighted ratings for those with a rating over 150 plus details
of highest games scores for 2024 can be found on
the ABSP database.
Well done to all winners - and those that missed out - keep trying!
Wayne Kelly
Last updated: 1 January 2025
Early 2025 tournaments
As the sun sets on the 2024 tournament schedule with the conclusion of
the Twixmas tournament, there's only a few days until the UK Open kicks
off 2025 with an 8 day festival of Scrabble.
The UK Open's early bird, warm up, main event and final fling combine for
a total of 67 games to start the year with a bang, with the Isle of Wight
following at the end of the month and Northern Ireland in mid-February as
well as the Scottish Masters with the 2025 Grand Slam rounding off the
month.
James Burley is ready to welcome players to Reading for an 8-day feast of
Scrabble across four tournaments.
The
UK Open Early Bird
features 10 games from lunchtime on Friday until lunchtime on Saturday.
The
UK Open Warm Up
features 14 games from lunchtime on Saturday until the end of Sunday afternoon.
Isle of Wight
- a three-day event, starting on the Friday afternoon, featuring two
10-game tournaments played back-to-back with promotion and relegation between divisions
at the half-way point. This tournament is organised by Steve Perry in conjunction with
Isle of Wight Tours.
Wayne Kelly is running the
Grand Slam
event in Warrington. This is an invitational event for players who have won an 'A' division tournament
in 2024, top 5 finishers in a 2024 major (including Grand Slam and MGI event), most runners up, most 'B'
division wins, highest ABSP member not yet qualified and Most Improved Player.
Last updated: 30 December 2024
Looking forward to 2025
As the ABSP year is nearly at a close, just a few things to look forward
to in 2025.
Firstly, the Grand Slam will be taking place again on the 22/23 February
in the usual Warrington venue. I hope to get details out to qualifiers
this weekend. It has taken me a while to get confirmation of the dates
from the venue due to my contact being off sick but hopefully this is not
too short notice. As per last year, there will be a separate invitational
only side event.
Dates in general for the Warrington events have proved trickier for 2025
as I can only use the venue on the 4th (or 5th) weekend in the month
and that fell close to other weekend events in Feb/Mar/Apr/May.
The dates for the day events at Warrington are March 22/July 26/Sept 27
and will be followed by Caroline McLaughlin's Holmfirth on the day after.
Also the Easter Matchplay is booked at the Coventry Holiday Inn over the
Easter weekend. Easter is late this year so is only a fortnight before
the MGI so hopefully this doesn't impact either event. As a boost,
there will be one qualifying space available for WESPAC 2025 in Ghana
for the England team (residency criteria must be met also.)
Forms for Warrington, Holmfirth and Easter will be available soon.
Wayne Kelly
Last updated: 22 December 2024
Tournaments this Autumn
2024 seems to be racing past and there's only just over three months
until the year, but there are plenty of tournaments coming up through
the autumn.
Here's a round-up of the events coming in the next couple of months.
All the information, entry forms and contact details are on the main ABSP calendar.
Cleveland has two one-day events on
Saturday
and
Saturday
, organised by Judith Moore.
Glasgow
is the following weekend, organised by Ross Mackenzie.
The final weekend pairing of Wayne Kelly's
Warrington
and Caroline McLaughlin's
Holmfirth tournaments
rounds off September.
The next installment of Stewart Houten's
Nottingham
Nomads starts off October (there's still the December one to come)
Derek Bower will be welcoming players to his
Romford
tournament .
Scotland rounds off October in the
Cumbernauld
tournament, organised by Grant Wallace.
Scotland kicks off the November slate of tournaments the following weekend at
Elgin
organised by Margaret Armstrong.
There's also a couple of overseas tournaments coming up in October, one nearby, the other not so nearby ...
Over to
Waterford for a weekend in early October, organised by Jennie Frizelle.
A little farther afield for the
Seniors
World Championship which is in Malaysia this year. The Malaysian
Scrabble Association is looking forward to welcoming players from across
the world to Kuala Lumpur for a three day event.
Last updated: 12 September 2024
Early tournaments in 2024
There's under three months to go until Easter already, but there are
tournaments coming up from Aberdeen to the Isle of Wight,
from Belfast to Cork and from Nottingham to Peterborough, all before the
Easter Matchplay kicks off in Coventry. There is also the invitational
Grand Slam for winners of 'A' divisions and wildcards towards the end
of February.
Here's a round-up of the events coming in the next three months.
All the information, entry forms and contact details are on the main ABSP calendar.
Isle of Wight
- a three-day event, starting on the Friday afternoon, featuring two
10-game tournaments played back-to-back with promotion and relegation between divisions
at the half-way point. This tournament is organised by Steve Perry in conjunction with
Isle of Wight Tours.
Wayne Kelly is running the
Grand Slam
event in late February in Warrington. This is an invitational event for players who have won an 'A' division tournament
since 2020, plus the most improved players from those years, the players with most runners-up spots and the most 'B' division wins,
the highest rated player not already qualified and the highest-rated youth player for the year.
Another busy weekend with a one-day tournament on both days, although players may be hard-pressed to play in both given they are over 400 miles apart!
The Saturday tournament is Chris Hawkins'
Peterborough tournament, with
the
Aberdeen tournament organised by Neil Scott on the Sunday.
Of course, if anybody fancies the challenge of playing in both, we'd love to hear how you're managing it!
The
Cork tournament takes place on the southern coast
of Ireland, the weekend after St Patrick's Day. Chris Broderick is the organiser for this two-day tournament.
Before we know it, the early Easter will be upon us. Wayne Kelly is organising a 4-day long weekend in Coventry that includes
the
Warm-Up event
for warm-up on Good Friday and Saturday morning with the
main event
running from Saturday afternoon to Easter Monday.
Last updated: 7 January 2024
For older articles, please see the news archives.
The Association of British Scrabble Players (ABSP) was formed in 1987 as a not-for-profit association to promote interest in the playing of Scrabble. We co-ordinate tournaments and the provision of a rating system for players in the UK, as well as providing information and support to members, tournament organisers and tournament directors.
