The NTU WGS held it's first event that was open to the public on March 17, 2013. Surprisingly, it attracted a rather large number of high rated players, such that many masters were pushed down to Division B. With a total of 30 players, this event managed to attract slightly more players than an outside mini, probably due to more NTU players participating, and serves as an encouraging sign for the WGS to hold more of such events in the future.
The tournament was split into only 2 divisions, with the 10 highest rated players in Div A playing round robin (9 rounds), and the remaining 20 in Div B, playing 6 rounds Australian Draw, with the last 2 rounds King of the Hill (8 rounds). The top division was really elite this time, with the cut-off rating in the high 1700s. Div B had a much more disparate range of playing strength, with totally new players, as well as several masters. While it may have been a shock to the newer players, it also gave everyone a chance to play against a wider range of opponents, instead of just being restricted to players of their own strength, which would provide a good learning experience.
Aaron and Kian Boon were the regulars in Div A, this time joined by Victor who came out of retirement to play his first tournament in years (excluding IHG and ISRG), as well as the upcoming Jeya, who had already been upsetting masters left right and centre. After Jeya joined the Scrabble Association as a member of the tournament, it was revealed that he had just made it into the last slot of Div A with a rating of 1787, and had a Master title and one star to boot.
Despite the home ground advantage, Kian Boon was edged out of 1st place by Cheah Siu Hean, who came back from a bad morning with 3 losses out of 4 to win the last 5 games with 6 points and a positive spread of 309. Kian Boon had a bad evening instead, winning all 4 morning games, but only 2 out of 5 after lunch, falling to friendly fire as he lost to Aaron in the final round. Aaron, on the other hand, had a roller coaster tournament full of ups and downs, perfectly alternating wins and losses to finish in 5th place with 5 out of 9.
Jeya finished in 8th place, finally facing some tough competition from the NMs and GMs, but showed that he could still beat the best, where among his 4 wins, 2 came from defeating the top 2 winners of the tournament, Cheah and Kian Boon. Victor took a day off from his FYP just to come play in a scrabble tournament again, finishing 10th, but nevertheless still scoring 3 wins against Cheah, Aaron and Tony Sim. With all the players in Div A of a similar (high) level, it was a pretty tight tournament, with the 1st finishing with 6 points, and the last finishing with 3 points, just a difference of 3 wins across the whole division.
In Div B, together with the 6 new players, came 6 masters, and with the other 8 intermediate players, formed a really diverse section. Gabriel won the tournament with a perfect score, jumping the roadblock setup by the 6 masters, who finished 2nd to 7th.
Among the Masters was Kai Yuan, who played a steady tournament, losing only 3 games to the Masters higher rated than him, and winning all 5 opponents he was supposed to win, to secure a share of the prizes at 5th place, just a spread of 19 away from 4th.
Chun Kin snatched the 2nd highest non-master spot at 8th place, with his fierce win in the last round by 390 spread, to overtake 4 other 4-pointers. Seline was 11th, also with 4 points, with a close loss to one of the masters Neo Wei Sheng by just 5 points, and it seems like just a matter of time before she has her first master scalp. Sze Mei was 12th, rounding up the 4-pointers, who had faced off Chun Kin in the 7th round with an exciting match, winning by 3 points 407-404.
Xing Long was the highest 3 pointer, in 13th place, having tough matchups against 3 masters in the last 3 rounds after scoring 3 out of the first 5 rounds. While the 6 newcomers, Benjamin Wong, Boon Chong, Jude Tan, Lawrence Kwek, Wan Ling, and Shawm Ong finished 15th-20th respectively, it was nice to see that each of them had nabbed at least 2 wins, so no one was left in the dust and demoralized.
The full results are up on the Scrabble Association website here, and it is also of curious note that Lawrence's name is spelt as "Lawrence Kwek Two" there.
Do note that the next Scrabble Association event is the Jurong Green CC Scrabble Open Championships held on the 6th and/or 7th April 2013, depending on the category. More details can be found at the facebook page here
