On a wet Saturday in early October, club member Graham Harding travelled to London, near Paddington station, to take part in the finals of the National Scrabble Championships.  He’d qualified for the finals a few weeks before, at the Swindon tournament in mid-September.  In a field of 52, including several previous winners, Graham was 37th in order of rating (standard).  He finished 30th, winning eight games out of 16. 

 

His most exciting game was against Phil Robertshaw, one of the 10 highest rated players in the tournament.  Graham just scraped a win in an incredibly high scoring game, where the final scores were 503-501.