XAVERIAN'S CORNER

An Improbable Scrabble Rumble Victory
Charlton Yu (H4C), Scrabble Club Member

Posted Friday, 24-Mar-2006 10:28 AM

      Last March 18, 2006, the National Scrabble Association of the Philippines (NASCAP) in cooperation with National Bookstore and Chowking, held the Scrabble Rumble Scrabble Tournament at the National Book Store, Glorietta, Ayala Center in Makati.

      Players from all over Metro Manila gathered to compete in the run-up to the national championships to be held next month. There were 4 divisions, namely, grade school, high school, college and the open tournament. In the high school division, I, with two other Xavier Scrabble Club members, Jared Chua of H4I and Charles Cue of H2C battled with numerous high school students from all over Metro Manila.

      There were four matches in the elimination round and two matches in the final round. Two wins were needed to get into the final round.

      In the first round, Jared Chua had won his first match against the tournament favorite Rochelle Anne Repre of St. Martin Montessori School, but he lost his remaining matches to bow out of the competition.

      Charles Cue, meanwhile, had lost his first match, but eventually won his last three to get into the finals.

      I was actually a bit late in that tournament since I only got to register as the tournament was about to begin. My first opponent was actually staring peculiarly at me, and I didn’t understand why. Finally, as we were talking, I realized he was actually afraid of me because I beat him by a comfortable margin in a tournament in the past, or so he said.

      Anyway, I just went there just trying to spend my time since I skipped the Graduation Ball. In other words, I was no way near competitive mode. However, after winning the first match a margin of +72 and with my opponent literally begging for me to stop the match, I thought to myself that I could actually win the tournament.

      With the scrabble club’s greenhorn status in Xavier School, it is only now that Xaverians realize that Scrabble is really played differently in tournaments than how regular people would. Xavier School has never joined scrabble tournaments until this year and the best finish by an individual was 2 nd place (by Julian Sese of 4H last October), and once we competed as a team and finished first. No one has won the champion’s spot for individual category--yet.

      I had a relatively easy way into the finals. Finishing the first round with a 3-1 record and a +103 spread gave me a low seed in the finals. This meant that I got to face a relatively easy opponent because in scrabble, high seeds face high seeds and low seeds face low seeds. I was lucky to lose a match in the eliminations because facing the opponent I got would make me be able to have a competitive score. Winning my first match with ease, I finished my first game with Mark Maramag with a winning spread (or score advantage) of +259 points.

      In the last game, I competed against Repre of Rosary Hills School. It turns out it was my lucky day as she was getting terrible tiles all throughout the game and I was getting and putting the power tiles at the right place, at the right time. I finished the finals 2-0 with a spread of +350. It was an upset of all proportions. Nobody thought she could be beaten, and nobody thought anyone could finish the round with such a respectable score and especially, nobody thought a Xaverian could ever win that tournament, but eventually all the unexpected did happen.

      As I walked around the school, people started acknowledging me about the win, with other scrabble members calling it a fluke. They were right, it was a fluke, and I wasn’t supposed to win that. But then again, Xaverians are always the best and I showed that. Soon, the school will produce more champions as the scrabble club continues to grow with the school supporting it very much.

      With every competition Xavier has joined, we showed we can be the best and soon, the game of Scrabble will be overrun by the best of the best from our school, Xavier School. Luceat Lux!

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