KARACHI: Waseem Khatri confirmed his supremacy in the scrabble field by winning the Danpak 27th Pakistan Scrabble Championship (masters) here at Beach Luxury Hotel on Sunday.

Waseem became the first player in Pakistan’s history to have won the national title four times in a row. This is Waseem’s seventh national title — another new record. Waseem won his first title in 2008 aged only 18 and has since won seven out of eight national championships apart from a host of other tournaments.

Waseem kept his best for the third and final day after a sluggish second day. Waseem won all his seven matches on day three giving no chance to anyone to catch up with him.

Overall Waseem won 20 out of 27 matches with a spread of 2,266. Waseem’s immense word power can be judged from his average score of 480 per match throughout the championship.

Moiz Baig, the former world youth scrabble champion, gave Waseem a real run for his money. Moiz mounted a serious assault to the title and was No. 1 with two rounds to go but could not topple a determined Waseem.

The final match between the two best players in the country was probably the best match of the tournament, a classic 486-490 epic of monstrous proportions.

Moiz finished runner-up with 18 wins and a spread of 1,381.

Former national champion Rashid Khan finished third with 18 wins and a spread of 1,107.

The championship produced another hero — 15-year-old Abdullah Abbasi from Quetta finished fourth ahead of many stalwarts. He is the youngest player ever to finish in the top five in Pakistan. Abdullah will be representing Pakistan at the World Youth Scrabble Championship in Australia later this year and is considered to be one of the favourites to take the tile.

Young Javeria Mirza finished fifth while veterans M. Inayatullah, Tariq Pervez, Hasan Ali and Javed Shamim were sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth, respectively.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2015

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