KARACHI: Waseem Khatri’s winning streak of 27 matches was finally broken but that didn’t stop him from taking the title of the Danpak third Ranking Scrabble tournament at Beach Luxury Hotel here on Sunday.

Waseem hasn’t lost a match since returning from Sri Lanka in August and took his tally to a record 27 matches before being stopped by Moiz Baig in the final match of the day.

Waseem already had the title in his bag by then, winning it 8-1 with a spread of 589.

Former youth world champion Moiz Baig finished with seven wins and a spread of 389. Both his losses were against Waseem.

Hammad Hadi Khan, 16, outshone all senior players to take the third position. His twin Hassan slipped to fifth position due to losing an extra match even though both the twins had the exact average scores (427) per match.

In the recreational category, Haseeb Ahmed was the winner with eight wins and a spread of 543. Nasir Altaf was the runner up (seven wins, 397 spread) and Nasir Mehmood (seven wins, 319 spread) took the third spot.

In the Novice category, Aamir Vasi proved too strong for the youngsters winning all his seven matches with a spread of 661 to take the winner’s trophy. Mohammad Maaz (5 wins, 518 spread ) and Maryam Pardesi (5 wins, 476 spread) finished second and third respectively.

Once again a large number (63) of players participated in the tournament. The participation is steadily on the rise in ranking tournaments since the last year or so as young players are inspired by the performances of the Pakistani players in international events of late.

Marketing manager of Danpak distributed trophies to the winners and pledged his support for the future ranking tournaments.

Published in Dawn, October 21st , 2014