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Commentary: Registration

[ Congratulations to the new World Scrabble® Champion, Adam Logan (CAN), and the runner-up Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (THA). ]

Go to: Registration, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Round 19, Round 20, Round 21, Round 22, Round 23, Round 24.

Players, staff and media began gathering in the press room early in the morning, and we had a good turnout of each. Reporters engaged in their traditional SCRABBLE^® tournament activities of playing SCRABBLE^® with top players and asking them what their highest scoring play ever was (most common answer: "I don't remember").

Some players have been in London for a couple of weeks already, two players won't arrive until tomorrow morning. As numbers currently stand, the English alternate player, Terry Kirk (Eng) is expected to play. We've had late three late dropouts from Kenya, a few roster changes on the American team (the most recent allowing a bleary-eyed Jason Katz-Brown (USA) to arrive this morning), and we're keeping our fingers crossed for Frederick Collins and Patrick Litunya (KEN), who are stuck in transit.

Registration opened at 7:00 P.M., and staff gave players their goodie bags, name tags and T-shirts. There are four different T-shirts this year, each with different slogans spelled out in SCRABBLE^® tiles. I'll see if I can get a photo of each one.

Players milled around sipping orange juice and champagne, mingling with each other and reporters. There were two impromptu nursery areas set up, one for kids who liked the noisy hubbub and one for those who didn't.

At 8:00 P.M., Philip Nelkon made a few announcements, reminded those players staying off-site to allow sufficient commuting time, and introduced a documentary filmmaker who will be with us for the event.

Players gradually dispersed to get some sleep before games start tomorrow at 8:30 A.M., except for some diehards up late playing in the hotel restaurant: David Eldar (AUS), John O'Laughlin (USA) and Jason Katz-Brown (USA). The room was looking in good shape when I left it at 10:30 P.M. One little snag is that the Internet connection won't go up until 9:00 A.M. I'll try to catch up with coverage as quickly as I can, especially the much-anticipated first round match between Panupol Sujjayakorn (Wsc) and David Eldar (AUS) at board 1, but please bear with me.

Pairings have been randomly drawn (but avoiding pairing players from the same country) for the first round tomorrow, after which they will follow a heavily modified Swiss system.