Scrabble... breaking new ground

Alex Vella takes a brief look at scrabble from the platform of 'Sport' while reviewing the 2004 special event marking the 20th anniversary since the foundation of the Malta Scrabblers Club.

Scrabble is regarded by many as a sedentary lexical pastime with affinities to a game rather than to a contest which has the remotest semblance to sport. The argument whether activities of a similar nature should be classified as a sport has long been raging.

'Sport' in simple terms implies a contest where skills, mental and physical, are put to test on a competitive platform, while rendering an entertaining spectacle to onlookers.

The physical, technical and strategic levels in sport vary according to the nature of the discipline and also to whether it is a team or an individual contest. All three are basic requisites, even if sometimes the almost insignificant presence or outright absence of any one of these tends to be ignored.

Take weightlifting, for example. The strategic content here is negligible as opposed to the physical and technical qualities needed for this explosive discipline. Inversely, one does not require any physical attributes to indulge in sedentary activities of a competitive nature.

Which provokes the question, 'Is scrabble a sport?' Mental and strategic skills are definitely vital assets here, with memory, the ability to learn new words, presence of mind, tactical prowess and a dose of luck elevating scrabble to the status of a contest warranting competitions which nowadays extend to a World Championship.

Scrabble is not widespread, having caught root on a competitive basis not very long ago. However, it has grown in popularity as a highly-intelligent word knowledge and rack management pastime, even if restricted to the so-called 'kitchen' surroundings of the household. Over the years, clubs were set up and scrabble mushroomed.

The Malta Scrabblers Club was founded in 1984 by Angele Andrews and Catherine Patiniott. Eventually, the club started organising annual tournaments, the major one being the National League, held between January and March, with the Summer and the Autumn Leagues completing the itinerary.

The contestants are split into groups with the top players qualifying for subsequent phases until the winner emerges from the last phase.

Malta's current number one exponent of scrabble is David Delicata who has won the Malta Championship for the last four consecutive years, besides landing two Autumn and five Summer League titles. He also finished a creditable 33rd in the last World Championship out of a total of 90 competitors taking part from all over the English-speaking countries.

Delicata's supremacy is being challenged by Therese Camilleri, Nicky Vella Laurenti and Kevin Abela, who finished in that order in this year's Summer League, as well as a host of promising players in the younger and veteran age-brackets. These elements make for a wider base of scrabble afficionados.

This year's competition was marked by an innovative element which should carve a lasting niche in establishing scrabble as an event of socio-sporting dimensions in today's sophisticated technological era.

Scrabble Alive

New ground was broken for the first time in local history when a CCTV system, normally used for security purposes, was adapted to bring the minutest details of the proceedings on the scrabble table and the players' respective letter racks to a well-versed and appreciative audience seated in an adjacent room. Thus, the concentration needed by the 'isolated' protagonists was in no way impaired.

This was made possible courtesy of a team from Alberta, a well-known firm in the field of security devices, which provided the closed circuit transmission equipment. The backing of other sponsors, Foster Clark and Salvo Grima Ltd also helped in the organisation of the activity.

The event, aptly named by its organisers 'Scrabble Alive', was held at the Golden Tulip Vivaldi Hotel, St Julian's, in a best-out-of-five final between Delicata and Camilleri. Despite a 3-0 win for the former player, the tie was very closely contested, keeping the audience glued to their places.

I was there, and although my strategic perception of scrabble was limited, I watched the unfolding sequence of screened lexical build-ups with keen interest. For all the intriguing experience I had, mine was only a passive participation.

Not so that of the 40-odd crowd whose following of the shuffling of letters on the rack, the moves, actual and anticipated, and their appreciation of the strategy being adopted by the contestants to set up the board for a bonus word or a bingo (using all seven letters in one go), reflected the knowledge they have of scrabble. For me it was reminiscent of watching the geometries of snooker backed by the cueists' potting mastery.

A subsequent informal chat with Joe Micallef, the club president, and vice-president Nicky Vella Laurenti about the development of scrabble in Malta and its promulgation on a wider international scale, proved to be very enlightening.

Members of the Malta Scrabblers Club, who currently top the 50-mark, are optimistic about making scrabble more reachable to a wider following. The club premises, situated at the St Aloysius Sports Complex, Birkirkara, is a beehive of activity when competitions are in progress.

Attracting new enthusiasts to the fold is a constant objective of the club. Surely, the recent technological breakthrough in Malta, which would make it possible for scrabble to be brought more often to the spectators as a spectacle, will help immensely towards its further diffusion in our islands.