This year’s World Scrabble Championships narrowly escaped a flood of four-letter words when a competitor insisted that his opponent undergo a strip search following the disappearance of a letter ‘G’.
A furious Chollapat Itthi-Aree, hailing from Thailand, urged officials to take Ed Martin, an IT consultant from London, to the restroom for a search, convinced he had the lost tile hidden on him.
However, the judges at the tournament in Warsaw, Poland, did not concur with Mr. Itthi-Aree, who is a 24-year-old maths teacher.
They declined to conduct the search, allowing Mr. Martin, aged 35, to win the game by a mere point.
More than 100 word enthusiasts from 44 countries vied for the $20,000 top prize, which was ultimately awarded to 44-year-old New Zealander Nigel Richards.
Richards, sporting a magnificent beard, skillfully combined his tiles to create the word ‘omnified’ and earned an impressive 96 points in his final match against 46-year-old Australian Andrew Fisher.
The final score concluded at 476-334.
