WSC Bulletin 1

27 April 2005

WORLD SCRABBLE CHAMPIONSHIPS

Mattel Inc. and Mattel (UK) are delighted to announce that the 2005 World Scrabble Championships will be held in London, England.
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Mattel were not expecting to stage the event in 2005 but have stepped into the breach following Hasbro’s withdrawal. At this stage, our budget for the event is not large and this has necessitated some of the changes to previous events that are detailed below. The event will not be as lavish as in past years but we hope that you will agree with us that the most important principle is that the event takes place.

VENUE/DATE/HOSPITALITY

The venue will be the Marriott Regents Park Hotel, 128 King Henry’s Road, London NW3 3ST. The tournament dates will be Thursday 17 to Sunday 20 November.

The hotel is close to Regent’s Park and London Zoo and a 15 minute train/bus ride from Central London. A special rate (room only) of £90 - weekend and £110 - weekday for a single room is available. Double rooms are £100- weekend £120 – weekday. The hotel will be supplying us with a code for obtaining these rates shortly, we did not want to further delay the announcement of the event by waiting for this code. There are several other hotels of various price ranges within walking distance.

We will be providing buffet lunch only for all contestants and officials during the Championships. No other refreshments will be provided but there will be water stations in the playing room.

REGISTRATION

Registration will be held at the hotel at 7 p.m. on the evening of Wednesday 16 November. It is obligatory that you register then. We invite all participants to join us in toasting the success of the Championships with a glass of champagne.

On registration, as in previous years, contestants will all receive a ‘goodie bag’ of souvenirs.

FORMAT

There will be a 24 round modified Swiss tournament from Thursday 17 to Saturday 19 November, starting each day at 8.30 a.m. On Sunday the two top players will contest a 5 game final. The Official Dictionary will be Official Scrabble Words International. Websters 10th and Chambers 1998 are to be used for adjudication of words over 9 letters. If a challenge is unsuccessful, there will be a 5 point penalty on the challenger for each challenged word that is found to be in the dictionary.

Players will not play anyone from the same country in Round 1. No player will play any other player more than once per day.

The Final on Sunday 20 November will be open to the public and contestants. The award ceremony will follow shortly thereafter. We expect the finals to end no later than 6 p.m.

EQUIPMENT

All equipment, including chess clocks, will be provided.

PRIZE MONEY

The prize fund for the event is guaranteed to be over US$30,000 with prizes paid down to 10th position and a guaranteed payment of US$15,000 to the winner.

Prizewinners will be paid by credit transfer after the contest so please ensure you have details with you of a bank acccount that your prize can be paid into.
ALLOCATION OF PLACES

The provisional allocation of places based on the 2003 Championships is as follows :-


Country No. Country No.
Australia 4 Nigeria 3
Bahrain 2 Oman 2
Cameroon 1 Pakistan 2
Canada 7 Philippines 3
England 10 Poland 1
France 1 Romania 1
Gambia 1 Saudi Arabia 1
Ghana 3 Scotland 2
Gibraltar 1 Seychelles 1
Guyana 1 Singapore 3
India 2 South Africa 2
Indonesia 1 Sri Lanka 3
Ireland 1 Tanzania 1
Israel 2 Thailand 4
Japan 2 Trinidad 1
Kenya 4 U.A.E 1
Kurdistan - Iraq 1 Uganda 1
Kuwait 1 U.S.A 15
Malaysia 2 Wales 2
Malta 2 Zambia 1
New Zealand 5
TOTAL 104

Should any country be unable to take up its allocation, please be considerate and decide and inform us before 31 July 2005. There will be a reserve on standby from the UK to ensure even numbers. There are a number of extra countries, not shown above, who have enquired about competing for the first time.

We reserve the right to contact countries to establish that they fulfil the criteria for sending a team to the Championships.

RESERVES

The rules are :-

If one of the players already named drops out before registration on Wednesday November 16, then they should , if possible, be replaced by a representative from their own country.

If registered players do not turn up at registration then they will not be replaced other than if the numbers are odd when the official alternate will stand in.

If players drop out having begun the tournament, they will be replaced by the official alternate.

PUBLICITY

We’ll be in touch again shortly with an update including details of how to register on the official WSC website.In the meantime, we would be grateful if you could only contact us with urgent queries, channelling other queries through your country’s official representative.

REQUIREMENTS FROM EACH PARTICIPATING COUNTRY

Please confirm the name and contact details of your official country contact for further communication as soon as possible.

See you there !


Philip Nelkon
World Scrabble Champioships - Organiser