Recapping this weekend's events in Vancouver, BC and Providence, RI
The fall Scrabble season is here, and it opened with a bang this weekend. After a little bit of a lull in late August and early September, we had two tournaments this weekend - one on either end of North America. From coast to coast, there was Scrabble action in the air.
In the Vancouver, BC area, we saw 8 players get together for a weekend tournament at Richmond Nature Park and duke it out over 14 rounds. Meanwhile, on the East Coast, 4 players met up in Providence, RI for a 1-day tournament on Sunday afternoon. There was no shortage of thrilling Scrabble in either location; without further ado, let's dive in and recap it all.
In Vancouver, it was Alec Sjöholm who carried the weekend, continuing an impressive run of tournaments in 2026 by leading this event from wire to wire. Alec posted a 12-2, +1611 record en route to yet another first place finish. It was a close race for most of the way between Alec and Dean Saldanha; at the midway point of the tournament, Alec was undefeated at 7-0, +1193 and Dean was not far off the pace at 6-1, +966. But Alec got the better of Dean in a series of head-to-head matchups down the stretch, taking him down in rounds 8, 12, and 14. In the end, Dean took second place at 10-4, while Eric Fox ended up third at 8-6.
In Providence, it was a relatively simple affair - one afternoon, four players, six games, double round robin. The results, however, were anything but simple. All four players were in contention until the very end - including #2 seed Matthew O'Connor, who emerged from last place to stage a remarkable comeback. With two games to go, Matthew was behind by two wins and more than 400 spread points - Adam Logan was 3-1, +415, and Matthew was 1-3, -11. But Matthew was paired against Adam for each of the final two games, and he won both of them big! In the blink of an eye, he'd gone from worst to first.
Amazingly, the final standings were a four-way tie - Matthew, Adam, Niel Gan, and Jamie Ryan were all 3-3. Matthew ultimately won the tournament by a margin of 92 spread points.
Congratulations are due to both Alec and Matthew on their respective tournament victories, and to Dean and Adam on their second-place finishes. Thanks to everyone else who turned out this weekend to play Scrabble in Vancouver and Providence. And of course, a huge thank you to the individuals whose hard work made these events possible - director Chris Williams and organizer Miriam Gregory in Vancouver, plus Matthew and Niel in Providence.
And with that, we move forward. There's plenty more CoCo action coming up this fall - starting with a tournament that's just a few days away. Come this weekend, a group of Scrabblers will descend upon Portland, OR to play an epic 20 games in 32 hours... and then after that, a jam-packed October and November await.
We'll see you back here with more tournament recappage next week.