Recapping 1-days in Denver, CO and Falls Church, VA

If I could sum up the lifeblood of the CoCo as succinctly as possible, I'd say it's exactly what you see on weekends like this one. These last two days, we saw new directors stepping up, doing grassroots work in their local communities, and rounding up people to play some CSW Scrabble with a group of like-minded CSW enthusiasts. Bit by bit, they were able to build something. That's what the CoCo spirit is all about.

This weekend brought two fairly small 1-day tournaments, but each was notable in its own right. Both were in relatively new locations - we witnessed only the second-ever CoCo event in the state of Colorado, followed soon after by the second in Virginia. And both were run by completely new directors - Tony Boyle grabbed the reins and led the former, while a one-two punch of Zach Dang and Ather Sharif was in charge for the latter.

On Saturday, six local Scrabblers got together at Lakewood United Methodist Church, in the southwest of Denver, to battle it out over a 7-game tournament. The battle was a pretty decisive one, as David Brown, an experienced player with a number of Collins events under his belt, took care of business and went 7-0 with a big spread.

Props to David on taking down the tournament, and a big shout out to the three brand-new CoCo members who made Denver their first event - Emily Cookson, Solomon Smilack, and Theresa Lean. Welcome!

In Sunday's event, eight players gathered at Victory Comics, a comic and gaming store in Falls Church, VA. This event included a field stacked with top experts, which meant some cutthroat competition was all but assured.

Two players quickly rose to the top of the pack - Josh Castellano and Rob Robinsky, each of whom started 3-0, giving them the upper hand going into the final three rounds. Rob bested Josh head-to-head 496-446 in round 4, putting him in prime position to win the tournament - but thanks to his massive spread, Josh remained just one win away from reclaiming the top spot. And when Josh got revenge in round 6, beating Rob by a whopping 532-343, that was enough to lock down a first-place finish.

Congrats to Josh on the win, Rob on second place, and director Zach on a 4-2 finish and third.

Thanks to Tony, Zach, and Ather for making these tournaments possible - and to each of the player communities in these two respective local areas who showed up and showed out. I hope we see many more local 1-days like these in Colorado, in Northern Virginia, and many other locales around North America in the not-too-distant future. Until then...