The Western Scrabble Network was represented by a total of 11 members at the Australian Championships held at Canberra over the 2004 Easter weekend.

Six members were in the Championship (Masters) division, which required a rating of 1300+ to qualify for entry, and 5 were in the Open Entry division.

Here's a summary of how we went.

MASTERS DIVISION
Position Name Ratings Change
14 Tony Hunt -29
40 Tan Jin Chor initial Australian rating of 1631
77 Patricia Schuberg -19
83 Jean Noonan +45
94 Therese Newman +28
97 Raya Wilkinson -7
Total entrants = 102

OPEN SECTION
Position Name Ratings Change
11 Katie Rowe +8
28 Sharon Sorenson -129
32 Wayne Willis +2
39 Colleen Walker +24
Total entrants = 42

SOME OBSERVATIONS/EXPERIENCES.

I found the National Champs to be a lot of fun - a bit intense at times, and
quite tiring, but a fantastic experience. The highlights for me were:

• The interest in our club! There was quite a lot of interest expressed to me about this club which has a strong tournament-based focus and functions independent of geographical boundaries. Fortunately, Mark had the foresight to equip me with some application forms, and I found myself saying a few times "well... I just happen to have a membership form with me..."
  
• As a consequence we now have some more members - I will send a separate email with details. It was particularly exciting to have our first overseas member, Tan Jin-Chor, from Malaysia. Pat and I met Jin-Chor at the reception of the motel as we were checking in and clicked straight away.
• Friday evening we went to Macca's at Manuka and had a best-of-3 challenge
• with Jin-Chor and I versing Colleen, Therese and Pat. Result: Men 2 - Ladies 1.
• Was great to see Therese Newman promoted to the top division, and to gain 28 points in a very tough field of competitors.
  
• Enjoyed seeing some of the interstate players that I hadn't seen for a year, and meeting others for the first time. In particular, Katie Rowe, who had previously joined the club on-line.
• A few very close games with strategic end-play required to secure a victory. I was really pleased to be able to stop Rene Chelton bingoing out using 2 blanks by sufficiently blocking up the only bingo lines on the board (as it turned out, she had an outplay of LIVERIED, but it would have meant playing through an I and making one blank a V and the other an E. Fortunately, she didn't see it. I commented that I was lucky that I wasn't playing Edward!
• Whilst I would have liked a top-10 result, I was quite pleased to find myself finishing ahead of some of the highly rated players such as Rod Talbot, Chris May and John Holgate.
• A fantastic sunrise viewed from the top of Mt Ainslie on Sunday morning.

The low-light for me was mis-spelling WIELD (as WEILD*) in a game against Daniel Piechnick which I went on to lose by 15 points. :(

All in all, it was a great experience and I would encourage you all to make plans to attend next year's Australian Champs which will be held over Easter at Hobart. Would be good to see a few more Western Scrabble Network shirts in the crowd.

Regards,

Tony Hunt,
Coordinator,
Western Scrabble Network