Just 2 months since its release, the new fifth edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary is coming under fire for omissions, inconsistencies, and spelling mistakes.

The problem appears to have originated with communications between the North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) and Merriam-Webster. NASPA maintains the Official Tournament and Club Word List (OTCWL), which is used in judging tournament games in the United States and Canada. Merriam-Webster publishes The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary for casual use, removing from the OTCWL trademarked terms and words deemed offensive. NASPA’s Dictionary Committee expected Merriam-Webster to exercise editorial oversight of the draft word lists that it sent to the publisher. However that step may have been skipped.

As a result, the Dictionary includes “disrepects” and “disrepecting” but not “sez” or “xed”, which are part of the OTCWL. Other problems have been cataloged by the Seattle Scrabble Club.

With questions about the quality of these word lists, perhaps the bigger problem is availability for reference and research. Hasbro has claimed copyright to the OTCWL and restricted access to NASPA members.

[via FiveThirtyEight]

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Scrabble

The winner of the $22,000 first place prize at the Godswill Akpabio International Scrabble Classics in Nigeria was Nigel Richards, who’s record in the tournament was 21-7 +1767.

Chess

The World Youth Chess Championships in Durban, South Africa featured girls and boys sections for under-8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18. Two players went undefeated, Qiyu Zhou of Canada, who took the trophy in the girls under-14 section, and Jennifer Yu of the United States, who won in the girls under-12 section. At one point, Nguyen Anh Khoi of Vietnam had dropped to 16th place but with a two-win finish claimed first on tie-breakers in the boys under-12. This was not Khoi’s first time as champion. He was the winner of the under-10 category 4 years ago. Among the first-place finishers, 11 different countries were represented.

In first place at the Poker Stars Chess tournament (open section) in Isle of Man was Nigel Short of the UK. In the women’s section, the winner was Dronavalli Hakira of India.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

At the Championship Series event in Dallas, Billy Brake used a control deck to duel his way in to the top 16, where he survived four rounds of single-elimination Battle Pack 3: Monster League drafting to come out the winner. In the Dragon Duel section (for players born in 2002 or later), the winner was Tyler Hanson. Both winners were Texas natives.

Rubik’s Cube

A world record blindfolded solution of the 4×4 cube was achieved in 2 minutes, 18.65 seconds by Oliver Frost at the Cuthberts Open in Hatfield, UK.

Another world record, for solution of a 7×7 cube, was achieved in 2 minutes, 38.93 seconds by Vladislav Shavelskiy at the CCC Autumn Open in Moscow, Russia.

Magic: The Gathering

Grand Prix Shanghai, the first Khans of Tarkir limited, was won with The Abzan Houses by Yu Yin of China.

The Mardu clan dominated Grand Prix Orlando, which was won by Eugene Hwang.

Ari Lax made his first podium appearance at Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir in Honolulu with the aid of a mid-range Abzan deck.

Backgammon

The 6th German Backgammon Champion is Christoph Wagener.

Draughts

At the European Championship in Tallinn, Estonia, Roel Boomstra of the Netherlands claimed the title in the men’s general section, while the title in the women’s general section went to Olga Baltazhy of Ukraine. Russians Matrena Nogovitsyna and Mourodoullo Amrillaew won the blitz women’s and men’s sections, respectively.

Alexander Getmanski of Russia placed first in the blitz section and second in the general section of the International Open Draughts Tournament in Bacoli, Italy. The first place finisher in the general section was Alexey Chizhov of Russia.

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Singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt has penned a book of poetry based on The Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary. 101 Two-Letter Words features a four-line rhyming poem for each of the two-letter words in the last edition of the dictionary (not the additional words in the new edition just released this summer).

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Scrabble

The winner of the U.S. National Scrabble Championship was amazingly not Nigel Richards. Rather it was Conrad Bassett-Bouchard of Portland, Oregon who finished with a record of 22-9 and a point spread of +812.

Two tournaments took place as part of the Colombo Scrabble Festival in Sri Lanka. The winner of the Open International Scrabble Championship was Nigel Richards (with 19.5 wins and a positive spread of 2299), while the winner of the World Youth Scrabble Championship was Jack Durand of the UK.

Chess

Magnus Carlsen claimed both titles at the FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship in Dubai, meaning he now wears all three world championship crowns. In the Rapid tournament, Carlsen finished with 11.0/15, just ahead of Caruana at 10.5. Also at 10.5 but trailing on tie-breakers were, in order, Viswanathan Anand, Levon Aronian, and Alexander Morozevich. In the Blitz tournament, Carlsen led with 17.0, while Ian Nepomniachtchi and Hikaru Nakamura tied for second with 16.0.

The World Open tournament in Arlington, Virginia finished with three people tied for first place: Ilya Smirin of Israel, Ilia Nyzhnyk of Ukraine, and Conrad Holt of the United States. Actually, that was down from last year, when 11 tied for first. Each of the three claimed prizes of $9,891. Smirin earned an extra $254 for beating Nyzhnyk in a tiebreak game.

In the open section of the World Chess Olympiad in Tromso, Norway, China claimed the gold medal with 19 match points, Hungary the silver with 17 points, and India the bronze also with 17 points. In the women’s section, the winner of the gold medal was the Russian team (20 points), while the silver went to China (18 points), and the bronze to Ukraine (18 points).

FIDE has announced the schedule for the Grand-Prix 2014-2015 series and issued invitations to 11 players and three alternates. Tournaments will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan October 1-15; Tashkent, Uzbekistan October 20-November 3; Tehran, Iran February 14-28; and Moscow, Russia May 13-27. The top two players in the series will qualify for the Candidates Tournament, which leads to the World Chess Championship.

Mahjong

The Open European Mahjong Championship in Strasbourg, France was dominated by Japanese players, who claimed four of the top five spots. First place went to Yoshihiro Suzuki of Japan, second place to Michael Zahradnik of Germany, and third to Kazutoshi Miyake of Japan. The highest result for a Chinese player was 30th place.

Go

Yitien Chan’s trophy at the World Amateur Go Championship represents the first time on top of that event for Chinese Taipei.

The winner, on tie-breaking points, of the Toto Cup International Junior Go Championship was Nishimura Ryotaro of Japan. The runner-up was Ren Yihua of China.

Hong Seok-ui, formerly of Korea but now a resident of Japan, successfully defended his title in the Japanese Amateur Meijin tournament for the third straight year. He also won the Amateur Honinbo tournament for the second year.

Draughts

Freddy Loko of the Democratic Republic on Congo is the new African Draughts Champion.

Backgammon

Taking home the trophy at the World Backgammon Championship in Monte Carlo was Akiko Yazawa of Japan.

The winner of the inaugural U.S. Backgammon Federation Masters Divisional tournament is Peer Toftsoe.

Other

Charlie Worrall, age 10, won the Top Trumps Schools Tournament in London and is the first girl to have done so. In fact, this year, five of the 12 contestants in the Grand Final were girls. Charlie won on a Kylie Minogue Pop Stars card.

At the Ticket to Ride North American Championship, Kenneth Heilfron won seven straight games to claim the top position. Both he and runner-up, Scott Scribner, move on to the World Championships in Paris.

A world record for toppling mini-dominoes was achieved in Büdingen, Germany. The chain of 2,000 was set up on one table. Halfway through, the table was bumped (or someone breathed too hard) and the whole setup had to be started over.

New Rubik’s Cube world records were established for:

• 3×3 blindfolded (average)—28.43 seconds by Kaijun Lin at the Guangzhou Wushan Open
• 3×3 blindfolded (single)—23.68 seconds by Marcin Zalewski at the SLS Chorzow
• 3×3 one-handed 12.56 (average)—12.56 seconds by Antoine Cantin at the Toronto Open
• 4×4 Cube 24.33 (single)—24.33 seconds by Sebastian Weyer—and 3×3 fewest moves (average)—25.00 by Sébastien Auroux—at the Velbert Easter Open

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At the Sri Lanka Open International Scrabble Championship, 9-year old Hasham Hadi Khan of Pakistan scored a world record 878-point single game of Scrabble. His opponent in the game, Matheesha De Silva of Sri Lanka, scored 151.

Hasham’s feat included at least four bingos: “sheriat”, “retsina”, “headers”, and “gruntles” (the last also a triple-word-score).

[via The Express Tribune]

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Hasbro, which recently initiated a program that allows fans to sell 3D-printed My Little Pony designs via Shapeways, is now expanding that program, called SuperFanArt, to three game brands: Dungeons & Dragons, Monopoly, and Scrabble.

Independent artists will have to sign a SuperFanArt (Hasbro) Artist Agreement but can set their own prices.

To be featured in the launch of the new game brands, artists should submit their designs by September 9th.

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A new fifth edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary was released this week by Merriam-Webster. Under license from Hasbro and endorsed by the North American Scrabble Players Association, the Dictionary makes more than 5,000 new words tournament-legal in the United States. Those new words include modern terms like “hashtag”, big-pointers like “quinzhee”, and the winner of the Scrabble Word Showdown, “geocache” [none of which were recognized by my spell-checker].

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A student graduating with a degree in English Education from Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Nigeria has developed a localized version of Scrabble in the hopes of helping to preserve the Igbo language. Referring to a UNESCO report predicting the demise of Igbo within the next 2 decades, Chinonso Ernest Okolie told an educational journal:

That prediction about Igbo language going into extinction by the year 2025 unsettles me… Moved by that prediction I went into the research of how best to restore the seemingly lost glory of Igbo language. And that was how I came about the Igbo Scrabble, a game that involves word formation in Igbo language. My love for English Scrabble contributed to my success.

To accommodate a 36-letter alphabet, Igbo Scrabble has 130 letter tiles, including three blanks. And instead of seven tiles to start the game, players draw eight.

[via The Sun]

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For those who were hoping for another Q-word option, I’m sorry to report that it’s “GEOCACHE” that will be the fan-contributed word added to the new edition of Merriam-Webster’s Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. Thousands of other words are also being added this summer, however “GEOCACHE” is eligible for official tournament play in the United States and Canada immediately. Hasbro announced the addition after collecting fan input for 16 nominated words via Facebook.

In terms of gameplay, “GEOCACHE” is an interesting word to be selected. It’s an eight-letter word (as a reminder, players only hold seven letter-tiles at a time) but is worth only 16 points. Also to play it, a person will need both of the available “C”s.

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