Today, at the conclusion of the 31st annual Phoenix tournament, director and Executive Committee member Larry Rand announced that the WGPO Word Cup for 2016 will be held in Tempe, Arizona, at the Doubletree by Hilton hotel that hosted the tournament that just concluded. It’s a lovely facility. Those of us who spent a long weekend here are pleased at the prospect of returning. Unlike the upcoming 2015 Word Cup in Oregon, this will be a summertime event. The dates are July 29 for the Early Bird, followed by July 30 – August 3 for the Main Event.
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Oregonians Recycle
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We brought items we didn’t want and traded them for items we may or may not want. In the process, we played four games and donated $140 to Word Cup V. Alice Van Leunen was the big winner, entitling her to pick first from the donations. She chose a t-shirt commemorating a past Oregon tournament.
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Reno, WGPO, and Rick – A Winning Combination
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Congratulations to Kevin Fraley of San Jose, who won both the Early Bird and the Division A Main Event this weekend. The lead changed hands repeatedly during the tournament, most of the field had a chance going into the final day, and even at the end, 75% of the field was within 2.5 games of Kevin. In fact, if you changed my (Rick) three losses to Jack Norman to wins, I would have jumped from 9th place to 1st place.
In Division B, Miriam Green outlasted Ron Barker for the title, but Ron surely will enter four-digit rating territory again, after exceeding his Win expectation by an amazing 7.07 games. Mary Critelli is also on the move in her second tournament, quadrupling her win total from a year ago.
– Rick Wong
Photos by Patricia Wong.
Main event results are posted here: http://www.wordgameplayers.org/past-tournaments/2015/20150119.RenoME.php
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Red Eye 2015 – Even the Sad Sacks enjoyed it
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Despite the grimaces, Angela, Peggy, Julia, and Ruth really did enjoy the tournament. What’s not to like about 31 games in two days, played against friendly opponents? The Minnesota weather even smiled on us.
Mary Krizan made the appropriately striped tile bags – White Green Purple Orange.
Photo by Janice Kaye
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30 players from 8 states braved the springlike Minnesota conditions for 31 games in 40 hours. Two divisions, 14 players in Division A, 16 players in Division B, results here: http://www.wordgameplayers.org/past-tournaments/2015/20150118.Redeye.php. — Steve Pellinen
Announcements, General
New Words – March 30, 2015
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The Word Game Players’ Organization (WGPO) is pleased to announce that the long-awaited new words will go into effect for WGPO tournaments as of March 30, 2015.
After putting in years of work on Word Judge USA and the upcoming Word Judge 2 for North America (WJ2), Maliha Mendoza Mahmood has generously allowed WGPO to use her lexicon as a word source for clubs and tournaments. WJ2 is intended to be an authoritative lexicon for Super Scrabble®, with words from 2 through 21 letters long. The subset of WJ2 words from 2 through 15 letters long will be used for Scrabble®. We believe the WJ2 lexicon will be consistent with the upcoming TWL3 to be used for NASPA events, so that the North American Scrabble® community can use either source with confidence. According to Ms. Mahmood, the WJ2 lexicon in electronic format will be made freely available to anyone.
Note that the WJ2 lexicon does not contain definitions or parts of speech; it is simply a word list. While a WJ2 app for smart phones and tablets is pending, a text file may be uploaded into current open source versions of the Zyzzyva word study program and used for adjudications as well as learning. A printed book version of WJ2 will also be available in the near future.
A big thanks to Maliha, and happy studying to all.
The WGPO Executive Committee and Board of Player Representatives
Steve Pellinen, for the WGPO EC and BPR
Scrabble® is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in North America and of Mattel, Inc. in the rest of the world. The Word Game Players’ Organization is not affiliated with Hasbro or Mattel.
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Dr. Gregg Wood October 22, 1918 – January 8, 2015
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Gregg’s club and tournament career stretched from 1987 thru 2009. During that time, he played 3835 club games and participated in about 200 tournaments. His peak rating, according to Cross-tables, was 1439. We in Oregon treasure the many times we faced him across the board and fondly recall the happy times when he came across an idle piano and just had to liven it up.
Here’s what the local newspaper has to say about Gregg: http://portlandtribune.com/lor/48-news/246647-114687-dr-woods-positive-mark-on-lake-oswego-remembered-