SINGAPORE: They sit across each other, staring intently at the tables in front of them. Some clutch their heads, frowning; others are relaxed. No one speaks.
The only sounds come from ticking clocks and small, plastic square tiles being sifted in small velvet bags before they take up positions on a board.
This was not quite the level of intensity I expected to observe at the Millennium Cup, a Scrabble tournament in Singapore taking place in March every year.
Here at a multi-purpose hall in Nanyang Technological University (NTU), over 50 players young and old engaged in 16 rounds of hour-long matches over two days. The concentration was relentless; the effort total.
But as each round comes to an end, players break ranks to hover over other tables and peek at the words on display. One showdown, however, was of more interest: Hubert Wee versus Toh Weibin.
The former is world No 3 and No 1 in Singapore. The latter is ranked 11th in the world and second in Singapore.
Wee, 37, has been playing Scrabble competitively since 2003. It started with casual games with his family, but his interest took off after reading Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis, a collection of profiles of competitive Scrabble players.
After playing online for a few months, he decided to start participating in local tournaments.
What’s kept him going, competitively, for over 20 years? “I enjoy playing the game. It’s intellectually challenging and engaging,” he said after a long pause.
Hubert Wee, 37, is ranked third in the world and first in Singapore at Scrabble. (Photo: CNA/Marcus Mark Ramos)
To the casual player, Scrabble involves forming words on a board, using tiles. They may sigh when they draw the lone Q or X, or pump a fist when they draw a blank tile (denoting any letter they choose). Using all seven tiles on a rack in one move is a bingo, adding a 50-point bonus to their total score. Often, that’s as far as their understanding of the game goes.
A competitive Scrabbler, however, knows how to make more than one word in one move. If luck smiles upon them, they know how to make words worth almost 200 points.
They know there are 12 E, 9 A, 9 I, 6 N, 6 R, 6 T and 4 S tiles among the 100 in the bag. They know these letters can form the word “nastier”, but the more seasoned ones know they also form the words retains, retinas, antsier, ratines, stainer, anestri, resiant, retsina, starnie and stearin.
Wee’s inclination for the game emerged quickly. He entered the top division in local tournaments within a year of playing, and became a grandmaster in three.
There have been about 25 grandmasters in Singapore. An average of one is crowned every year here, based on player ratings after tournaments.
“The first time I played him was in 2004. The second time I played him I lost already,” said Singapore’s 10th-ranked player Ricky Purnomo, with a chuckle.
Purnomo, currently president of the local Scrabble Association, recalled meeting Wee as a 15-year-old who came to tournaments accompanied by his parents.
Then, Wee’s routine involved studying the dictionary and practicing – both online and at a club once a week.
Today, it’s still practice and more practice – spending about half an hour to an hour a day simulating matches and studying words. He also plays four to five international major tournaments a year, including the World Championships.
Is that what it takes to become a grandmaster? For Wee, some innate talent is also necessary.
“You need a good memory, anagramming skills and math skills,” he smiled.
A peek at Hubert Wee's board during a match in June. (Photo: CNA/Marcus Mark Ramos)
Scrabble is not an “English” game, according to Purnomo. “It’s a math game, to some extent.”
More accurately, he added, it’s a game of probability, where stronger players keep track of which tiles have and have not been played – to figure out what words their opponents may play, and to try and block them from scoring points.
In chess, players have to think many steps ahead. With Scrabble, players also think ahead about possible word combinations, but it’s based on what’s left in the bag. The possibilities start off broad and narrow as the game progresses.
While the casual player might only play with words they know, a competitive Scrabble player does not, in fact, know the meaning of all the words they concoct on the board.
Noting that the game draws the likes of engineers and data analysts, Purnomo said: “We realised that people who supposedly have a vast vocabulary can often be outdone by people who either are good programmers or musicians – people who can spot patterns.”
In Wee’s penultimate match against Toh, the words on their board included octofid, meve, muti and screeds. I asked if they knew the meaning of all the words they use.
“Of course not. Remembering the meaning of the words means less ‘space’ to memorise more words,” Wee replied.
The board towards the end of Hubert Wee and Toh Weibin's second-last match at the Millennium Cup in March. (Photo: Ang Hwee Min)
There are about 279,000 words in the Scrabble dictionary and competitive players usually try to memorise up to the eight-letter words, of which there are about 150,000.
“There are 43,000 nine-letter words which I don’t bother to study, but Hubert has demonstrated consistently in the tournaments that he can play nine-letter words,” Purnomo added.
At this year’s Millennium Cup, he played the highest-scoring word: “Chazanim”, for 180 points.
Globally, a Singaporean – Toh – has held one of the highest records of 850 points, since 2012.
Purnomo acknowledged there were also good Scrabble players who are “actually vocabulary people”, who pick up the game because they want to put exotic words on a board.
“To me, in general, don’t worry too much about the words,” he added. “Don’t worry too much about the strategy. Just enjoy.”
Associate Professor Jeffrey Koh, a game design expert at the Singapore Institute of Technology, believes Singaporeans are "naturally disposed" to enjoying a game like Scrabble.
He said logic and deduction are taught from a young age here, and that many Singaporeans also speak more than one language.
Assoc Prof Koh himself is a fan. He learned the game from his father, an English professor, and now plays it regularly with his wife, even coming up with their own house rules. Between them, they accept any word, even in Hokkien or Tamil, as long as they can agree that it has a meaning.
When you buy Scrabble off the shelves, the rulebook in the box is about two to four pages long.
Competitive players contend with a 39-page rulebook that’s constantly being updated.
Casual games can involve up to four players, but in competition it’s only ever 1v1.
Each player starts with seven tiles on a rack. They take turns to make a move, or place tiles on the board to form words.
Over the whole game, they have 25 minutes each to play. Ten points are deducted from their total score for each minute they go over time.
Realistically, this means most players make about 10 to 14 moves per game.
Each tile has a point value and can be placed on premium squares, making them worth more points.
Using all seven letters on a rack in one turn is called a bingo, which adds an extra 50 points to the total score.
Opponents may challenge each other’s words. In most international competitions, the player who was challenged wins points if the word is valid.
In the US, a "double challenge" rule is more prevalent, where the challenger loses their current turn if the word turns out valid. In all tournaments, if the word is invalid, the person who played it loses their turn.The player who scores the highest point total wins the game.
Collapse Expand
At the Millennium Cup in March, duking it out a few rows away from Wee and Toh were division three competitors – which included primary and secondary school students.
More young players are coming on board these days, with inter-school tournaments gaining traction and the university – mainly NTU – scene still going strong, Purnomo said.
In recent years, a YouTube channel run by American Scrabble grandmaster Will Anderson, with over 50,000 subscribers, has also led to Singaporean viewers reaching out to the local association, he added.
“He has a lot of non-Scrabblers who discover it by following chess or something else, and then they get interested,” said the 46-year-old.
The Scrabble Association, Singapore now has 128 members ranging from primary school age to more than 70 years old.
Younger people make up the majority of new joiners, and occupy most of the novice or intermediate divisions. The top division is occupied by seasoned adults with one or two special “phenoms”, Purnomo said.
The game is also a co-curricular activity offered by several primary schools in Singapore.
The youngest players start by memorising two- to three-letter words and forming what they call “burgers” – multiple words stacked together either down or across.
Thirteen-year-old Isaac Goh discovered the game at a school CCA fair, while in Primary 3. The students manning the booth had invited him to try scrambling and unscrambling tiles to make anagrams.
“I thought that was quite fun so I just joined the CCA,” Isaac said. His mother bought the family’s first Scrabble set soon after.
“It’s not very complicated for me. Simple, easy words; you just put down some, and then after that you get a score,” he told CNA while waiting for a training session to start.
Participating in inter-school competitions and winning matches has motivated him to improve. To him, 50 per cent of a match is decided by luck, while hard work and preparation make up the other half.
His mother Michelle Goh admitted that she initially leaned into her son’s interest with an eye on the Direct School Admission (DSA) scheme. Just one secondary school in Singapore – Maris Stella – takes in Scrabble players under the DSA, which lets students use talents in areas such as sports and music to get into schools ahead of examinations.
Upon seeing her son warming up to the game after winning his first trophy in P4, she thought it would be good to send him for coaching and even overseas competitions for more exposure.
“He doesn’t mind if I send him for more lessons for this. To me, anything that’s away from gadgets is a healthy type of pastime,” said the mother.
Isaac, who ended up enrolling in the Singapore School of Science and Technology, is still at it.
After participating in the tournament in March, he has been attending Scrabble training sessions once a week throughout the June school holidays.
He hopes to break into the top 10 in Singapore for his age group, to earn a shot at playing in the World Youth Scrabble Championship in Kuala Lumpur in August.
The school to international circuit pipeline is not new. Singapore’s second, third and fourth-ranked players all walked this path.
Toh, Singapore’s No 2, started playing in Secondary 2 before joining the school team, competing locally and globally and eventually joining the association.
Three years after his first tournament, Toh won the World Youth Scrabble Championship in 2007.
These days, the 34-year-old tries to play two to four major competitions a year, and will be taking part in the upcoming world championships in Ghana.
“I’ve been playing for some time already, at this stage it’s about joining the ones I want to join. I’m not as hardcore serious about the competitions nowadays, but I do still try to join and meet up with friends. It’s always a good experience to play overseas,” said the full-time public servant.
Toh laughed and said he was sure his world ranking would drop soon, after placing 10th in a recent tournament in Malaysia.
Hubert Wee plays against his opponent Tony Sim in a match for the Scrabble Association's league. (Photo: CNA/Marcus Mark Ramos)
It’s not just his motivations – Toh’s playing style also differs from Singapore’s other top Scrabblers.
“I don’t go that heavy into knowing all the words. Compared to Hubert, my word knowledge is definitely not as strong,” he said, as he Googled the meaning of “grilses”, a word that caused him grief at a previous tournament because he didn’t realise his opponent had spelled it wrongly.
“I think even Ryan now has almost leapfrogged me in terms of word knowledge.”
He was referring to Ryan Wee, who’s ranked third in Singapore and 30th in the world. The 25-year-old freelance writer grew up playing the game at home with family before joining his primary school team.
“(Hubert) inspired me to play Scrabble,” he said as he left the hall after the March tournament, gesturing towards the older Wee.
Ryan met Hubert shortly after his first tournament in 2015. “Before that I had read bits and pieces in the newspapers, and you’d see this name … to meet him in person was quite awe-inspiring,” he said.
He described Singapore’s top player and the world No 3 as a “very nice guy” happy to exchange tips on how to get better, and whose outstanding game has pushed him to improve.
“Because that’s the benchmark. You want to get close to where Hubert is. I think it’s very attainable, you just have to know as many words as he does,” he said. “It’s just a joy to play with him. It’s something to look forward to. Every time I see that Hubert has registered, I’ll try to play in the tournament as well, just to see where I’m at.”
Ryan sets aside about one to two hours a day to study anagrams. He doesn’t like thinking too much about probability, though, because it “kills the fun” of the game for him.
“I love the fact that every game is different; it’s unique … Every time you dip your hand in the bag it’s a universe of possibilities. You never know what your next rack is going to be,” he added.
“I like the fact that it really tests your mental strength, fortitude and equanimity. Whatever comes my way, whether good or bad, I just have to soldier through.”
Isaac’s coach Liew Kian Boon, who’s ranked fourth in Singapore and 48th worldwide, started playing competitively in Secondary 2.
While in university, he was invited to Hong Kong to coach their representatives for the World Youth Scrabble Championship, and realised there were opportunities to teach more people to play the game.
After a five-year hiatus because of work, he started organising informal sessions in Tanjong Pagar. With two other partners, he has been working with various organisations to bring Scrabble interest groups together, mostly made up of newbies with no competition experience. These groups meet once a month and gather about 20 participants each time.
The 34-year-old, who is coaching four students this June, told CNA he comes from a family that doesn’t speak English.
“Scrabble is the thing that helped me in my language and at school,” said Liew, adding that the game also helped him learn how to study better. “It really helped me and I also want to help other people, especially in terms of the youth.”
The game is nostalgic for many, said educational psychologist Wilma Vialle, who used to be a competitive player and has been tournament director for the World Championships about 10 times.
“Scrabble is a very enduring game ... You don’t ever get to the point where you know it all. You can know the entire dictionary and you can have all sorts of strategies at your fingertips, but there is always something else to be learned,” she added.
“It is that sense that there’s always another challenge.”
Dr Vialle added that “the people who are very, very good are mentally tough".
“You can do only so much on your own, but it's only when you're challenged by the competitive environment that you learn from others,” she said.
All the players CNA spoke to pointed to the community and the camaraderie as a big part of why they pursue the game seriously.
On top of Liew’s interest groups, the Scrabble Association also organises a Kebun Bahru Scrabble Club which draws 10 to 20 players every week. The club’s convenor is the association’s oldest member – a 79-year-old who returned to competitive Scrabble two years ago, after a 16-year hiatus.
“We do see more youngsters joining us after COVID, but pleasantly we also see some adults who used to play when younger, stepped away from the game while they spend more time on family or career, and now rejoining the scene as their family or career have been well cared for or as they approach retirement,” association president Purnomo added.
The Kebun Bahru club held its first session in June 2024, and the association has since launched another club in Punggol, which had its first session in February. There are plans to start a third club in Bedok by August.
Back at the Millennium Cup in March, the players – from the local elite like Hubert Wee and Toh, to young bloods such as Isaac – spend time in between matches analysing and comparing their moves and strategies.
At the table and on the board, the world No 3 might be in a league of his own, but his close friendship with the rest is evident.
“Maybe Hubert doesn’t get to see from the inside out, but from the outside, over 20 years, Hubert has been much more social than when he first started out. I think Scrabble has something to do with it, which to me is a bit unique,” Purnomo said.
Wee eventually came out on top after winning 12 of his 16 match-ups. He remarked that our hour-long interview “was more difficult than the tournament”.
Singapore’s top grandmaster plans to continue competing locally. He still sees value in participating in tournaments here, and the players still pose a challenge.
“I have no particular goal,” he said after another long pause, when asked about new targets or career highs to aim for. “Maybe to win the (Singapore) nationals?”
“You have done that,” said Purnomo, sitting opposite him. “I have a feeling he will want to dominate (now).”
Continue reading...
The only sounds come from ticking clocks and small, plastic square tiles being sifted in small velvet bags before they take up positions on a board.
This was not quite the level of intensity I expected to observe at the Millennium Cup, a Scrabble tournament in Singapore taking place in March every year.
Here at a multi-purpose hall in Nanyang Technological University (NTU), over 50 players young and old engaged in 16 rounds of hour-long matches over two days. The concentration was relentless; the effort total.
But as each round comes to an end, players break ranks to hover over other tables and peek at the words on display. One showdown, however, was of more interest: Hubert Wee versus Toh Weibin.
The former is world No 3 and No 1 in Singapore. The latter is ranked 11th in the world and second in Singapore.
Wee, 37, has been playing Scrabble competitively since 2003. It started with casual games with his family, but his interest took off after reading Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis, a collection of profiles of competitive Scrabble players.
After playing online for a few months, he decided to start participating in local tournaments.
What’s kept him going, competitively, for over 20 years? “I enjoy playing the game. It’s intellectually challenging and engaging,” he said after a long pause.
Hubert Wee, 37, is ranked third in the world and first in Singapore at Scrabble. (Photo: CNA/Marcus Mark Ramos)
To the casual player, Scrabble involves forming words on a board, using tiles. They may sigh when they draw the lone Q or X, or pump a fist when they draw a blank tile (denoting any letter they choose). Using all seven tiles on a rack in one move is a bingo, adding a 50-point bonus to their total score. Often, that’s as far as their understanding of the game goes.
A competitive Scrabbler, however, knows how to make more than one word in one move. If luck smiles upon them, they know how to make words worth almost 200 points.
They know there are 12 E, 9 A, 9 I, 6 N, 6 R, 6 T and 4 S tiles among the 100 in the bag. They know these letters can form the word “nastier”, but the more seasoned ones know they also form the words retains, retinas, antsier, ratines, stainer, anestri, resiant, retsina, starnie and stearin.
Wee’s inclination for the game emerged quickly. He entered the top division in local tournaments within a year of playing, and became a grandmaster in three.
There have been about 25 grandmasters in Singapore. An average of one is crowned every year here, based on player ratings after tournaments.
“The first time I played him was in 2004. The second time I played him I lost already,” said Singapore’s 10th-ranked player Ricky Purnomo, with a chuckle.
Purnomo, currently president of the local Scrabble Association, recalled meeting Wee as a 15-year-old who came to tournaments accompanied by his parents.
Then, Wee’s routine involved studying the dictionary and practicing – both online and at a club once a week.
Today, it’s still practice and more practice – spending about half an hour to an hour a day simulating matches and studying words. He also plays four to five international major tournaments a year, including the World Championships.
Is that what it takes to become a grandmaster? For Wee, some innate talent is also necessary.
“You need a good memory, anagramming skills and math skills,” he smiled.
A peek at Hubert Wee's board during a match in June. (Photo: CNA/Marcus Mark Ramos)
GOTTA MEMORISE THEM ALL
Scrabble is not an “English” game, according to Purnomo. “It’s a math game, to some extent.”
More accurately, he added, it’s a game of probability, where stronger players keep track of which tiles have and have not been played – to figure out what words their opponents may play, and to try and block them from scoring points.
In chess, players have to think many steps ahead. With Scrabble, players also think ahead about possible word combinations, but it’s based on what’s left in the bag. The possibilities start off broad and narrow as the game progresses.
While the casual player might only play with words they know, a competitive Scrabble player does not, in fact, know the meaning of all the words they concoct on the board.
Noting that the game draws the likes of engineers and data analysts, Purnomo said: “We realised that people who supposedly have a vast vocabulary can often be outdone by people who either are good programmers or musicians – people who can spot patterns.”
In Wee’s penultimate match against Toh, the words on their board included octofid, meve, muti and screeds. I asked if they knew the meaning of all the words they use.
“Of course not. Remembering the meaning of the words means less ‘space’ to memorise more words,” Wee replied.
The board towards the end of Hubert Wee and Toh Weibin's second-last match at the Millennium Cup in March. (Photo: Ang Hwee Min)
There are about 279,000 words in the Scrabble dictionary and competitive players usually try to memorise up to the eight-letter words, of which there are about 150,000.
“There are 43,000 nine-letter words which I don’t bother to study, but Hubert has demonstrated consistently in the tournaments that he can play nine-letter words,” Purnomo added.
At this year’s Millennium Cup, he played the highest-scoring word: “Chazanim”, for 180 points.
Globally, a Singaporean – Toh – has held one of the highest records of 850 points, since 2012.
Purnomo acknowledged there were also good Scrabble players who are “actually vocabulary people”, who pick up the game because they want to put exotic words on a board.
“To me, in general, don’t worry too much about the words,” he added. “Don’t worry too much about the strategy. Just enjoy.”
Associate Professor Jeffrey Koh, a game design expert at the Singapore Institute of Technology, believes Singaporeans are "naturally disposed" to enjoying a game like Scrabble.
He said logic and deduction are taught from a young age here, and that many Singaporeans also speak more than one language.
Assoc Prof Koh himself is a fan. He learned the game from his father, an English professor, and now plays it regularly with his wife, even coming up with their own house rules. Between them, they accept any word, even in Hokkien or Tamil, as long as they can agree that it has a meaning.
How does competitive scrabble work?
When you buy Scrabble off the shelves, the rulebook in the box is about two to four pages long.
Competitive players contend with a 39-page rulebook that’s constantly being updated.
Casual games can involve up to four players, but in competition it’s only ever 1v1.
Each player starts with seven tiles on a rack. They take turns to make a move, or place tiles on the board to form words.
Over the whole game, they have 25 minutes each to play. Ten points are deducted from their total score for each minute they go over time.
Realistically, this means most players make about 10 to 14 moves per game.
Each tile has a point value and can be placed on premium squares, making them worth more points.
Using all seven letters on a rack in one turn is called a bingo, which adds an extra 50 points to the total score.
Opponents may challenge each other’s words. In most international competitions, the player who was challenged wins points if the word is valid.
In the US, a "double challenge" rule is more prevalent, where the challenger loses their current turn if the word turns out valid. In all tournaments, if the word is invalid, the person who played it loses their turn.The player who scores the highest point total wins the game.
Collapse Expand
Related:
ANYTHING BUT GADGETS
At the Millennium Cup in March, duking it out a few rows away from Wee and Toh were division three competitors – which included primary and secondary school students.
More young players are coming on board these days, with inter-school tournaments gaining traction and the university – mainly NTU – scene still going strong, Purnomo said.
In recent years, a YouTube channel run by American Scrabble grandmaster Will Anderson, with over 50,000 subscribers, has also led to Singaporean viewers reaching out to the local association, he added.
“He has a lot of non-Scrabblers who discover it by following chess or something else, and then they get interested,” said the 46-year-old.
The Scrabble Association, Singapore now has 128 members ranging from primary school age to more than 70 years old.
Younger people make up the majority of new joiners, and occupy most of the novice or intermediate divisions. The top division is occupied by seasoned adults with one or two special “phenoms”, Purnomo said.
The game is also a co-curricular activity offered by several primary schools in Singapore.
The youngest players start by memorising two- to three-letter words and forming what they call “burgers” – multiple words stacked together either down or across.
Thirteen-year-old Isaac Goh discovered the game at a school CCA fair, while in Primary 3. The students manning the booth had invited him to try scrambling and unscrambling tiles to make anagrams.
“I thought that was quite fun so I just joined the CCA,” Isaac said. His mother bought the family’s first Scrabble set soon after.
“It’s not very complicated for me. Simple, easy words; you just put down some, and then after that you get a score,” he told CNA while waiting for a training session to start.
Participating in inter-school competitions and winning matches has motivated him to improve. To him, 50 per cent of a match is decided by luck, while hard work and preparation make up the other half.
His mother Michelle Goh admitted that she initially leaned into her son’s interest with an eye on the Direct School Admission (DSA) scheme. Just one secondary school in Singapore – Maris Stella – takes in Scrabble players under the DSA, which lets students use talents in areas such as sports and music to get into schools ahead of examinations.
Upon seeing her son warming up to the game after winning his first trophy in P4, she thought it would be good to send him for coaching and even overseas competitions for more exposure.
“He doesn’t mind if I send him for more lessons for this. To me, anything that’s away from gadgets is a healthy type of pastime,” said the mother.
Isaac, who ended up enrolling in the Singapore School of Science and Technology, is still at it.
After participating in the tournament in March, he has been attending Scrabble training sessions once a week throughout the June school holidays.
He hopes to break into the top 10 in Singapore for his age group, to earn a shot at playing in the World Youth Scrabble Championship in Kuala Lumpur in August.
The school to international circuit pipeline is not new. Singapore’s second, third and fourth-ranked players all walked this path.
Toh, Singapore’s No 2, started playing in Secondary 2 before joining the school team, competing locally and globally and eventually joining the association.
Three years after his first tournament, Toh won the World Youth Scrabble Championship in 2007.
These days, the 34-year-old tries to play two to four major competitions a year, and will be taking part in the upcoming world championships in Ghana.
“I’ve been playing for some time already, at this stage it’s about joining the ones I want to join. I’m not as hardcore serious about the competitions nowadays, but I do still try to join and meet up with friends. It’s always a good experience to play overseas,” said the full-time public servant.
Toh laughed and said he was sure his world ranking would drop soon, after placing 10th in a recent tournament in Malaysia.
Hubert Wee plays against his opponent Tony Sim in a match for the Scrabble Association's league. (Photo: CNA/Marcus Mark Ramos)
“A UNIVERSE OF POSSIBILITIES”
It’s not just his motivations – Toh’s playing style also differs from Singapore’s other top Scrabblers.
“I don’t go that heavy into knowing all the words. Compared to Hubert, my word knowledge is definitely not as strong,” he said, as he Googled the meaning of “grilses”, a word that caused him grief at a previous tournament because he didn’t realise his opponent had spelled it wrongly.
“I think even Ryan now has almost leapfrogged me in terms of word knowledge.”
He was referring to Ryan Wee, who’s ranked third in Singapore and 30th in the world. The 25-year-old freelance writer grew up playing the game at home with family before joining his primary school team.
“(Hubert) inspired me to play Scrabble,” he said as he left the hall after the March tournament, gesturing towards the older Wee.
Ryan met Hubert shortly after his first tournament in 2015. “Before that I had read bits and pieces in the newspapers, and you’d see this name … to meet him in person was quite awe-inspiring,” he said.
He described Singapore’s top player and the world No 3 as a “very nice guy” happy to exchange tips on how to get better, and whose outstanding game has pushed him to improve.
“Because that’s the benchmark. You want to get close to where Hubert is. I think it’s very attainable, you just have to know as many words as he does,” he said. “It’s just a joy to play with him. It’s something to look forward to. Every time I see that Hubert has registered, I’ll try to play in the tournament as well, just to see where I’m at.”
Ryan sets aside about one to two hours a day to study anagrams. He doesn’t like thinking too much about probability, though, because it “kills the fun” of the game for him.
“I love the fact that every game is different; it’s unique … Every time you dip your hand in the bag it’s a universe of possibilities. You never know what your next rack is going to be,” he added.
“I like the fact that it really tests your mental strength, fortitude and equanimity. Whatever comes my way, whether good or bad, I just have to soldier through.”
Isaac’s coach Liew Kian Boon, who’s ranked fourth in Singapore and 48th worldwide, started playing competitively in Secondary 2.
While in university, he was invited to Hong Kong to coach their representatives for the World Youth Scrabble Championship, and realised there were opportunities to teach more people to play the game.
After a five-year hiatus because of work, he started organising informal sessions in Tanjong Pagar. With two other partners, he has been working with various organisations to bring Scrabble interest groups together, mostly made up of newbies with no competition experience. These groups meet once a month and gather about 20 participants each time.
The 34-year-old, who is coaching four students this June, told CNA he comes from a family that doesn’t speak English.
“Scrabble is the thing that helped me in my language and at school,” said Liew, adding that the game also helped him learn how to study better. “It really helped me and I also want to help other people, especially in terms of the youth.”
The game is nostalgic for many, said educational psychologist Wilma Vialle, who used to be a competitive player and has been tournament director for the World Championships about 10 times.
“Scrabble is a very enduring game ... You don’t ever get to the point where you know it all. You can know the entire dictionary and you can have all sorts of strategies at your fingertips, but there is always something else to be learned,” she added.
“It is that sense that there’s always another challenge.”
Dr Vialle added that “the people who are very, very good are mentally tough".
“You can do only so much on your own, but it's only when you're challenged by the competitive environment that you learn from others,” she said.
SOCIAL CLUB
All the players CNA spoke to pointed to the community and the camaraderie as a big part of why they pursue the game seriously.
On top of Liew’s interest groups, the Scrabble Association also organises a Kebun Bahru Scrabble Club which draws 10 to 20 players every week. The club’s convenor is the association’s oldest member – a 79-year-old who returned to competitive Scrabble two years ago, after a 16-year hiatus.
“We do see more youngsters joining us after COVID, but pleasantly we also see some adults who used to play when younger, stepped away from the game while they spend more time on family or career, and now rejoining the scene as their family or career have been well cared for or as they approach retirement,” association president Purnomo added.
The Kebun Bahru club held its first session in June 2024, and the association has since launched another club in Punggol, which had its first session in February. There are plans to start a third club in Bedok by August.
Back at the Millennium Cup in March, the players – from the local elite like Hubert Wee and Toh, to young bloods such as Isaac – spend time in between matches analysing and comparing their moves and strategies.
At the table and on the board, the world No 3 might be in a league of his own, but his close friendship with the rest is evident.
“Maybe Hubert doesn’t get to see from the inside out, but from the outside, over 20 years, Hubert has been much more social than when he first started out. I think Scrabble has something to do with it, which to me is a bit unique,” Purnomo said.
Wee eventually came out on top after winning 12 of his 16 match-ups. He remarked that our hour-long interview “was more difficult than the tournament”.
Singapore’s top grandmaster plans to continue competing locally. He still sees value in participating in tournaments here, and the players still pose a challenge.
“I have no particular goal,” he said after another long pause, when asked about new targets or career highs to aim for. “Maybe to win the (Singapore) nationals?”
“You have done that,” said Purnomo, sitting opposite him. “I have a feeling he will want to dominate (now).”
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