- Nov 24 - Scrabble in November
- Dec 08 - Before Christmas
- Dec 29 - Decathon Details on CALENDAR
The year ahead promises to be an exciting one for Scrabble in Victoria. We will be adding more featues to what we provide - and you can learn more about it here.
Our final Friday Night Scrabble for 2024 was a really enjoyable evening with one of our best supported attendances for these events!
With Nick playing as standby, it meant the prize for the night went to John Minas; congratulations to John and thank you to all the players who have supported this initiative in 2024!
Special mention for High Word is Lainie’s 96 for MINTERS in the final game, which helped to make the contest for 2nd very tight!!
Welcome also to Lyn for her first one of these!
We return to Doncaster in 2025 – these nights are always a lot of fun and gives players the opportunity to partake in some word play in a relaxed but competitive format. I hope to see more people share in these events next yea
Today was likely our final time at Mordy HQ, and it was a really enjoyable day! Our Bayside Opens always reward those who exceed their rating rather than by position. David won the day, with Nick's 29 point rating gain taking out the major prize in ratings. Oscar, Frank, Peter, and Mardi took out the minor prizes for ratings.
We had a number of scores over 500 from players today but only one of them was in a losing effort: Carol's game score of 500 is featured below.
Thank you to everyone who attended to support our Mackinnon House Fundraiser today. We welcomed Jithuni to her first event today, making a welcome addition to our ranks of young players!
Congratulations to David and Angie for winning their respective divisions.
We returned to action in Moonee Ponds today, with 24 players taking part across two Divisions. Congratulations to Oscar and Rob for winning their respective divisions today. Both players won 6 games and finished one game ahead of their respective runners-up. It was great to see both Kannan and Carol play today after an absence across the boards.
Kris Howat's 585 included a 149 for WEEDINGS. Along with Rex's DREARIES for 131, these were the highest scoring words for the day.
Rex extended SLEEPING with (OUT) making our longest word played for 2024 so far.
We returned to Doncaster on Friday for our latest installment in the Friday Night Series. 10 players (including three first time players) played four games on a cool Friday evening.
It took until the final match to confirm Rob's victory - his win over John gave him his first FNS title.
Oscar was one of three Australian representatives at the World Youth Scrabble Championship run in Sri Lanka.
Ultimately won by Pakistan's Affan Salman, Oscar performed the best of the three; coming in 19th in a field of near 140 players from 15 countries.
Queensland's Ashwin Page was one of the few players to beat Salman during the event, having defeated the now Champion in their Day one game.
The Scrabble Victoria AGM was held on Sunday as part of The Classic at Balwyn.
The 2024/2025 Committee is as follows:
President: Nick Ivanovski
Vice President: Christie Godby
Secretary: Carol Johnsen
Treasurer: Peter Kougi
Committee Members
David Eldar
Naween Fernando
Trevor Halsall
Rob Hutchinson
Paula Messer
Nat Podesser
Thank you to everyone for your support – I look forward to an amazing year
Nick Ivanovski
President, ASPA (Vic)
Whilst many of us were at Balwyn for The Classic, Oscar was up in Sydney taking part in the inaugural Australian Junior Scrabble Championship.
He was the only player to go undefeated on the day and is the first player to take out the title in this country!!
Congratulations to Oscar for winning and to all other prize winners for what was a very successful event!!
You can see the final results by visiting this link:
The Classic was run today, with the AGM taking a very brief peek into the schedule. There was plenty to celebrate today and congratulations to our Division winners Nat and Michael, as well as everyone else who podiumed and won a prize..
Another enjoyable Sunday of Scrabble saw 18 players take part in our second Teams event of 2024. Congratulations to the team of Naween, Craig, Rob, and Michael who won a tight affair that went down to the final result of the day!! David, Jenny, and Michael took out Divisional honours with a new High Word record for us in Victoria as Carol’s FLOWERED scored 185.
Our AGM forms part of our event on August 25th. Notices of agenda, and all usual correspondence, will be emailed shortly to members.
This is the first team event for the year, with another one scheduled next week as the Olympics plays out to everyone else. Players were allocated into trios and played across seven rounds in 2 Divisions. We welcomed back Craig Murdoch after a long absence from event play! Whilst both he and Kris took out individual honours, the team to take out the first place was that of Oscar, Kris, and Carol. Congratulations to the prize winners today!
It was a small but enjoyable event in our Friday Night Scrabble series, which saw Christie take the prize on her debut in these events!!
Our next Friday meet is in September, so there’s plenty of time to get ready for it! Hope to see you there….
We ran a small, but extremely enjoyable event in Wodonga this weekend.
Thank you to everyone at the Wodonga Club for hosting and to those who came up to support it! The event was 8 rounds played over two days, and gave players the chance to catch up for dinner Saturday evening. We also welcomed two new players, Carolynn and James.
Oscar took out the 2nd Wodonga Open, dropping just the one game. John Rider was the other player to podium, with Nick's 555 and Luke taking out High Word with a score of 91. Luke also took out the Best Local Player accolade this weekend. Congratulations to all players.
We will be returning next year to Wodonga so if you missed out and wanted to play, there will be an exciting announcement coming on this front.
Thank you to the 20 players who supported today’s event in Balwyn.
Thank you also to those players who renewed their membership for the year ahead – it is hugely appreciated.
Jenny Brysha was the only player to go undefeated through the day, a huge achievement given the calibre of each division! Trevor Halsall almost held a 500 point game average in Division A until a tight win over Oscar (to secure his overall victory) brought it down to mid 400 levels. Chris Scholten was runner-up, also winning 4 in A. By winning the winner-takes-all final game against Annette Casey, Eileen Mills took the victory in C. We welcomed back Siva from a hiatus of play in Victoria. Annette’s WINIEST was the High Word of the day.
Congratulations to Rob Hutchinson for going back to back in tonight’s Friday Night Scrabble held in Doncaster.
Ten players attended our latest event at Shoppingtown Hotel, including one new player. This format is securing a loyal following with its more relaxed format and atmosphere. It is a great way to round out any week; the next of these is on July 26 and we are looking forward to seeing more players take it up!
41 players from 4 countries took part this weekend at the Victorian Scrabble Championship held at The Olympic Hotel in Preston.
Thank you to everyone who attended and everyone else who otherwise supported the event; this was a really enjoyable weekend of Scrabble.
Congratulations to David Eldar for winning the coveted title and going back to back!
Our congratulations also go to Edward Okulicz (2nd), John Hamilton (3rd and High Game), Oscar Ivanovski (4th), Angie Pearse (High Word), Christie Godby (Rating Band), Shaun Donnelly (Rating Band), and Caroline Scowcroft (Rating Band) as the other prize winners over the weekend.
Next year's Victorian will be our 40th event, being held in the 40th Anniversary year of ASPA (Vic). We are hoping to make it one of our biggest in recent times. Save the date and be a part of it!!
What a great day of Scrabble today as we came out to assist Oscar with fundraising for his upcoming trip to Sri Lanka, where he will represent Australia on the global Scrabble stage at the most high profile international Scrabble event in 2024.
Players traveled from as far away as outside Albury to take part and show support and it was a real testament to the generosity of the Victorian Scrabble playing community that such an event could be as successful as it was! Oscar opened the event today and expressed his gratitude for the generosity of players.
We welcomed Sabina to her first event today, and we hope she enjoyed her day with us.
The event was an open, with Trevor Halsall winning the event, going undefeated. The best performances for the day in terms of ratings went to Carol Johnsen (going up 61 points) and Norma Fisher (going up 39). Edward's FEEBLING for 149 was a high set on a day where 100+ plays were celebrated. .
This beautiful rotating board, tiles and racks are being auctioned with all proceeds going to raise funds for Oscar.
Reserve price is $120 but the bids have already risen to $140. Email Carol Johnsen at caroljscrabble@gmail.com if you want to make a bid or any enquiries.
The successful bidder will be announced at the end of lunchtime at the upcoming tournament on Sunday 26 May
The Friday Night Scrabble series returned for its second outing last Friday. For the first time, we had someone go undefeated! Congratulations to Rob Hutchinson for winning with a 4-0 record from Lainie Mercieca in 2nd and previous winner Justin Moyle in 3rd.
The next Friday Night event is on June 21. It will be great to see you there!! .
Another enjoyable afternoon of Scrabble, this time in Balwyn! We had 28 players taking part across 4 Divisions.
Congratulations to our Division winners, David, Kashi, John, and Annette.
Kashi was the only player today to win all 5 of her games (in B Division). John and Annette needed 4 to win in C and D respectively. David's 3 wins in a tight A Division was a close run thing; his high win over Edward Okulicz in the final game leapfrogged over the others on 3 victories.
We welcomed back Stephanie Agius today – it is always great to have more people in attendance and look forward to seeing you all at an event soon. .
Thank you to all players who attended our event today; the first after the recently completed Nationals!.
With adjusting formats, we were able to cater for player needs with a number of people able to play for part of the event. At the conclusion, it took 5 wins to emerge victorious in each Division. Chris was able to do this relatively comfortably in A but Rob's last game victory against John was not enough as he was 6 spread points adrift at the end. Congratulations to all place-getters and other prize winners.
After an amazing three days in the beautiful city of Perth, David Eldar secured his third National title, defeating Russell Honeybun in Game 24. Last year's Champion, Naween Fernando, came second. In the Plate, Khwanjai Thammaping was the best performing Victorian, finishing 10th.
Thank you to everyone for attending and supporting the event!
Here is how everyone from Victoria ended up:
CHAMPIONSHIP
David (1st)
Naween (2nd)
Andrew (10th)
Nick (19th)
Oscar (29th)
Nat (36th)
Carol (40th)
PLATE
Khwanjai (10th)
Carolyn (39th)
Full Results - Championship
Full Results - Plate
Thank you to the 12 players who attended our inaugural Friday Night Scrabble series of events.
Congratulations to Justin Moyle for emerging victorious - the end result came down to the outcomes of the final games, which meant a really close affair!
This was a very enjoyable evening of fun, food, and Scrabble. Stay tuned for details of the next in the series shortly
What an enjoyable weekend in Ballarat! Thank you to all who supported our event.
We had three players from South Australia make the journey across - it was great to see so many different faces!
Congratulations to John Rider for winning, Jane Taylor for being runner-up, with Geoff Wright taking out the rating prize. Tessa Knight won best local prize award, with Chris Scholten taking High Game and Val Martin High Word.
The Match Play Grand Final had been delayed between Geoff and Oscar but the Final did not disappoint! The match went all the way until Geoff finished Game 5 with a bonus play!!
Congratulations to our Match Play victor, Geoff Wright…
28 players turned up for our first Bayside Open of the year! Mordy HQ is always one of our more popular venues and it was an enjoyable return for players. We welcomed Tan Zi Kang, who is here from Malaysia for the next six months. The event was an Open with prizes for the winner, runner-up, and various rating gain prizes.
The fourth iteration of the Victorian Plate and Side took place in Balwyn and the tradition of a non repeat winner continues! Noel Coulter is the 2024 Victorian Plate Champion.
Jayanthi's trip down to Melbourne paid off with a placing, with Paula coming runner-up. Geoff Wright won his maiden Side event
A new year and a new venue for us as our longstanding event The Bil Rose Aestival was played at the Camberwell Community Centre.
32 players across four divisions took part, which was an equal post-pandemic attendance for this event. Keeping with previous tradition, divisions were named for a bird theme.
It was great to see so many people from all across Victoria! Congratulations to our Division winners, David, Oscar, Oliver, and Luke and, as always, a huge thank you to all the people who supported this event.
News items from 2023 have been moved to the Archive