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Commentary: Round 22

[ 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.

Adam Logan (CAN) is the only player at 17-4.

Naween Fernando (AUS) is now the only player one game back at 16-5.

Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (THA) slips to join Paul Cleary (AUS) at two games back, 15-6.

Andrew Fisher (AUS), John O'Laughlin (USA), Ganesh Asirvatham (MYS) and Gareth Williams (Wal) are the top 4 of 5 players at 14-7.

Repeats start this round, with what is effectively a king-of-the-hill at the top.

Adam Logan (CAN) has been playing catch-up to Naween for most of the game, facing a difficult decision midway to play ZITIS for 48 keeping R?? but shutting down the board. With six tiles left, those blanks are still on his rack and he's down by 39 points. Adam has used 15 minutes of clock time and Naween 20, in a very carefully considered game. This was the worst nail-biter yet, as Naween went down to his last 20 seconds and made a serious blunder in his endgame, while Adam took an agonizing three minutes to find his out-play.

Pakorn beat Paul 478-347.

John beat Andrew 410-393.

tsh crashed trying to compute the top flight of pairings for round 23, so the round was delayed by ten minutes as I filled in its gaps by hand. This would have been easier had I not still been full of adrenaline from watching the Adam-Naween match.