ASEAN NOW columnist Rooster wins Thai Scrabble Championship 2022 by avoiding bad words!

[webfact]

Rooster and Atiruth shake hands ahead of the two game final

 

ASEAN NOW's popular and sometimes controversial Saturday columnist Rooster has won the Open Scrabble section of the Thailand Championship 2022.

 

More than 2000 participants - mostly schoolchildren - packed out the hall at the Fashion Island shopping center in Minburi, Northern Bangkok at the weekend.

 

Rooster and Atiruth deep in thought in the final

 

They were playing English language Scrabble - called Crossword Game for contractual reasons in Thailand - Sudoku, Kham Khom (Thai language Scrabble), the A-Math equations game and Connect 4.

 

Everone was competing for trophies and cash prizes. The trophies were presented in the name of the recently elected new governor of Bangkok Chadchart Sittipunt.

 

Rooster, a British born resident of Thailand, became the oldest winner of a Scrabble tournament in Thailand at 61.

 

The winning board

 

He qualified for the two game final after finishing second in the preliminaries behind Thai master player Atiruth Sakdiyakorn.

 

Rooster revealed that the secret to victory was avoiding rude language - the tournament was played using an updated dictionary after more than 400 slurs were removed.

 

Rooster said: "In one game I only won after I challenged off BINT that is no longer acceptable and my opponent missed a turn. 

 

"In the final game I messed up by allowing Atiruth to play ZAMBO (a racial term used in the colonies of the Americas) for which he scored 50 points. 

 

Thousands of participants - mostly Thai schoolchildren - attended the event

 

"It had also been removed but in the pressure of the final I forgot. However, I managed to win in the endgame by avoiding YID (a rude word that's been taken out) and playing YIN instead."

 

Rude words and slurs were taken out of the Scrabble dictionary after game makers Mattell and the US Scrabble authorities started a move to make the game more politically correct.

 

Some of the tournaments in Thailand - where Scrabble is played by 10,000 people - use the old dictionary, some the new. Players have to remember which is which though most Thais don't know the meanings anyway.

 

Rooster managed to play HAILERS, ENTICED, LIONIZER and ANTIMUON (all 50 point bonus plays) in this preliminary game against Atiruth.

 

Banned words include ABO, LEZ and HONKY and the "N" word though F*** is still allowed.

 

Thailand is home to tournaments throughout the kingdom that are used to promote the English language as well as math and Thai language skills.

 

Though the face-to-face gaming community has been sorely hit by the pandemic things are getting moving again. Participants were all required to wear masks.

 

Student winners at the weekend event in Fashion Island shopping center, Minburi

 

The event was organized by EduPloys/MaxPloys who have promoted Scrabble and other games in Thailand for 35 years.

 

The next tournaments are in Khon Kaen later this month and in Central Plaza Ayutthaya in November. 

 

Some events pre-pandemic attracted the best players from all over the world. The King's Cup was won multiple times in Bangkok by the undisputed GOAT from New Zealand called Nigel Richards. 

 

Nigel is a multiple world champion. 

 

The Thai Royal Family have sponsored trophies and big corporations and politicians want to sponsor events due to their connection with education.

 

The final word we'll leave to Rooster who quipped:

 

"My prize was a little less than the US $4.7 million won on Sunday at the LIV golf in Thailand. 

 

"But despite 5% tax I might still have enough to treat the wife and kids to a meal". 

 

-- © Copyright  ASEAN NOW 2022-10-11

 

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[RandiRona]

Congratulations, I guess you were lucky that @GammaGlobulin wasn’t there. There is no winning from him when it comes to words!!

[HighPriority]

Well I'll be forked, congrats Rooster ????

[2baht]

Damn, I always pictured Rooster with red hair! ????

[ikke1959]

What are bad words???

[stoner]

did you want a hero cookie ? 

[Caldera]

Interesting that they don't have age categories and let "mostly schoolchildren" compete against a seasoned wordsmith such as Rooster.

[Stargeezr]

Way to go Rooster....Congrats.

[marcusb]

Good job!  

 

The one and only game on my phone.  

[topt]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

Participants were all required to wear masks.

Apart from the finalists............?

 

Well done Rooster!

[roo860]

1 hour ago, Caldera said:

Interesting that they don't have age categories and let "mostly schoolchildren" compete against a seasoned wordsmith such as Rooster.

Don't they have a different section for students/school kids?

Edited October 11, 2022 by roo860

[Fortean1]

Great news for Rooster and for Scrabble here in Thailand.

 

Do we know Roosters given name and surname?

[BostonRob2]

2 hours ago, Caldera said:

Interesting that they don't have age categories and let "mostly schoolchildren" compete against a seasoned wordsmith such as Rooster.

There are many divisions for school children. I was competing in the Open section that also contained many young guys and ladies still at school or uni as well as seasoned professionals. My opponent in the final Atiruth is someone I have known since he was a kid in school 20 plus years ago. We are evenly matched. In the preliminaries I was beaten by him and two guys under 20 who played exceptionally well. The kids look on me as a mentor and inspiration. They are highly respectful of me and my achievements especially in keeping going at age 61! Yes, I'm a "seasoned wordsmith" but there are many kids who have studied the dictionary and have huge vocabularies and are keen to understand the strategies involved in winning. I was very lucky in this tournament and made terrible mistakes but somehow managed to hold on. PM me if you'd like to get involved in playing competitive Scrabble. Foreigners are just as welcome as Thais. In this field there was a Sri Lankan guy studying at Chula. Come and try it!

 

Rooster

[phuketsub]

Congrats to Rooster. Far from a fowl performance.  I play on the 

ScrabbleGo App (AWS: 22, id 117203430) ...Classic Mode if anyone is interested. None of my current regular opponents are Thai expats. 

 

[Puccini]

5 hours ago, marcusb said:

Good job!  

 

The one and only game on my phone.  

Which app are you using?

[siftasam]

A 'quickie' about spelling.

 

I am rather annoyed (being English, that means, of course, 'apoplectic with rage'!) that my daughter's school advertises,  in very big 'gold' letters near the front gate, its 'English Program'.

 

It reminds me that a few years ago on kids' TV here there was a spelling game show. One girl aged I think 12 was an absolute star in every way.

What a great youngster to teach! She answered each question quickly and correctly. She was modest and delightful.

 

Finally, she was asked to spell 'doughnut'. She spelt it 'donut'. When told that she was wrong, she looked completely stunned! This lasted until the end of the programme five minutes later. She was in 'a state of shock'. It was quite funny to see her, but I sympathized.

 

Maybe later she revived herself at 'Mister Donut'.

 

You Yanks have a lot to answer for!

 

p.s. 'quickie' is reluctantly' admitted into my Chambers dictionary (the best!).  ASEAN NOW has underlined my 'programme'.

 

Poo! I don't care!

[Neeranam]

Well done Rooster, bit unfair though as a native English speaker. 

[Neeranam]

4 hours ago, BostonRob2 said:

There are many divisions for school children. I was competing in the Open section that also contained many young guys and ladies still at school or uni as well as seasoned professionals. My opponent in the final Atiruth is someone I have known since he was a kid in school 20 plus years ago. We are evenly matched. In the preliminaries I was beaten by him and two guys under 20 who played exceptionally well. The kids look on me as a mentor and inspiration. They are highly respectful of me and my achievements especially in keeping going at age 61! Yes, I'm a "seasoned wordsmith" but there are many kids who have studied the dictionary and have huge vocabularies and are keen to understand the strategies involved in winning. I was very lucky in this tournament and made terrible mistakes but somehow managed to hold on. PM me if you'd like to get involved in playing competitive Scrabble. Foreigners are just as welcome as Thais. In this field there was a Sri Lankan guy studying at Chula. Come and try it!

 

Rooster

Are there any competitions for Thais only? I used to be pretty good at Scrabble. Maybe there is some kind of Olympic team?

[BostonRob2]

16 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

Well done Rooster, bit unfair though as a native English speaker. 

Thank you. 

 

The question about the advantage gained through being a native speaker over non-native is debatable, however. Yes, there will be many words, especially longer or obscure ones that are unlikely to be played in Scrabble but which a native speaker will never forget or question because most everyone knows them (HACKSAW, GAZUMPED, CHICKPEA for example). Almost nobody in the world Scrabble community would , however, suggest that being a native speaker is much of an advantage. It can be a detriment. Being a native speaker comes with a lot of baggage, not least of all being aware of words that are NOT in the Scrabble dictionary. Many of the best Scrabble players - and Thailand has had two world champions and many youth world champions - come from all over Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia and Singapore. Most of these are second language speakers of English. They have sat down for years using various tools and computer software to read and swat the Scrabble dictionary. Not Chambers, not Oxford...the Scrabble dictionary only. They know to a great degree of accuracy what is and what is not an acceptable word. Yes, I do too, but I have learned this by the same method as them and had to "unlear" vocabulary. The greatest English language player of all time - Nigel Richards of New Zealand (Google him) won the highly competitive French championships by reading the French Scrabble dictionary for just six weeks. Eidetic memory and strategy far in excess of computer software aided him. The French and French speakers principally from Africa hailed him as their greatest champion of all time as he continued to beat them in a language he could not speak let alone tell you the meaning of the words. Scrabble, you see, is more about mathematics than language. You can think of each word as a collection of joined symbols or symbols with numbers. Nigel says Scrabble is ONLY mathematics. The combination of the "words" and their numbers with the numbers on the board forms the basis of the game. 

 

I have been playing Scrabble in Thailand for 30 years. I ranked #1 in Thailand for only 6 weeks in 1996. Most of the time I have hovered around 8-12. The Thais are incredibly good and many have been an inspiration to me as well as personal mentors. The same goes for many non-native speakers from countless countries where I have played (and mostly been beaten at) Scrabble. 

 

In my column this week I am going to write about how Scrabble led me to turn my life around and gave me a purpose in Thailand. It won't be about Scrabble itself, more about how using a game can help with mental issues and issues of addiction and compulsive behavior. I know that you are someone who has suffered the consequences of addiction and this is true for me too. I hope that you will read it as you may well find that there are correlations in your own life and maybe lessons to be learned as we move on with our lives.

 

Sincerely,

 

Rooster

[BostonRob2]

31 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

Are there any competitions for Thais only? I used to be pretty good at Scrabble. Maybe there is some kind of Olympic team?

There are no competitions for Thais only. Scrabble - as I intimated in my long post to you just now - crosses language and cultural as well as generational barriers. I have played for Thailand, being warmly accepted into the national team long before I became even a Thai resident. It's not an Olympic sport though it is in the Thai University Games.

 

Come to a tournament, there are one or two other people born abroad who take part. It's a very welcoming community to all nationalities. 

 

Rooster

[BostonRob2]

1 hour ago, siftasam said:

A 'quickie' about spelling.

 

I am rather annoyed (being English, that means, of course, 'apoplectic with rage'!) that my daughter's school advertises,  in very big 'gold' letters near the front gate, its 'English Program'.

 

It reminds me that a few years ago on kids' TV here there was a spelling game show. One girl aged I think 12 was an absolute star in every way.

What a great youngster to teach! She answered each question quickly and correctly. She was modest and delightful.

 

Finally, she was asked to spell 'doughnut'. She spelt it 'donut'. When told that she was wrong, she looked completely stunned! This lasted until the end of the programme five minutes later. She was in 'a state of shock'. It was quite funny to see her, but I sympathized.

 

Maybe later she revived herself at 'Mister Donut'.

 

You Yanks have a lot to answer for!

 

p.s. 'quickie' is reluctantly' admitted into my Chambers dictionary (the best!).  ASEAN NOW has underlined my 'programme'.

 

Poo! I don't care!

Both DOUGHNUT and DONUT are of course acceptable Scrabble words as they should be. As a teacher in the past I would encourage students to learn both. The US Scrabble dictionary was based on many collegiate dictionaries such as Merriam Webster and the UK one was based on Chambers. These helped to form the current international lexicon that is also added to and monitored by Collins. There are more than a million words in English but only a quarter of a million (approx.) that are acceptable in international and Thailand based Scrabble.

 

Rooster

 

 

 

 

[BostonRob2]

2 hours ago, phuketsub said:

Congrats to Rooster. Far from a fowl performance.  I play on the 

ScrabbleGo App (AWS: 22, id 117203430) ...Classic Mode if anyone is interested. None of my current regular opponents are Thai expats. 

 

Thanks. Funnily enough it was rather "fowl" - I was very lucky overall and should have won far more easily if I hadn't made so many crass old man errors! I played tens of thousands of online games in the noughties but have quit that to concentrate on playing solo otherwise I'd look you up for a game. Online play can be detrimental to my thought processes and I also got tired of being called a cheat and even less savory names. You're in Phuket? We usually have a tournament there at Jung Ceylon, why not look in the next time. You'd be glad you did. Playing online I would suggest you also try isc.ro where the standar of players will be generally higher than scrabble Go. 

 

Sincerely,

 

Rooster

[BostonRob2]

6 hours ago, Fortean1 said:

Great news for Rooster and for Scrabble here in Thailand.

 

Do we know Roosters given name and surname?

Let Google be your friend.....

 

I just prefer not to use my name in news stories like this and in my weekly column. 

 

Rooster

[BostonRob2]

2 hours ago, Puccini said:

Which app are you using?

Try Scrabble Go for phones and isc.ro for computers.

 

But you won't see me. 

 

Apart from face to face tournaments, I just play with myself. 

 

????

 

Rooster

[BostonRob2]

11 hours ago, 2baht said:

Damn, I always pictured Rooster with red hair! ????

Heaven forbid! Though GINGER is a great Scrabble word, unlike its banned anagram

 

Rooster

[BostonRob2]

13 hours ago, RandiRona said:

Congratulations, I guess you were lucky that @GammaGlobulin wasn’t there. There is no winning from him when it comes to words!!

Most people who consider themselves writers are put off by Scrabble. They quickly discover that their vocabulary (maybe 30,000 words) is woefully inadequate and if they do start they might actually figure out that the game is actually all about math, not language.

 

Rooster

[Neeranam]

55 minutes ago, BostonRob2 said:

Thank you. 

 

The question about the advantage gained through being a native speaker over non-native is debatable, however. Yes, there will be many words, especially longer or obscure ones that are unlikely to be played in Scrabble but which a native speaker will never forget or question because most everyone knows them (HACKSAW, GAZUMPED, CHICKPEA for example). Almost nobody in the world Scrabble community would , however, suggest that being a native speaker is much of an advantage. It can be a detriment. Being a native speaker comes with a lot of baggage, not least of all being aware of words that are NOT in the Scrabble dictionary. Many of the best Scrabble players - and Thailand has had two world champions and many youth world champions - come from all over Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia and Singapore. Most of these are second language speakers of English. They have sat down for years using various tools and computer software to read and swat the Scrabble dictionary. Not Chambers, not Oxford...the Scrabble dictionary only. They know to a great degree of accuracy what is and what is not an acceptable word. Yes, I do too, but I have learned this by the same method as them and had to "unlear" vocabulary. The greatest English language player of all time - Nigel Richards of New Zealand (Google him) won the highly competitive French championships by reading the French Scrabble dictionary for just six weeks. Eidetic memory and strategy far in excess of computer software aided him. The French and French speakers principally from Africa hailed him as their greatest champion of all time as he continued to beat them in a language he could not speak let alone tell you the meaning of the words. Scrabble, you see, is more about mathematics than language. You can think of each word as a collection of joined symbols or symbols with numbers. Nigel says Scrabble is ONLY mathematics. The combination of the "words" and their numbers with the numbers on the board forms the basis of the game. 

 

I have been playing Scrabble in Thailand for 30 years. I ranked #1 in Thailand for only 6 weeks in 1996. Most of the time I have hovered around 8-12. The Thais are incredibly good and many have been an inspiration to me as well as personal mentors. The same goes for many non-native speakers from countless countries where I have played (and mostly been beaten at) Scrabble. 

 

In my column this week I am going to write about how Scrabble led me to turn my life around and gave me a purpose in Thailand. It won't be about Scrabble itself, more about how using a game can help with mental issues and issues of addiction and compulsive behavior. I know that you are someone who has suffered the consequences of addiction and this is true for me too. I hope that you will read it as you may well find that there are correlations in your own life and maybe lessons to be learned as we move on with our lives.

 

Sincerely,

 

Rooster

I see what you mean, and have never thought of it like that before, more like a different language like programming is, and mathematical. Maybe I was good, although nowhere near your level, due to studying Pure Maths at uni. 

I look forward to reading that, golf is my passion. 

It's so easy to fall to addiction in Bangkok! Actually your face looks familiar, maybe our paths crossed in the 90s in Bangkok, ECC, Inlingua, ELC etc. 

[marcusb]

3 hours ago, Puccini said:

Which app are you using?

Scrabble  - red with a tile around the S ... on my old phone. Used for years works great,

 

Cant find the same one to download on new phone though. 

[BostonRob2]

58 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

It's so easy to fall to addiction in Bangkok! Actually your face looks familiar, maybe our paths crossed in the 90s in Bangkok, ECC, Inlingua, ELC etc. 

How true that first sentence is! With your permission I may use it in my column. Our paths may have crossed but I never worked in those language schools; I was at Bangkok Patana 93-98 then Harrow 98-2013. Funnily Enough ECC became a big sponsor of Scrabble in Thailand in the last ten years and they once gave me a check for 30,000 baht! Happy days!

 

Rooster

[phuketsub]

1 hour ago, BostonRob2 said:

Thanks. Funnily enough it was rather "fowl" - I was very lucky overall and should have won far more easily if I hadn't made so many crass old man errors! I played tens of thousands of online games in the noughties but have quit that to concentrate on playing solo otherwise I'd look you up for a game. Online play can be detrimental to my thought processes and I also got tired of being called a cheat and even less savory names. You're in Phuket? We usually have a tournament there at Jung Ceylon, why not look in the next time. You'd be glad you did. Playing online I would suggest you also try isc.ro where the standar of players will be generally higher than scrabble Go. 

 

Sincerely,

 

Rooster

Thanks and Congrats Rooster, 

I am in Songkhla now, but was a long time resident of Phuket working in the media there. 

However I can get over there for a Scrabble tournament. I have never actually been in one. Is there a website or something where the times, dates and guidelines are available? Thanks again.