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News

New World Champion

Posted by Paul S on Mon October 27, 2003 at 0h26

Congratulations to the 2003 World Scrabble® Champion, Panupol Sujjaykorn of Thailand. He beat fellow Thai played Pakorn Nemitrmansuk 3-2 in an exciting best-of-5 final, coming back from 2-1 down. The pair earned their way to the finals by beating nearly 100 players from around the world in a tournament held in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia last week.

I'm sure there are some who will raise a puzzle eyebrow about the two finalists being from Thailand, so let me tell you that they do love their Scrabble® in that country. The game - played in English - is very popular there. I've seen several top Thai players play online, and their word knowledge and bingo-finding ability was unbelievable.

Our own Albert Hahn was in Kuala Lampur. Although he has competed in the Worlds before, he wasn't playing this time. Instead, he planned a vacation around the event! Albert also provided some wonderful colour commentary to cgp, the unofficial Scrabble®-player's mailing list.

Full coverage of the event including the complete move list for the finals can be found on the Official WSC2003 Web Site. Please note that the Worlds uses the OSW International word source (aka SOWPODS), and as such not all of the words you see will be acceptable in North American play.