" had what some described what as a suspicious run of luck, a statistically improbable winning streak, and it was questioned by a lot of competitors. "There is a self-policing aspect in Scrabble," Williams at the Scrabble Association said. With that as evidence, a confession was eventually extracted, and the player ejected from the tournament. While the search was going on, a player from another table who was watching this unfold suddenly blurted out 'He just dropped two tiles on the floor.'" "The tile bag was dumped onto the table to search for the blanks. Keeping his eyes on his opponent, Moore called for a director and told him what he'd seen. Unlike what happened in 2011, in 2012, the proof was there. To me it was pretty clear-that, and that he was breaking like every record known to man." "He didn't seem like a very strong player last year but he was putting up these numbers that were unprecedented, based on what I saw, I was like, How is this kid doing this? I was playing right next to him in one of the final rounds, and I saw him draw tiles out of the bag, put his hand in his lap, then put his hand in his pocket." The player called the directors over, but, he says, "I just didn't think of counting the tiles, so they didn't get him. This was not the first time this player had met with suspicion. "I actually played him ," said another Scrabble player who requested anonymity when he spoke to The Atlantic Wire. Along with the tiles in his right hand, and the tile or two in his left hand (thumb and index) he dropped what appeared to be the remaining tiles into the bag. He grabbed the blanks with his left hand and slipped them into his clenched pinky, ring and middle fingers. This doubled as a ploy for me to watch his hands. As he got nearer to the blanks and the collapsed bag was filling, I grabbed the top of the bag with both hands to let the bag stand up and make space for the other tiles. He started from the side opposite the blanks and worked his way across. He arrived and we started loading the tiles into the bag. I'd played him the day before and won handily even though he had drawn both blanks." Moore continued: Knowing who I was playing this immediately drew a red flag. ![]() There are 28 rounds of the games prior to the finals on the last day it was during round 24 that the cheater was caught. We sought out the player through his coach a supporter and Scrabble coach, Katya Lezin, but did not hear back.Īrt Moore, who was playing the underaged player and reported him for hiding tiles, revealed in an online forum for Scrabble enthusiasts that his game began much like any other competition until he noticed something odd: "the two blanks were sitting next to each other in one of the quads on my opponent's side of the board. The top prize in that division is $2,000. "Most of the people there study word lists and play Scrabble every single day," said Max Karten, winner of division 4 of the national championship in 2009. ![]() ![]() The competition ranges from 1 to 4, expert to novice. But even before the ruling on Tuesday, the swirling speculation about this player's tactics means that cheating has been a hotly debated topic long before some 350 people gathered this week in a large ballroom in Orlando for Nationals. For those of us who don't compete and may not even play Scrabble, such dastardly behavior hiding beneath a certain apparent word-nerdiness was simply funny, an insight into a subculture revealing unexpected truths. John D. Williams, executive director of the National Scrabble Association, calls him "one of the top young Scrabble players in the country," and while Williams declined to name him or reveal his exact age due to his youth, both the player's name and age is well known in the tight-knit community of organized competitions. But for those inside the community of competitors, this was less funny and more galling, particularly as the player is just 13 years old and has been suspected by a number of his competitors of cheating since 2011. Yesterday, those outside the inner echelons of the competitive Scrabble-playing world were shocked to hear of a scandal beyond anything we could have imagined: Cheating at Scrabble Nationals, resulting in the eviction of a player from the tournament, and all manner of unfortunate, if amusing, media attention. This article is from the archive of our partner.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |