Reflecting on Word Cup 2025

Running these big championship Scrabble events is always such a hectic experience. It feels like you're constantly racing around, trying to put out this fire or that one. You're finding a clock to replace the one that broke on table 4; you're answering a director call about an overdraw at table 7. You're figuring out pairings and standings and prize pools and who won High Bingo yesterday and why your laptop won't charge and why the bathroom keeps running out of paper towels and what you're going to eat for lunch. At times like these, it can be difficult to maintain perspective - to really get the magnitude of what you're doing.

But when you take a step back, you realize - championship events like Word Cup are pretty special! You've got a robust field, elite-level competition, and serious prize money on the line. It's one big gathering of Scrabble friends from all over the continent - nay, the planet. Eventually, once you've had time to process everything, it dawns on you that it's been a pretty good week. Pretty, pretty, pretty good.

So, as has become something of a tradition in this space, the week after Word Cup is a time for reflecting on the week that was. It's a time to congratulate people who deserve congratulations; it's a time to thank those who deserve thanks. It was a whirlwind of a week in St. Louis, and now that it's all over, a lot of well-wishings for a lot of people are in order.

So, without further ado:

CONGRATULATIONS!

...first and foremost, to our champion, Wellington Jighere, who put forth a dominant performance on his way to a well-earned championship. Wellington was in the mix pretty much from wire to wire, but it was a surge late in the tournament that really cemented things - a 12-4 finishing kick from the Nigerian grandmaster left no doubt who our champ would be. Wellington is a Nigerian champion, a Pan-African champion, the world champion in 2015, and he's now a Word Cup champion as well. One of the all-time greats.

...to our runner-up, Enoch Nwali, who went on a late surge of his own to claim second place. Enoch has been a rising young superstar in Nigeria for a while now, but this is his first big finish in the U.S. It was only a matter of time. He's a great player, and with this finish in St. Louis, he's proven he can compete with the best players anywhere in the world.

...to our third-place finisher, Eta Karo, who also went on a big run late in the tournament to climb high up the leaderboard. Eta was your defending Word Cup champion, going 23-8 and cruising to the title last year in Albuquerque; this year, he won 11 of his last 13 games to finish third. Not a bad two-year run. Kudos.

...to Josh Castellano, who finished in fourth place, and Josh Sokol, who took fifth. Josh C. was in the hunt to win the tournament until the very end; ultimately he settled for fourth. As for Josh S., he lingered around the top tables for most of the tournament, then won two out of three on the final day to clinch a spot in the money. Both great players; both deserving top finishers.

...to our class prize winners in Division 1. Waseem Khatri was seeded 15th going into the tournament; with 17.5 wins, he ended up in ninth, well above his initial slot. Not to be outdone, David Whitley came in as the #26 seed, and he finished eighth! With an 18-13 record against a tough field, David gained over 100 rating points. Well done by both gentlemen.

...to Bharath Balakrishnan, our Division 2 champion. Bharath has been one of the stronger players in the D2 crew for a few years now, and it seemed like only a matter of time until he won this title. He came close last year, finishing second; this time around, he left no doubt. With a stellar 23-8 performance, Bharath was Gibsonized with a round to go. Well earned.

...to the rest of the top five in Division 2: Mark Francillon, Nicholas Tam, Eric Fox, Priya Fernando. Mark was a contender to win the whole thing toward the end; he ended up coming just short against Bharath in round 30, taking second place instead. Nicholas also led the standings for a while toward the middle of the tournament, and he ended up with a very solid third-place finish. Eric's fourth-place finish is yet another in a long string of top finishes in big Division 2s - he's a rising star who might soon be competing with the big guns in D1. As for Priya, she came in seeded 18th and finished fifth, a very impressive rise.

...to our class prize winners in Division 2, Kaia and Ayodele Odekunle. Kaia was the 13th seed going in; with a strong 18-13 finish, she rose to eighth. As for Ayo, he was completely unrated, and thus seeded 27th; he ended up being one of the top players in the field. With an 18-13 record of his own, he earned seventh place.

...to everyone who was a part of this event. If you showed up to Word Cup at all - regardless of whether you finished first, last, or anywhere in between - you accomplished quite a bit. You made the journey to St. Louis, you survived 31 grueling games of Scrabble, and you finished the tournament with your head held high. Kudos to you.

THANK YOU!

...to Nits Chagti, my co-director, who rolled with all of the punches throughout a whirlwind week at the helm. Whether it was running our social media accounts, helping with the stream, manually double-checking countless players' firsts and seconds, or just generally holding the tournament together, she did just about everything. This tournament wouldn't have been possible without you.

...to the rest of the Word Cup team, especially Deborah Komatsu and Juraj Pivovarov. A tournament like this is such a mess to organize - you've got some 200 players, six divisions, two lexicons, two governing bodies, and about a trillion logistical details to keep straight. Deborah managed to keep every single detail organized, and Juraj lent his insights on everything from pairings to prize pools to just generally running a tight ship. Teamwork made the dream work at this Word Cup.

...to the whole stream team - led by Christian Kay at the controls, Andrew Kay producing the show, and Will Anderson, who provided commentary for all 31 rounds, flanked by a team of rotating co-commentators. Thanks to you all, we were able to broadcast the whole tournament for the world to see, and we brought in record-breaking audiences along the way. A job well done across the board.

...to the whole CoCo team. Our board of directors offered guidance every step of the way, starting way back in the spring of 2024 when we began planning the 2025 event. And as always, we had a great team of people running our website and keeping our technology operating smoothly. Becky Dyer was our spreadsheet guru as usual, flawlessly managing all of our tournament data; Wayne Dyer was our webmaster; and Martin DeMello provided tech support for our pairings, standings, and so forth. Everyone performed brilliantly in their respective roles.

...to the whole WGPO team. Special shoutouts are due to Laurie Cohen for her leadership as president (and for playing CSW at Word Cup!), Bennett Jacobstein for his dedication to building our WGPO/CoCo partnership, and Jan Cardia, who works tirelessly as treasurer to handle an ungodly mess of checks and PayPal payments and IOUs and accounting conundrums and tax documents.

...to everyone who was a part of this event. Every single person who showed up in St. Louis this week played their own unique role in making the tournament a success. So really, truly, sincerely, thank you to everyone. Together, we enjoyed one heck of a tournament together in STL.

Maybe we'll see you again next time in Williamsburg.

Until then...