KARACHI: Former world youth scrabble champion Moizullah Baig became Pakistan’s No 1 scrabble player ending Waseem Khatri’s decade-long supremacy after winning the 7th Signature Ranking Scrabble Tourn­ament at Beach Luxury Hotel on Sunday which improved his overall rating to a career-best 1,567.

It put Moiz ahead of his good friend and mentor Waseem Khari who has dominated the scrabble scene in Pakistan for a whole decade.

Playing in the Premier category Moiz won eight matches with a spread of 366. This was Moiz’s third consecutive win at the ranking tournaments confirming his status as the top player in Pakistan.

“Reaching No. 1 in Pakistan scrabble ranking is a proud moment. I was waiting for it for so long,” Baig said afterwards.

The 21-year-old Inshal Shahbaz, making a return to competitive scrabble after a long gap, was the surprise runner-up with seven wins and a spread of 590 while Waseem, the eight-time national champion, finished third.

Fahim Naqvi won the Master category title with eight wins and a spread of 892 while Taha Mirza and Nasir Mehmood stood second and third, respectively.

Other results:

Advance category: Hammad Hamid (8/1,244), Foaad Sami (7/1,113), Salha Khatri (7/860).

Recreational category: Aaish Salahuddin (6/483), Afham Imtiaz (5/596), Aniq Maniar (5/166).

Novice category : Abdul Hadi (7/603), Pankaj Kumar (6/554), Shayan Saqib (5/436).

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2018