Sacramento Scrabble® Club

National Scrabble® Association Club #433

Sacramento Scrabble® Club Article

Word up

Hobbyists hone Scrabble® skills in competitive club

By Niesha Gates -- Sacramento Bee Staff Writer

Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Thursday, August 8, 2002

 

For four hours every Sunday afternoon, about 20 area residents get together to lay tile.

But their hobby doesn't require grout or trowels. The only tools this group needs are dictionaries, timers and little lettered tiles. And a love for the game of Scrabble.

Besides hunting for high-scoring words, Sacramento Scrabble Club members also seek new people to join their quirky club, which meets at noon at the Hart Senior Center, 915 27th St., midtown.

"We're trying to grow as a club and reach a younger generation," said Stephanie Sugano of Roseville, club director. "We want people to know that it's like a second family over there. These are wonderful people who have interesting stories to tell. We even celebrate birthdays together."

The club attracts its 20 members from a broad area, including the Central City, Auburn, Roseville and El Dorado Hills.

But for the three area club members who attend the five-day National Scrabble Championship on Aug. 17 in San Diego, friendliness will be checked at the door. The competition attracts top Scrabble players who play the game for eight hours each day. The rewards are hefty cash prizes, with first place yielding $25,000.

Armed with dictionaries and timers, players use strategy and skill to come up with words that may win them the game. Even racial slurs and curse words are permitted.

"It's funny because you will see a little old lady putting down the 'f-word' on the board," Sugano said. "But that's allowed."

Sam Kantimathi, 47, an aerospace engineer, said he is eagerly anticipating the games he will play at the championship. Kantimathi, who lives in El Dorado Hills, won an invitational competition in the Philippines in 1997. He went home with $10,000 in prize money.

But Kantimathi hasn't always loved Scrabble. When he played for the first time about 20 years ago, he said he hated it.

"I was snowbound over Thanksgiving weekend in Texas with some grad school friends, and we had nothing to do but play board games," Kantimathi said. "We started playing Scrabble and when it was my turn, I picked out my word -- 'wash' -- carefully put the tiles on the lower left side of the board and counted up 42 points. They told me that I couldn't do that and I said, 'Let's play a different game. This one is stupid.' A very mature response."

But when Kantimathi returned to Scrabble after years of playing chess, he found his knack for strategy made him good at the word game. So good, in fact, that he holds the world record for the highest-scoring opening move.

The word "bezique" -- defined by Webster's dictionary as a card game similar to pinochle that is played with a pack of 64 cards -- earned him 124 points and a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

In a few days, Kantimathi's home will become a Scrabble haven. Kantimathi's good friend and 1994's National Scrabble Champion, David Gibson, will stay with Kantimathi while they prepare for the championship.

"When David comes, we'll be playing dozens and dozens of games. It'll be Scrabble time, all the time," Kantimathi said.

Gibson, a South Carolina math professor, also will visit the Sacramento Scrabble Club during Sunday's meeting to play, give pointers and share some of his Scrabble knowledge with area enthusiasts. The public is welcome to attend.

The Sacramento Scrabble Club is the brainchild of Violet Schon, 75, who started the club 10 years ago because, she said, she knew a lot of people who played the game at home.

"I thought, 'I'm going to get them out of their houses so they can play more than just their husband or buddy,' " said Schon, who lives in Sacramento's Lemon Hill neighborhood.

Schon said no matter what the range of expertise, all Scrabble players have one thing in common.

"I think you actually have to love words to enjoy the game," she said. "Scrabble players are word freaks, and they just love the game."

 

For more information about the Sacramento Scrabble Club and the National Scrabble Championship, visit http://mindodyssey.com/sacscrabble/index.html

 

SCRABBLE FACTS

A swift history of the game:

* Scrabble was invented in 1948 by Alfred Butts, who came up with Scrabble's ancestor, "Criss-Cross Words" during the Great Depression.

* Butts studied the New York Times to count the frequency of the 26 letters in the English alphabet and assigned a point value to each letter.

* Butts and his partner lost money on Scrabble until the early 1950s, when the president of Macy's discovered the game on vacation and ordered some for his store. Within a year, everyone "had to have one," and Scrabble sets were being rationed to stores around the country.

* Hasbro Inc. owns the rights to Scrabble®.

Copyright © The Sacramento Bee

 

HASBRO is the owner of the registered SCRABBLE® trademark in the United States and Canada. © 2004 HASBRO.

All rights reserved. The SCRABBLE trademark is owned by J.W. Spear and Sons, PLC, a subsidiary of Mattel, Inc. outside of the United States and Canada.