Red Letter Day: A Record-Breaking Score at Stamford Scrabble Tourney
It's the Scrabble equivalent of the four-minute mile: Mark Landsberg's tournament score of 770, set at a 1993 tournament in Eagle Rock, Calif. For 28 years, players occasionally topped Landsberg's score in club rooms, but no one even approached it in the pressure cooker of a tournament game. On Friday at the Northeast Scrabble Tournament in Stamford, Conn., Landsberg's record became a footnote, as formerly top-ranked player Joel Sherman scored a staggering 803 points.
Sherman's winning board. Photo courtesy of Sam Moch and Sam Kantimathi.
It's the Scrabble equivalent of the four-minute mile: Mark Landsberg's tournament score of 770, set at a 1993 tournament in Eagle Rock, Calif. For 18 years, no one came close to the mark in the pressure cooker of a tournament game, where top-ranked players face only solid competition. Last year, Edward de Guzman finally Roger Bannistered the record, scoring 771 points and leading Scrabble watchers to believe that the 800-point barrier might be broken in a tournament someday.
That day came on Friday at the Northeast Scrabble Tournament in Stamford, Conn. Landsberg's record became a footnote, as former world champion Joel Sherman scored a staggering 803 points. In a first round game, Sherman defeated Bradley Robbins by an eye-popping 518 points, on his way to going 7-0 in the first seven games. This was no walkover; Robbins is a former National School Scrabble Champion.
The 49-year-old Scrabble pro from the Bronx is well known in wordplay circles; he was a key figure in Stefan Fatsis's bestseller Word Freak, nicknamed "G.I. Joel" because of his gastrointestinal issues. In Friday's game, Sherman scored a North American Scrabble Players Association-record-tying seven bingos (plays where all seven tiles are used): CRUMPLED, OUTRATED, AVENGED, AIRLINE, SHAKING, TRAVOISE, and COTHURNI, which the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary defines as "buskins worn by ancient Roman actors." Four of those bingos were consecutive, on turns 3-6.
But Sherman's score was only the first highlight of the weekend. By Sunday, an entirely different story had overtaken the tournament. After his 7-0 start, Sherman suddenly started losing, finishing the tournament 12-4. He was quickly lapped by Mack Meller, who won the tournament with a 13-2-1 record.
Meller is 11 years old.
By far the youngest tournament winner ever, the homeschooled Bedford, N.Y., resident became the youngest Scrabble expert (defined as having a ranking of 1700 or better) in history in June. Meller. who won $500 at the Stamford tournament, donates a portion of his winnings to St. Jude's Hospital.
On the other side of the ledger, there's Sherman's opinion on his record-setting game: "It's nice, but it's not worth any money," he told the Stamford Advocate. "I already have plenty of notoriety. I'd rather do something that pays off."
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