WOST were they scrabbling over?

The inaugural Wairarapa Open Scrabble Tournament (aka WOST*) took place over two days, on September 21 – 22.

The tournament at the Carterton Club attracted 37 players from as far away as Auckland, Rotorua, Waitara, Wanganui and Wellington, as well as club members from the Martinborough, Featherston and Masterton clubs, and some ‘independent’ players.

“We were delighted that Glenys Hansen of our Martinborough Scrabble Club, who was competing in her first ever scrabble tournament, won 2nd prize on both tournament days in her D (for debut) grade,” said organiser Vicki Jones.

It was also a great weekend for David Robinson of Carterton, who easily won first place in the same grade in the Sunday tournament. Fran Lowe of Featherston won 3rd prize in the C grade on Saturday.

Also kudos to Sue McRae of the Masterton Scrabble Club, who not only did a huge amount of organising to ensure that the tournament ran without a hitch, but also played in the A Grade in the tournament, with some of the country’s finest scrabble players, including Howard Warner – who scored a remarkable 641 points in a single game.

The tournament was jointly run by the three Wairarapa scrabble clubs in:

Featherston (Fran Lowe 021 055 4897)

Martinborough (Vicki Jones 021 054 0212, vicbjones@gmail.com)

Masterton (Sue McRae 027 449 0601).

If you would like to join the Martinborough Club, please get in touch. We meet every Friday morning at 9.30am in the cafe outside the library in the Waihinga Centre, or in the library if the cafe is closed.

(*WOST is one of the more unusual words playable in Scrabble, meaning “ability to use words or ideas in a clever and amusing way.”) 

Caption; Martinborough’s Glenys Hansen with playing partner David on set.