10th August 2026
At the 2026 World Youth Scrabble Championship held in Nairobi Kenya, Australia’s sole representative Dineth Fernando emerged as the new Youth World Champion. We are very proud of his achievement. This is the fourth time that Australia has fielded a World Youth Champion: David Eldar in 2006, Anand Bharadwaj in 2011 and Michael McKenna in 2012. When we give our children the opportunity to compete, with the right support, some go on to great heights.
4th - 5th July 2026
3rd Australian Youth Scrabble Championship
Report by John Hamilton - tournament director.
After a few late dropouts due to illness, we finished with 25 starters at this years Australian Youth Scrabble Championship. The 25 starters were joined by 10 adults playing a side event.
This year, we had 3 representatives each from ACT & QLD, 2 from Victoria with the remaining players all from NSW.
This year we ran a 7 game open tournament with the top 8 players squaring off in the finals the following day.
This format created some interesting matchups on the last round of the day such as Oliver and Danira playing a sudden death match where the winner would progress to finals and the loser would miss out. Oliver won the match by a solitary point.
A special “exceptional sportsmanship” award was presented to Oriana Beecham for her patience when assisting less experienced players as well as recognising her opponents good plays.
We had two age category prizes with trophies being awarded to the winner & runner up for under 13s & under 10s. The under 13s was clear cut with Ryder being the only one in the age category to make finals. Jithuni finished runner up.
The under 10s was a lot closer with three players in the under 10s - Oliver, Eric & Lucas, all qualifying for finals. Going into the final round all three boys were neck and neck but Lucas's last round win against a much higher rated opponent was enough to get him the title of Under 10 champion with Oliver finishing runner up.
The highest rated youth players demonstrated their prowess as they raced through. Dineth won 7/7 on Saturday and had a spot in the finals guaranteed by the end of round 5. Nathan and Ashwin were the only other players guaranteed a finals spot before the final round started. All three of these players had surprise losses on Day 2 however their class shone through as they finished on the podium. Dineth was crowned our overall champion with 13 wins from his 14 games.
There was another side event on the Sunday with some of the youth players who didn't make the finals playing. Jithuni made up for missing out on finals by winning 6 out of 7 despite being ranked in the bottom half of the field. She picked up a whopping 70 ratings points with her only loss being against fellow youth player Danira.
FULL LIST OF PRIZEWINNERS:
Sportsmanship Award - Oriana Beecham (QLD)
Best Provisionally Rated Player - Huy Lam (NSW)
High Word Score: Eric Lam (NSW) - GRINDING - 131
High Game Score: Phi Long Ma (NSW) - 601*
Highest Rating Gain^: Kelvin Korn (NSW)
Under 10s Runner Up: Oliver Klistorner (NSW)
Under 10s Winner: Lucas Luu (NSW)
Under 13s Runner Up: Jithuni Vidana (VIC)
Under 13s Winner: Ryder Lo (NSW)
Finalist Medals:
Oliver Klistorner (NSW)
Eric Phan (NSW)
Kelvin Korn (NSW)
Ryder Lo (NSW)
Lucas Luu (NSW)
Third Place: Ashwin Page (QLD)
Runner Up: Nathan Tang (NSW)
Winner: Dineth Fernando (VIC) Photo: From left, Ashwin (overall 3rd), Dineth (overall 1st) and Nathan (overall 2nd)
* In his 600 game, Phi Long played my favourite move for the tournament. He played HOVERED with the V on a double letter score and the D on a triple word. In the process of playing this, he front hooked OTARIES with the V to make VOTARIES.
15th July 2025
THE FIRST YASPA TOURNAMENT
Every Tuesday, at 10am, about six keen players meet in the lower room at Oatley RSL Club for 4 or 5 social games. But on Tuesday 15th July, things heated up a bit. As well as the Oatley regulars, a total of 26 players, including 14 YASPA youth players, 3 players from interstate as well as parents, grandparents, siblings and supporters. This was the 17th tournament of the OITOO* format, and YASPA’s first supported tournament. The young players ranged in age from 6 to 16 and were divided into 3 age categories for the purpose of trophies - but all players, including the adults, were in the same “division” - meaning that any player could play any other player. The rationale behind this approach is to allow the children to be matched with experienced players, and to also give the older players a chance to verse children, and to pass on their tips, and in some cases, pass on some ratings points. Thanks to the AJSC, we welcomed three new young players to the open tournament scene, Ryan, Rose and Karam. It was also great to see Sam who flew in from Canberra, supported by his grandmother. Karen Richards, the CASPA Australian Youth Coach, who ran a WYSC coaching session the day before, also played. In Round 1, Josie Mally set a high bar with a 99 point high word. Josie looked strong to win the high word prize going into the final round. Then there was flurry of high word activity with Brendan cracking the 100 mark, but not to be outdone, Kelvin reported scoring 113 for a nicely placed QUATRES. The tournament concluded with a rather irregular Mystery Words announcement - done with a live phone link to ASPA NSW committee member Chris O who made the words up on the spot, including one word that was a phoney. The other 3 were fine (TORNADOS, WINDOWS and FOLIO), but no one played these words, so the prize jackpots. Some acknowledgements: Thanks to Oatley RSL for the venue, Oatley Scrabble Club for allowing us to take over for a day, ASPA ACT and Karen for bringing clocks, YASPA committee members, Tisa Ng, Danny Evers and Aaron Korn for assistance on the day, and thanks to everyone who pitched in to allow us to run the 6 game tournament efficiently within the planned timeframe.
(*OITOO = Oatley Indoor Tournament: One-division Open)
If you’re viewing this on a mobile, scroll down to see the pics of winners and results.
Age group winners:
From left:
Coalas* - Oliver
Bilbies - Brendan
Aardvarks - Nathan
* Coala is a little-known variant of KOALA, which can also be
spelt KOOLAH.
20th June 2025
THE 2025 AUSTRALIAN JUNIOR SCRABBLE CHAMPIONSHIP QUALIFIER - CABRAMATTA PUBLIC SCHOOL
Fifty players from eight schools competed in the 4 game AJSC Qualifier. Of these, 26 played in their first ever ASPA rated event. Congratulations to Vinh Nguyen on taking out overall first place with 4 wins and a +655 margin. Congrats also to Brendan Tia on being the highest placed primary school finisher winning 4 from 4. And also, big congrats to Eric Phan (Year 3) on being the best performer in Years 1-3, finishing 5th overall. Also, great effort to the 6 players who played their first rated tournament and managed to win 3 from 4 games: Aaron T, John H, Huy L, Zachary S, Kelvin N, and Zachary Y. Awesome! Jeffery managed to snag a high word (100+) in round 1, only to be pipped by Eric P who played QUIZzED for 119 in the final round. There were plenty of ZA’s JA’s and XI’s, but some of the more interesting plays spotted were HYRAX (52 point opening play by Brendan), not to be outdone, Eric came back with QUAVERS (hooking S onto HE making SHE). A sample of some of the other interesting moves: SOARINGS (yes, it’s fine with an S, 80, Ashley), VENTURE (67, Albert), SLIMMER (86, Vinh), OUTLAWS (81, Kevin L), ZOMBIE (38, Thomas), Q bomb QI (64, Amy), POGO (37, Aaron), REPEATS (81, Phi Long), STICKED (78, Tristan, yes it was checked), KADI (56, Lucas). There were a few reported high words that I won’t put here because they were phonies! We did remind players that there is no penalty for challenging, but some still got accepted. Overall, as I walked around observing the games, I was impressed by the standard of words and the small number of phonies.
SUMMARY OF RESULTS
Explanation of columns:
Ranking Wins Margin Name Rating Old Chg New
1 4 +655 Vinh Nguyen 1292 +16 1308
2 4 +366&Brendan Tia ( 631) ( 698)
3 4 +262&Vincent Nuon ( 679) ( 854)
4 3 +996 Jeffery Lam 1206 +7 1213
5 3 +414 Eric Phan ( 543) ( 622)
6 3 +393 Phi Long Ma 581 +40 621
7 3 +382 Alvin Korn 600 +29 629
8 3 +296&Lucas Luu ( 661) ( 706)
9 3 +260&Amy Ngo ( 500) ( 720)
10 3 +237 Raymond Tri 641 +19 660
11 3 +226*Aaron Tran ( 961)
12 3 +82*John Halim ( 935)
13 3 +71*Huy Lam (1042)
14 3 +31*Zachary Sountanich ( 838)
15 3 -96*Kelvin Nguyen ( 903)
16 3 -315*Zachary Young (1076)
17 2 +414 Kelvin Korn 1028 -19 1009
18 2 +260&Tristan Hon ( 699) ( 696)
19 2 +195 Ashley Korn 531 +9 540
20 2 +129&James Lo ( 609) ( 603)
21 2 +122&Albert Wang ( 500) ( 552)
22 2 +66&Justin Eng ( 500) ( 533)
23 2 +49&Jay-Hanz Mesa ( 500) ( 522)
24 2 +37&Laiken Lam ( 500) ( 583)
25 2 +5&Jayco Lo ( 500) ( 602)
26 2 -26&Micaiah Lam ( 500) ( 539)
27 2 -46*William Tran ( 566)
28 2 -110*Tiara Huynh ( 562)
29 2 -113*Kieran Phinith ( 666)
30 2 -129*Harrison Tran ( 676)
31 2 -209*Jimmy Nguyen ( 709)
32 2 -288*Arham Shenhzad ( 626)
33 2 -320*Jaelene Mesa ( 596)
34 2 -387*Alice Alzohayri ( 688)
35 1 -85&Felix Pham ( 566) ( 500)
36 1 -101*Kevin Lam ( 500)
37 1 -129&Angela Ngo ( 500) ( 500)
38 1 -159&Divine Nillos ( 500) ( 501)
39 1 -165*Ryan Phantharangsy ( 500)
40 1 -174*Rose Cuninghame ( 500)
41 1 -181*Thomas Hanna ( 500)
42 1 -183*Vanessa Pham ( 500)
43 1 -201*Rosalie Young ( 500)
44 1 -221&Selena Kuch ( 500) ( 500)
45 1 -281&Kevin Boun ( 500) ( 500)
46 1 -469*Karam Idwer ( 500)
47 1 -544*Ryan Zheng ( 500)
48 0 -115*Sunaira Sadi ( 500)
49 0 -401*Adam Al-quronfuli ( 500)
50 0 -500*Muntaha Humayrah ( 500)
High game Jeffery Lam 652
High word Eric Phan QUIZZED 119
16th May 2025
Exciting final hour of the school week at Cabramatta Public School HPGE Class when 21 students combined their brain power to beat the BetterBot. It was exciting for us because it presented us with an very close endgame, where one false move meant instant death. We managed to avoid phonies, despite some strong temptations. Every student had a board in from of them, and they had from 1-2 minutes to place what they believed to be the best move on the board. Sometimes it was the highest scoring move. Other times, rack leave won out over score, and in another move it was decided it was best to exchange - so, what to keep and what to hold? It was great to see that many different students contributed to the “best moves”.
We didn’t have time to fully analyse the game in class, but thanks to the awesome design of the Woogles platform, we are able to analyse our moves at our own leisure.
Play through the game by pressing “Analyze” and the “<<“ button.
28th April 2025
The start of Term 2 in NSW saw Department of Education teachers focus on HPGE - High Potential and Gifted Education. High potential students are those that have been identified as having potential that exceeds that of students the same age in one or more of the domains: intellectual, creative, social-emotional and physical.
It is now policy that NSW schools must have visible programs that accommodate students that have been identified as HPGE.
When it comes to the intellectual domain, teachers are encouraged to consider the question: how do we further challenge our kids who have been identified as having high potential.
Chess is one activity that comes to mind. Chess has a well established infrastructure in NSW, with many clubs and academies, tournaments and events and on-line resources.
We would like you to consider Scrabble as an option.
When it comes to syllabus outcomes, Scrabble has all the strategy and mathematical outcomes that chess has… plus a lot more.
Scrabble directly supports language development and vocabulary building. It involves using mental strategies to solve addition/multiplication problems. Additionally, it involves calculating probabilities. It also teaches resilience - learning how to adapt and make decisions when tiles or board situations are unfavourable.
We have trialled HPGE Scrabble in Cabramatta Public School for 3 terms. This has involved one hour per week. We have used a variety of strategies which have seen our children develop into capable Scrabble players, many of whom have gone on to enter rated tournaments playing against adult opponents.
We are now ready to roll this model out across all schools.
Contact us to express your interest.
Think outside the “chess box”.
