Justin at the MSA Nationals 2010
July 31st, 2010. Filed under: In a dayFor some of you who don’t know, I’m a wannabe competitive scrabbler. My participation in the Malaysian Scrabble Association National Championships 2010 would mark my return to the world of competitive scrabble after a year-long hiatus. Naturally, I would do all the training I can beforehand and hope for the best.
Upon arrival, I was informed that the turnout of Intermediate players was too small to play amongst themselves; we would have to play with the Masters (and place among ourselves at the end of the tournament). That’s when the nightmare began.
Not only was I severely outmatched, I ran into an uncanny string of bad luck. It is bad enough to be the losing player to the highest-scoring game of the tournament, it happened twice: two players scored the high game of 619 against me.
Sure, I’m playing with Masters, what would I expect? Unfortunately, my spread (cumulative score) was pretty low, that it meant the difference between me in 5th place (out of 7 intermediate players) and 3rd place as we have the same number of wins.
Bingoes that I have placed:
SALIVATE, SPARRED, POPULAR, LICENSES, SHRIVEL, THREADS
I can’t remember the other half.
Well, my rating stands at 1534 as of date. In all likelihood, I will be MIA for a year and my rating will disappear again.





