POST TOURNAMENT REPORT

Many players and adult chaperones arrived early for this event - we had organised some sightseeing, as well as practice tournaments. Woy Woy players made the visitors particularly welcome, and then the visitors stole most of the prizes from locals. One young player left his trophy at the motel, so we had to arrange a replacement. Australian Wildlife Park at Gosford proved very popular, with visitors spending most time feeding kangaroos and buying toy koalas.

Despite warning players to purchase a power adaptor, most had ignored the advice, so we took them back to the international airport to purchase these, convert some cash etc. To show visitors the sights (eg Sydney Opera House), we drove through Sydney, over the Harbour Bridge, rather than using the tunnel underneath the harbour. Being new to Sydney, we drove around in circles for approximately 30 minutes, before one of the Malaysians realised that we had not been joking about being lost (maybe it was when we stopped to ask a pedestrian how to get to the airport - and discovered he was a tourist - or maybe it was passing the same Krispy Creme shop for a third time, which convinced them). They suddenly produced a map, and we were out of Sydney within two minutes, with much laughter all round.

The Philippines players could not be found at the airport, so we wasted about 5 hours there. Apparently their plane had suffered mechanical problems, and had turned back mid-flight. This all meant that we had to rearrange Joan's coaching clinic. Fortunately Joan was very forgiving about the late finish. By this time, however, our nerves were frayed, and we were wondering what else could go wrong. Chris Stockdale, visiting from Melbourne, had volunteered to help with transport. Not knowing the area, he discovered the "point of no return" as one leaves Wollongong - missing this exit means a long trip up the mountain before being able to turn around and travel slowly back down the mountain (nasty winding road). Chris warned me about this, and then I did it myself the next day. (how dopey!). We had many other little glitches, but most are too embarrassing to share - but we were certainly worrying about how the whole event would pan out. Calamity followed calamity, with the worst probably being the machine cutting the phone cable to the venue, thereby rendering useless all phones and most of their internet. This resulted in many frantic calls to me, from relatives wanting to contact their young players (there seemed to be a plot to ensure that our house received at least one call in the wee small hours every night - one of those who rang at 2.30am received quite an ear-bashing, I have to admit - something a word of apology would have prevented)

The two internationally-rated practice tournaments went reasonably well. However, many players were unused to tournaments, and Australian rules, so we ran a little late, which was stressful for those needing to return to the accommodation area before 7pm, for the evening meal. To compensate, we shortened the games to 22 minutes each, for which I was abused by some (It became a choice of canceling one game, or shortening them all). The second tournament, we managed to finish slightly earlier, with an additional game (9 instead of 8, for most players). Those who had finished at the top of the first day were given their own space, and a round robin plan, and told to "go for it", which they did - finishing 11 games in the same time as the rest of us played 9. These tournaments were invaluable in preparing players for WYSC - we ironed out such difficulties as players not checking cumulative scores, and thereby holding up proceedings after the game for 10 minutes or more, as they attempted to resolve differences.

The last few players arrived on Thursday afternoon, whilst most of the other visitors were checking out the adjacent university Science Centre, and Nature walk (and I was setting up the playing room). On Thursday evening we did the obligatory welcome speeches (very short!) and handed out the programs, asking players to familiarize themselves with basic rules etc before play started next morning. Whilst these speeches were happening, they were availing themselves of the equipment - to the extent that, when we closed the room, seven of the score booklets were missing - forcing us to have to produce more that night. After this distressing episode, players were locked out of the room between games.

Friday morning, every player was in his/her seat at the allotted time of 8.30am, and play commenced virtually on time (on the last day, we actually started before 8.30am, they were so keen). Despite us asking players to read their program, there were many who had not read (or understood?) the adaptation to normal challenge rules - this was to prevent penalising players who use TWL - if they played a word which was valid in North America, but not yet in the SOWPODS dictionary, they were allowed to replay the move. We determined, very quickly, that Wilma or Cheah would need to return such challenges to the players, to explain why they were allowed a "replay". Barely one move per round was replayed because of this special challenge arrangement. Cheah kindly assisted Wilma for the entire tournament, with a roster of volunteers manning the two challenge computers, and running challenges. Ruth Groffman (NZ), the only Youth committee member able to travel to this event, was in charge of rostering and training the volunteers on the floor, as well as those organising between-game snacks.

The playing room was adjacent to the dining room, which meant that players couldn't become lost after lunch etc. There was only one instance in the whole tournament where a player's clock was started because they were late for a game. In fact, the young players were better-behaved than WSC competitors, Wilma says. The majority of adjudications Wilma was required to make referred to overdraws, which is the same for WSC.

Mark Smith (Western Scrabble Network) had been working for months on an annotation system to enable games to be recorded, but needed some expert assistance from Edward Okulicz, in order to have these available (almost) instantaneously for viewers across the world. Together they solved most problems, except how to subtract the leave from the second player! Mark is going to provide actual figures for visitors to the website (which was donated by WSN) but indicated that there were hits from 49 countries, including places like Turkey and Lithuania, not renown for their Scrabble players. Pat Schuberg and Tony Hunt were the annotators, and must have been exhausted after three days of constant concentration (maybe next time we need a relief team of annotators). A decision was made to rotate the players under scrutiny, to provide a little variety for viewers, but always choosing players near the top of the field.

Barry Harridge had travelled from Melbourne to assist where needed, and fortunately was on hand to quickly rewrite the program, when we discovered the software couldn't cope with implementing the Gibson rule before the second-last game. (The Gibson rule is not used in Australia). This was the only hold-up for the tournament. Part of the hold-up was caused by my incorrect definition of when Gibson should be implemented - I had intended it to happen when one player could not be removed from contention in the finals, rather than being assured of winning the first stage of the event (which is what I had written in the program). David pointed out that, by allowing him to play Benjamin Chow once he was assured of a place on the finals, he could have thrown that game to Benjamin, if he had wanted to influence the choice of his final opponent - Of course, David is much too ethical to do that, but I will have to admit that I made a mistake! Whilst there was no collusion in these top games, there is some suspicion about at least one game in the lower ranks, where players were seen setting up deliberate openings, leaving false words unchallenged etc - in a bid to win the high game trophy, we assume. Fortunately, the final score fell slightly short of Suanne's 589.

The finals proved to be a playoff between the top two players, according to Bob Jackman's unofficial International ratings. David Eldar (Aust) was rated 2020 prior to this event, and Austin Shin (England) was rated 1936. These two players were isolated in an upstairs room, with Wilma as Tournament director, and the annotating team of three - Pat and Tony recording racks and moves, with Mark feeding them into the computer, straight onto the website, and also down to the main playing room, where they were projected onto a screen, with Edward providing commentary. The finalists were obviously tired, with David overdrawing, then not noticing - allowing Austin the right to choose which tile was returned to the bag - he removed the blank from David's rack. Austin missed a few bonuses, assumedly also suffering fatigue. In future we will try to organise the play-off for earlier in the day

The first game was a disaster for David, and a triumph for Austin - who picked bonus after bonus from the bag, to finish with 619. It was frustrating for those of us watching, as we could see Austin's tiles whilst David was playing - when David placed a T in the triple-triple lane, we all groaned, as Austin's REMOTION was yelling out to the watchers. David later played LUV above the triple word, as he held an "S". Unfortunately, we could all see that Austin also had one of the remaining S's. Edward, who was commentating, said that this was a correct move on David's part - he was so far behind that he needed to take these risks if he was to have any chance of catching up.

David's next three games were winners, however, allowing him to claim the much-sought-after crown, as the first World Youth Scrabble champion. I would like to congratulate both David and Austin. Their games were watched across the world, and hopefully will have enticed a few more young people into this wonderfully exciting world of Scrabble, a challenge to anyone with a good mind, and sense of adventure.

One problem with the tournament was the large number of challenges emanating from the lowest few tables. The organising committee will need to address this for future events. One solution would be to station an extra computer and runner in that area. Various other suggestions have been made, such as including a 5-point penalty for challenging, or excluding players rated under 1000 internationally. However, whilst this may have been slightly annoying to other players - having to wait for the lower ranks to have their challenges processed - it did not hold up the overall tournament, and we were finished just after 5 pm every day. This allowed players time to play soccer, visit the adjacent beach (not so enticing, as it rained most of the time!) or socialize in the games room. The consensus was that the best part of this tournament was meeting players from all over the world, many of whom they had already played via Internet.

We had a competition to design a T-shirt for this event, wanting something which had been designed by a young person, for young people. This was won by Michael Loo, who submitted a large number of suggestions, a couple of which will be combined to produce a T-shirt for all players. Meeting Michael (Canada), we were all impressed by his many talents - he is extremely musical and a wiz with Rubiks Cube. We have, in fact, invited him onto the Youth Committee (but he is still flying home, so we do not yet know if he will accept)

In the final tally, we had 50 players, from 12 countries, with eight of these being females. We had another 5 countries which selected suitable players, but were unable to attend, because of either visa or financial problems. Hopefully these five, plus others who expressed an interest, will compete in the next WYSC. Of the top ten finishers, four will not be eligible next year (David, Austin, Will and Sherwin). If we wait two more years for the next WYSC (ie 2008) then only Tanasak (Thailand) will be able to have a second attempt at the top place. Hence they are all pleading for the next WYSC to happen in 2007. I can only say - it is not up to me to decide - this will be decided by the Youth Committee and WESPA.

Overall, the event went extremely well, the standard of play was much better than I had anticipated, and I am certain that the numbers of young players world-wide will start to increase noticeably over the next year or two. These guys are our future, and I can assure you, I am very pleased that they are - some great players, and really solid personalities amongst them.

Karen Richards
Chairperson
Youth Sub-Committee
WESPA
(World English-language Scrabble Players Association)