Video: David Eldar has been crowned Scrabble world champion in Nottingham
A 27-year-old man from Australia has been crowned the Scrabble world champion in Nottingham.
David Eldar was crowned the winner after beating Sri Lankan born Harshan Lamabadusurilya from West London 3-0 in a best of five final.
The final took place at The Old Museum at the Nottingham Conference Centre on Sunday (August 27) after players from across 26 countries battled each other across three rounds.
The word that won the championship for David was ‘carrels’ – a desk – which scored 74 points.
David said: “I’ve been playing this for more than half my life and there has been a big build up to this moment.
“I felt good at the beginning of the championship – I’m ranked the second best player and second always has a pretty good chance of winning which then came through.
“I thank my lucky stars that it happened.
“I’m going to celebrate by going home and relaxing as it has been an intense six days and I’m going to put my trophy with the rest of my trophies!”
Other notable words for David were ‘obvs’ – slang for ‘obvious’ – which scored 10 points and ‘asinicos’ – stupid fellows – which scored 64.
But it was another word that impressed a Scrabble expert who watched the final.
Expert Philip Nelkon said: “You get unusual words in every game but one I’ve been impressed with was ‘exigency’ by David.
“But that didn’t score anything like the number of points player earlier in the tournament – 230 – for ‘kitchens’ by a nine-year-old boy.
“I think Scrabble is so popular because it’s a combination of words and mathematics and also it can be played by any age group.
“It shows Scrabble can really be a strong game to rival Chess or Bridge and can be played at a really high level.”
David has been playing Scrabble for 14 years and is currently ranked number two in the world.
Harshan was ranked 16th in the world and has been playing for more than 20 years.
