The New England 1-day CoCo tournament crew, led by director Matthew O'Connor and organizer Niel Gan, was fortunate to go into this weekend's event in Somerville, MA knowing one thing: No matter what happened, they were virtually guaranteed to see their event go more smoothly than the one they held four months ago.

Back in January, these guys had a tournament on the calendar in Providence, RI, that they were looking forward to - only to discover that practically the biggest blizzard in the history of the universe had other plans. They had to scramble at the last minute to convene a different field of people, on a different date, just to have any tournament at all. They just barely pulled it off.

Fast forward to Somerville this weekend, and... hey, everything went off as scheduled! The tournament happened where it was supposed to happen, and the people who were supposed to play, played. Much Scrabble was enjoyed by all! It's always nice when a plan goes smoothly, y'know?

The day was also quite nice for Boston-area local Brad Whitmarsh, who put up a dazzling 6-0 record en route to the tournament win. His day wasn't without a few trials and tribulations, as a few of his wins were close ones that he barely squeaked out, but in the end, every single result was a win. After five games, Brad was Gibsonized, and the only unanswered question was who would win the battle for second place. That ended up being Richard Buck in the end, as Richard bested Niel in the final round to take it down.

Congrats to Brad, who takes down his first-ever title in the Matthew/Niel series of 1-days. Any day you can go undefeated at Scrabble is a very, very good day. Cheers to Richard as well on taking second place. And thanks, as always, to Matthew and Niel for continuing to keep this series of tournaments going.

And now, the series keeps chugging along. This was the fourth event that Matthew and Niel have run together, dating back about 12 months; a fifth one is coming up soon. The crew will be back in action in Providence again on March 15.

Until then, adios. And stay warm.

This is one of those tournament recaps where I sit down at my desk to start writing and attempt to synthesize my thoughts into some sort of cohesive narrative that makes sense and just think to myself, "Dear God. I have no idea where to even begin."

It was a chaotic weekend of Scrabble, if I'm being completely honest with you. More chaotic than just about any I can remember. Mind you, this was our eighth annual Hood River, and we've been through a lot over these eight years - we've survived a couple of blizzards, an upheaval in North American Scrabble, and also that whole global pandemic thing. We've seen pretty much everything. But this one was something else.

I should probably start by saying that, to quote one of the great masterpiece works of American cinema, I wasn't even supposed to be here today. I was looking forward to a relatively chill weekend of directing and cooking meals until about 11 a.m. Friday, when I got word that a player was dropping out of the tournament and I would need to step in at the last minute and play. OK, cool. I've played a Scrabble tournament before. I know how to do that. This'll be fine.

Spoiler alert: It was not fine.

Sometime during breakfast on the first day, I started to realize I wasn't feeling well. Gradually, my condition got worse and worse over the course of the day, to the point where it was a struggle even to sit upright in a chair for rounds 7 and 8 in the late afternoon. Also gradually, it started to become clear that I wasn't the only one getting sick. Something was going around, and almost half the inhabitants of Panorama Lodge ended up contracting something over the weekend ranging from "mild discomfort" to "reenacting that scene from 'The Exorcist.'"

Anyway, amazingly, we all lived to tell the tale. And perhaps even more amazingly, we all finished the tournament. All 20 players completed all 20 games - a total of 200 battles over the boards throughout the weekend. It's a (perhaps weirdly obsessive) point of pride I have that every Hood River Open dating back to 2018 has been full to capacity and that every single game has been completed - all 1,600 of them. But indeed, that streak continued on in 2026. And if it survived this weekend, then crikey, it can survive just about anything.

So, about the actual Scrabble: Hood River played host to an amazing field of players for the eighth year running, and there was some incredibly high-level play despite, well, *gestures at everything*. There were some great games, including both closed-board tactical battles and big high-scoring slugfests. There were an insane number of 9-letter bingos played, including REAEDIFYE and INERRABLE and CITATIONS and ARCHAIZED and BIPINNATE and PURIFIERS and DIABOLIST and TERPENOID and NEOTEINIA and PARTNERED and SIBILATES and INHAULERS and HOMILETIC. (And not all of those nines were played by Travis Chaney! Only most of them!) We even saw a single-game score of 710 from Peter Armstrong, which is both an all-time Hood River record and an all-time Pete best (not to be confused with Pete Best, the ex-Beatles drummer).

As for the race to the title, it was a pretty epic one. The tournament, like several other Hood Rivers before it, started out as Dave Wiegand's tournament to lose - and for a while, it looked like there was no chance of him doing so. Dr. Bing had a record of 11-1 at the Sunday lunch break, and there appeared to be little suspense remaining except the race for second place. But Dave was taken down a few pegs on Sunday afternoon, as Travis, Puneet Sharma, Bharath Balakrishnan, and Erickson Smith all got the best of him. A few of the guys who were in that race for second place began making a run at first - most notably Chris Lipe, who finished Sunday with 11.5 wins in 16 games, putting him a half-game up as we entered the final day.

...except Lipe was sick as a dog, which set up an absolutely absurd scene on Monday morning. As if taking down Dave Wiegand to win a star-studded Scrabble tournament wasn't hard enough already, Chris would now need to do it while practically crumpled up into a ball all morning, doing everything in his power just not to die.

And yet somehow he... did exactly that. After losing a close one in round 17 (sorry Chris - the blank was in the bag, I kept HISS and drew an incredibly lucky SlIGHTS to bingo out), he rattled off back-to-back wins in the absolutely pivotal rounds 18 and 19 against Carson Ip and Gunther Jacobi, respectively. When I informed him after round 19 that he was Gibsonized as Hood River champion, he opined that his performance was pretty much exactly the same as Michael Jordan's famous "Flu Game" from the 1997 NBA Finals. I was in no position to disagree.

Congratulations to Chris, who I'm pretty sure is still alive to read this. It's his first Hood River victory, and he is the seventh unique person to win at least one HORO title. Chris wins a cool $800 and an (in my opinion) even cooler wood-burned plaque. Props are also due to our runners up - second-place Alec Sjöholm, third-place Chris Grubb, and fourth-place Erickson Smith. Last but not least, Carson Ip went 12-8 and took home the class prize.

Thanks to... well, absolutely everybody. It's always a team effort to make these tournaments work - housing and feeding and accommodating 20-25 people and all their needs for a weekend-long vacation is a huge collaborative undertaking, and that was especially true this year. With illness sweeping a large swath of the field, those who remained mostly able-bodied really stepped up and did a tremendous job keeping things afloat. Really every single person contributed, and that's no exaggeration. Special shout-outs are due to Chris Cheng and Conrad Bassett-Bouchard, who stepped up and cooked dinner for everybody while I was passed out cold on Saturday night. There were also many, many players who came in clutch and washed more than their share of dishes. The ones I remember best are Chris Grubb, Carson, and David Whitley (though I'm undoubtedly forgetting some people, and I sincerely apologize, but my excuse is the aforementioned fact that I was passed out a lot).

This was... to put it lightly, an absolutely ridiculous Hood River. We've put on 8 of these things now, and we've never had one like this. Not even close. Typically in this space, I write a recap and then I cap it off with some concluding sentence like "We already can't wait for Hood River #9!" ... but you know what? In this case, I think we can wait. Yeah, we can totally wait. I think I can speak for just about everyone when I say, for now, y'know, it's just good to get home and get some rest. Take it easy, everybody.

For today's preview blog, let's talk Hood River by the numbers. Around this time last year, I pronounced seven as the lucky number for one of the 20 players convening on Panorama Lodge. With Lunar New Year and the Year of the Horse arriving next week, that lucky number has increased to eight. That's right - the eighth annual Hood River Open is upon us!

Over the years, we've weathered snowstorms, a pandemic, and burning blank slips. (Credit to Chris Lipe for extinguishing not one, but two fire-related incidents at prior house tournaments.) Along with Chris, four other players who have played every single Hood River Open will return (Conrad Bassett-Bouchard, Randi Goldberg, Puneet Sharma, and Dave Wiegand). This time around, we are also delighted to welcome four first-timers (Chris Cheng, Zachary Dang, Carson Ip, and Erickson Smith),

In a testament to the constant strength of the field, we've crowned six different Hood River champions in seven years. Only one person, Dave Wiegand, has managed to win twice. Everyone will face off over 20 games against a stacked field of strong players vying for the coveted wood trophy plaque.

Much of what brings players to the lodge year after year remains the same. We'll have s'mores over the fire pit and tons of after-hours board games and rounds of anagrams. By popular demand, Puneet Sharma and David Whitley will bring back their Sunday trivia night. It's always a blast to test our brains (and try to match Chris Grubb's amazing trivia prowess).

We'll have many home-cooked meals courtesy of Chef Clinchy. (By that, I mean Evans. I'm the Clinchy cook who lets the pot boil over because I wandered away to answer emails.) Grillmaster Conrad will reprise his burgers, complete with veggie burgers and beef burgers and special-ordered, onion-free burgers. We'll feed vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians, and carnivores all weekend long with a variety of tasty food options, including a breakfast bar with omelette selections named after Scrabblers.

Beyond the lodge, we'll enjoy outings to the adorable town of Hood River. We'll launch the weekend with a Friday evening dinner at Pfriem. After games wrap on Monday, we'll venture to Double Mountain for afternoon pizza. In our largest rock climbing outing yet, 10 players will then descend on Brimstone Boulders before we return to the lodge for a final evening of merriment.

What I love about this event is the camaraderie. Each year, we convene a slightly different group of 20 players. What's consistent, and what I'm most grateful for, is how people pitch in to help me and Evans as directors to run a smooth event. It takes a lot of spreadsheets and planning to transport, house, and feed 20+ people for nearly four days. People volunteer to shepherd groceries from Costco and to fetch incoming players from PDX airport. Others help set up decorations, restock drinks in the fridge, and wash dishes. (Seriously, if you're coming and you're reading this, please help wash dishes or unload the dishwasher!)

You can count on players to help their fellow lodge companions, too. I've mentioned in prior years how a player carried an injured friend on his back when he couldn't make it up the hill on his own. Last year, a player's car slid off the road and got stuck in a snowbank. When I asked who could help, three players immediately dropped what they were doing and rushed outside to mount a successful rescue. That kind of selfless care for others is priceless, now more than ever.

All that's to say, it promises to be another wonderful weekend of fun, friends, food, and prizes. We can't wait to welcome everyone to Hood River this week. So many of us have come to love Panorama Lodge that we even created shirts and hoodies depicting the wood cabin. If you're playing, pack your board and get ready for a great time. For those staying home, you can follow the competition all weekend long on our live coverage page starting Saturday morning. Let's do this!

Over the past six years, we've endeavored to grow the tournament Scrabble community by making it more open and accessible. We've approached accessibility from many angles. We pioneered the CoCo Scrabble Access Fund to offer free entry to people who face financial barriers. We launched the Newcomer Discounts program to welcome first-time players and ease the transition to the Collins lexicon. We've rented a wheelchair ramp and made ad hoc accommodations here and there as different player needs arose.

Some players require a temporary accommodation, like a fixed table assignment after injuring their leg. (I had that accommodation myself at a multi-day tournament years ago.) Other accommodations may be ongoing or permanent, such as approval to use large print tiles for vision needs.

We've been at this game long enough now to know it's time for a broader, more standardized approach to player accommodations. That's why, to design a policy that is fair and consistent, we convened a team of players to draft the first-ever CoCo Accommodations Policy.

The team that came together to write the policy included players from a wide range of backgrounds and levels of tournament experience. We benefited from the insights and perspectives of every single member of this team, from relative newcomers to seasoned experts. We owe much gratitude to Eric Fox, Chris Lipe, Ather Sharif, and Zachary Dang for all their contributions to the Accommodations Policy writing team.

Our new accommodations policy provides a streamlined, universally accessible form for players to request what they need to participate fully in Scrabble tournaments. It standardizes the information and documentation that players must provide when seeking accommodations, which helps ensure that accommodations are granted based on need.

This new policy is now in effect. All players who previously received accommodations must reapply under the new process if they still require accommodations. Several volunteers have stepped up to serve on the review team that considers these requests. I give huge thanks to Nits Chagti, Eric Fox, Yukiko Loritz, Melissa Routzahn, and Zachary Dang for generously giving their time to make sure we do right by the players who request accommodations.

Along with the new policy, you'll start to see little accommodations signs pop up at CoCo tournaments. These signs show what accommodations a player has been approved to receive, and when the accommodation expires. Players' signs will sit on the table next to their game board, making clear to all opponents what their approved accommodations are. Special recognition goes to Ather Sharif for hatching the idea for these signs and donating several sign stands to the CoCo.

We hope that this new policy will provide a fair and consistent approach to how we approve player accommodations going forward. Our goal is to meet and balance the needs of all players, directors, and organizers so that everyone has a positive tournament experience.

Scrabble at its core is really all about adaptability. Every turn presents you with a new challenge, and you've got to take each challenge as it comes. You never know what might come your way when you draw those seven tiles - you might have a thrilling game-winning bingo, or you might have to throw back all seven. Whatever happens, you've got to roll with the punches.

As it turns out, directing a Scrabble tournament works much the same way. You can do all the preparation and planning in the world, but you still never know how your event is going to turn out. Sometimes everything goes smoothly, just like you planned it; other times, a massive snowstorm pummels half the United States and leaves a trail of destruction in its wake.

So, yeah. This Sunday, we had a 1-day CoCo tournament on the docket in Providence, RI, courtesy of director Matthew O'Connor and organizer Niel Gan. Unfortunately, the other thing on the docket for Providence this Sunday was the blizzard of the century. So Matthew and Niel, being the adaptable Scrabble experts that they are, scrambled and found a way to put together a tournament for Saturday, rather than Sunday, at the last minute. They pulled it off. Matthew, Niel, and two others turned out, and 6 games of Scrabble were enjoyed by all.

In the end, Matthew won 5 of his 6, emerging as Providence 1-day champion once again. He took one early loss, falling 511-364 to Justin Morris in round 2, but he ran the table from there, sweeping a pair each from Niel and Matt Zeleznik. Matthew had a record of 5-1 +451 when all the dust settled; Niel finished second at a very respectable 4-2 +102.

Thanks to the dynamic duo of Matthew and Niel for running Saturday's event - and congrats to you both on dominating over the board as well! A combined record of 9-3 is nothing to sneeze at. But honestly, thanks and congrats are due to anyone who's willing to brave the impending snowmageddon and venture out for some Scrabble. So, Justin, Matt, we salute you as well.

Cheers to all on another successful Providence tournament. We wish you good luck at the next one, too! May you have good tiles, good vibes, and maybe even clearer roads next time around.

You'd think that after 14 trips to New Orleans, it all might start to get a little old - and yet somehow, it never does.

Even after 14 times going out for a poboy or a muffuletta or a big steaming bowl o' gumbo, 14 times enjoying an evening of music and dancing on Frenchmen Street, 14 nights of wild partying in the Quarter (if that's your thing) … it's still the best vacation you could ever ask for. There's nothing like it.

And of course, the same can be said of the city's marquee Scrabble event, the Crescent City Cup, which took place for the 14th time this past weekend. Even after all these years, it's still one of the best tournaments in North America time and time again, and the 2026 event was no exception.

We were thrilled to have 42 Collins players descend upon New Orleans this weekend for the CCC. With 24 players in the Open division and 18 in Lite, there was plenty of spirited competition for players of all levels to enjoy. And when the dust finally settled at midday Monday, we had two very well deserving champions.

In the Open division, that champion was Josh Sokol, who was Gibsonized with a round to play. Josh put on a strong performance from wire to wire, which enabled him to hold off a late charge from fellow top experts Eta Karo, Dave Wiegand, and Rob Robinsky. He clinched the tournament victory with a win over Eta in round 19, then racked up an extra win for good measure in round 20. Josh's final record of 16-4, +1072 goes down as one of the best in CCC history.

In Lite, Nits Chagti secured the victory in spectacular fashion, racking up countless huge wins throughout the weekend en route to a record of 17-3, +2262! For a while, it looked like Nits might run the table and win all 20 games, but after a few late setbacks, she had to settle for a measly 17. Amazingly, Adebola Sanya won 17 of his own, and Nits ended up winning the tournament by only a few hundred points of spread. Quite a one-two punch atop the standings.

Congratulations to everyone who performed well at this year's Crescent City Cup. Shout-outs are due to our top finishers in Open - Josh, Eta, Dave, Rob, and Erickson Smith - as well as class prize winners Kevin Fraley and Scott Jackson. Props also to the money winners in Lite - Nits, Adebola, Melissa Routzahn, Ayodele Odekunle, and class prize winner Joe Roberdeau.

And of course, many thanks are due to the whole Crescent City Cup team for making this tournament happen yet again in 2026. Lindsay Shin went above and beyond in her directorial duties this year (even at one point dealing with a rodent infestation!). Tim Fukawa-Connelly was a directing superstar as usual (and celebrated a milestone birthday over the weekend - cheers!). Christian and Andrew Kay produced a world-class livestream yet again, with Conrad Bassett-Bouchard and Jesse Day calling the games this year. Austin Shin, Kate Fukawa-Connelly, Lila Crotty, and Tim Crotty all helped behind the scenes to ensure the event ran smoothly. It was a total team effort, and the team crushed it yet again.

The 14th go-round in New Orleans was a blast - just as much so as the first 13. I can already predict with confidence that #15 a year from now will be just as awesome. NOLA never disappoints, and this tournament doesn't either.

For the 14th time in Scrabble history, we can say it: The Crescent City Cup is upon us. We're just days away from the start of one of North America's most beloved tournaments. And as always, that also means another thing - it means we're starting off the Scrabble calendar year just right.

It was as true way back in 2012, '13, and '14 as it is today - there's no better way to begin a year of Scrabble than with a long weekend in New Orleans in January. With the CCC, you get it all - good people, good food, good vibes, and one of the most competitive Scrabble events in all the land. If January can offer you all of that, there's no telling what the rest of the year may bring.

For all of us on team CoCo, I can tell you we're super excited for New Orleans. The action gets underway this weekend, and we're looking forward to seeing 42 CSW players across two divisions join us to compete all weekend long. It's going to be one of the best Scrabble events of the year, as it always is.

And you know what else we're excited for? The rest of 2026! There's a jam-packed year of Scrabble ahead of us, and we're ready to dive right in. We're excited for all of it.

Namely...

We're excited for our other flagship winter event, the Hood River Open, coming up in February. It may not be the 14th annual, but we're coming up on #8, which isn't too shabby. Hood River has become a sacred tradition for a select group of Scrabblers who keep coming back every year. You get a weekend in a log cabin with your best Scrabble buddies, a 20-game tournament, and lots of food and drink and camaraderie - what's not to like?

We're excited for Word Cup this summer. This one is going to have a different vibe than most - set against the backdrop of Colonial Williamsburg, and during the nation's semiquincentennial no less, this event will give players a unique opportunity to enjoy championship-level Scrabble and history all at once. We're looking forward to a truly unique tournament experience, and we hope you all will join us for it.

We're excited for the North American Collins Championship (NACC), the CSW-only championship that we've got coming up in Minneapolis this November. It's only our second time running a NACC - we're running it back for the first time since 2023. And we're psyched to do it. If you prefer a championship event where Collins is the only game in town, this is the tournament for you.

We're excited for all of the other major events that have become the backbone of the CoCo tournament calendar every year. That means Austin and Champions Cup in the spring, Portland over Labor Day, and the California Open in December most notably. While none of these events are on the calendar just yet, we're working on them, and we have high hopes for them in 2026.

Finally, we're excited for - fingers crossed! - a whole lot more CoCo events, large and small, all over North America, that should come out of the woodwork as the year goes on. We're looking to add more tournaments to our slate anywhere and everywhere, and we're going to work tirelessly on that in 2026.

We're hoping that this coming year is a year of serious growth, both for the CoCo and for all Scrabblekind, and we're psyched to hit the ground running on that.

Of course, that journey begins with a trip to New Orleans for MLK weekend.

At the moment, we're excited for that most of all.

Way back in August, in the middle of Word Cup 2025 in sunny St. Louis, we announced to you all that the 2026 event would be held next summer in Williamsburg, VA. We gave you a host city, we gave you a date, and we promised that more details would be forthcoming in due time.

Well, that time is now. On behalf of our whole team, I'm excited to announce that Word Cup 2026 is open for registration. This championship event will be held the week of July 31 - Aug. 5, 2026 at the 4-star Williamsburg Lodge, a Marriott property. We hope you all will consider joining us.

Let's get into all the nitty-gritty details...

• Date: July 31 - Aug. 5, 2026

• Location: Williamsburg Lodge, 310 S. England St., Williamsburg, VA 23185

• Director: Evans Clinchy

• Games: 31

• Parameters: WESPA rules, CSW24 lexicon, 5 points per word challenged

• Divisions: This tournament will feature two divisions. Division 1 is open to all players, with unlimited play-ups allowed. Division 2 is open only to players rated below 1600. 

• Prizes: Generous place and performance prizes will be awarded in both Collins divisions. A grand prize of $7,500 is guaranteed if there are 55 or more entrants. Thank you to the Carter Chapman Shreve Family Foundation for their generous donation to the prize pool.

We're raring to go! The 2026 edition of Word Cup will mark our fourth time co-running the event, and we're eager to make it our best one yet. We'd love for you to be a part of it.

Our shiny new Word Cup 2026 website is up and running, and as of this morning, we are officially accepting sign-ups for this major championship event. If you're ready to lock it in and confirm your spot in Williamsburg this summer, you're more than welcome to register now. If you'd like to add your name to the list as tentative, that's fine too - we've got a contact form where you can write in and ask at any time. In any event, we hope to see you in Virginia later this year.

There's a factoid floating around out there that's oft-repeated, especially this time of year, about how early January is peak season for new gym memberships. And of course, it's equally oft-repeated that while every gym is packed at the start of the new year, the crowd starts to thin out, little by little, as January gives way to February and March and beyond. And this isn't just a myth, either. Speaking as a guy who lives five blocks from an LA Fitness and drives past all the people exercising every time he makes a grocery run, I can tell you that this phenomenon is undeniably real.

I think we all understand what's happening here. Everyone makes their New Year's resolution to get in better shape, they hit the gym at the start of the year, and then gradually they start to fall behind and their resolutions end up by the wayside before the first day of spring. It's sad, but it's human nature. We all sometimes have big ambitions that don't pan out. It happens.

I guess this is my long-winded way of saying that, CoCo-wise, I hope we can be better than the old cliché about the lapsed gym membership.

Below are a few of our organizational New Year's resolutions for 2026. Our plan is to put these in writing now, embark on them in January, and keep plugging away at them into the spring months, then summer, and thereafter.

Wish us luck, won't you?

Anyway, on to the resolutions...

Run elite Scrabble championships (plural!)

We're excited for 2026 because, for the first time ever, we've got two major championships on the docket! For those who prefer the big Scrabble extravaganza with the whole community under one roof, we've got Word Cup in Williamsburg in July. And for those looking for a smaller, more CSW-centric championship event, we've got the North American Collins Championship (NACC) slated for Minneapolis in November.

We're excited about both events. And one of our top priorities for the coming year is to make sure both of them are as successful as they can possibly be. That's going to be a major focus for us all year long.

Keep our other flagship events thriving

Aside from the two championships, we have a host of other major events throughout the year that make up the bread and butter of our tournament calendar. There's New Orleans in January. Hood River in February. Austin and Champions Cup in the spring. Portland over Labor Day. The California Open in December.

The hope is to bring all of these events back in 2026 bigger and better than ever. And while it's obviously still early, we're feeling pretty optimistic so far.

Beef up the rest of our tournament offerings

All of the above major events make a great skeleton for our yearly tournament offerings; the next step is to put some meat on those bones. We're eager to add more tournaments of all shapes and sizes.

Short tournaments. Long tournaments. Tournaments out East and out West and everywhere in between. Winter, spring, summer, fall, you name it. The more Scrabble events, the merrier. We'll spend all year working to make that happen.

Nurture a new class of directors

The best way to grow the tournament scene? That's easy - find more great people to direct tournaments. While we love, love, love the group of directors we have already, we are always eager to bring additional people on board. The more, the merrier.

In 2026, we're ready to dig into the nitty-gritty details when it comes to director talent - finding people, training them, giving them the tools to be successful, and encouraging them to tackle ambitious new projects. We're excited to get started.

Keep growing our player ranks

Over the last six years, we've gotten a grand total of 229 distinct humans to come join us for at least one live in-person Scrabble tournament. We're proud of that number, but that doesn't mean we're fully satisfied with it.

Next year, we hope to get as many players as possible to try Collins events - and CoCo events in particular - for the first time. Every time we bring a new player into the fold and expose them to the joys of CSW Scrabble, that's a huge win for us. We're going to try to pile up as many such wins as possible in 2026.

Expand our North American footprint

Traditionally, CoCo events have been most successful in a few select pockets of North America - most notably the Pacific Northwest, the mid-Atlantic, and a smattering of places across the midwestern U.S. We're proud of our success in these areas, but by no means do we want to limit ourselves to them. We're always looking for ways to expand geographically.

The dream is a future in which Scrabble players everywhere - across the U.S. and Canada both - can have easy access to CoCo events near them. This dream isn't fully actualized yet, but we're working on it, and we hope to make lots of progress in the year ahead.

Improve our marketing and outreach

Of course, many of the above goals - more tournaments, more directors, more people, more places - become easier to achieve the better job you do connecting with the outside world and drawing people in. For that reason, we try to put as much energy as we can into our marketing efforts.

We send emails. We post social content. We publish this blog that you're reading right now. We do plenty of stuff, but we're also mindful that we can always do more, and we can be more innovative about how we do things. This coming year, we pledge to work on it.

Stay true to our mission

As we go about this business of running all sorts of Scrabble tournaments, large and small, it's important for us to always remember why we got into this business. It's to run tournaments, yes, but it's also to fulfill a specific mission that we've always been passionate about.

We're here to promote Collins Scrabble play and to encourage people everywhere, at home and abroad, to enjoy the international game with one another. And we're here to give Scrabblers a truly democratic players' organization that cares about them, listens to them, and fights actively for their best interests. As we move forward into 2026 and beyond, we'll do our best not to lose sight of that.

At this point, it's starting to feel like every calendar year of CoCo tournament action just goes by so fast. Blink and you might miss it. Now that we've been at this for over a half-decade, we've settled into something of a rhythm, and it just feels like we're rattling off tournament after tournament now, year after year. It all goes by like a blur.

So it's helpful, on occasion, to take a step back and really appreciate the full scope of all the Scrabble that goes down in any given year.

As 2025 comes to a close, it's time to zoom out and reflect on it all. Here's a recap of this past year by the numbers.

25

Tournaments the CoCo sanctioned this year. Not an earth-shattering number by any means, and it's a number we're always working to improve upon, but it's a solid foundation for us. It's a consistent clip of a couple tournaments a month. For now, not too shabby.

15

People who won at least one CoCo event this year. In alphabetical order, the list goes: Alec Sjöholm (6), Ben Schoenbrun (2), Brad Whitmarsh, Brett Haughney, Christopher Grubb, Conrad Bassett-Bouchard, Dave Wiegand (2), David Brown, Erickson Smith, Evans Clinchy, Joshua Castellano (2), Kolton Koehler (2), Matthew O'Connor (2), Stefan Rau, and Wellington Jighere. Well done, all!

11

States that played host to at least one CoCo event this year. Namely, that'd be California, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. From sea to shining sea, indeed.

146

People who played in at least one CoCo event this year. A new record, and it's not even close! Thanks to everyone for showing up and showing out this year. We're grateful for every single one of you.

2,941

Total games played at CoCo events this year. That's a lot of Scrabble. And to give you a little extra bonus stat, there were 2,436,820 total points scored in those games, for an average of just over 414 per player per game.

712

High score posted by any player in any CoCo game this year. That came courtesy of none other than Wellington Jighere, who got off to an extremely good start at the California Open last week. Wellington had the only 700 game of the year; we did, however, see 50 games over 600.

1,100

High score posted by both players combined in any CoCo game this year. That distinction goes to Wellington and Eta Karo - Wellington notched a 621-479 victory when the two players squared off at Word Cup this summer.

519

High loss posted by any player in any CoCo game this year. Kudos to Bruce Ward, who put up this killer score at the California Open; sadly for him, it wasn't enough to overcome Cheryl Melvin's 531.

11

Tie games in all CoCo events this year - approximately 0.374022441 percent of all games played. Yes, I plan to keep tracking this utterly meaningless statistic until the end of time. Special shoutouts are due to Chloe Fatsis and Matt Zeleznik who had the highest tie of the year, at 467, and to Carson Ip and Bharath Balakrishnan who had the lowest, at 350.

$45,198

Total prize money awarded at CoCo events this year. Prizes were as big as $4,000, which was Wellington's payout for winning Word Cup this summer; they were as small as $1, as several tournaments awarded a single greenback to the most mediocre player in the field. The famous "Why'd You Even Come Here?" prize.

229

Total names on the CoCo membership list as of this writing - meaning, they've played at least one in-person rated tournament since 2020. This number just keeps going up, up, up! Thanks to everyone who joined our ranks this year.

62

Names currently on our list of CoCo Premium Members. Thanks to you all! If you haven't joined yet, I definitely recommend it. It's a win-win proposition - you get significant savings on tournament entry fees, and we get a little bit of support to help keep the lights on.

6

Listings on our new roster of CoCo Clubs. We launched our clubs page earlier this year as a way to offer players a chance to network with other Scrabblers in their local areas. Right now, we've got 6 clubs in 6 different cities; we would love to add more.

54

Articles published this year on the very blog you're reading right now. Wait, no, 55 including this one! Although I'm still writing this one at the moment, so it doesn't count until after I finish it. Schrodinger's blog post, or something like that.

12

Installments we've sent out so far in our "CoCo News" series of email newsletters, one each month on the first Friday. We're doing everything we can to keep in touch with our membership about the latest CoCo goings-on. We hope you appreciate the updates.

43

Responses we received when we sent out our first-ever CoCo Player Survey earlier this year. We appreciate everybody's input! We're trying to do everything we can to deliver a tournament experience that's consistent with what you all, the players, want. So, every little bit of feedback helps.

24

Directors and organizers who helped run at least one CoCo event this year. Listed alphabetically: Arthur Braden, Ather Sharif, Austin Shin, Bennett Jacobstein, Conrad Bassett-Bouchard, Dave Wiegand, Edward De Guzman, Eric Fox, Evans Clinchy, Guy Ingram, Jennifer Clinchy, Jesse Day, Kate Fukawa-Connelly, Lila Crotty, Lindsay Shin, Matthew O'Connor, Niel Gan, Nits Chagti, Scott Smith, Terry Kang, Tim Fukawa-Connelly, Tony Boyle, Travis Chaney, and Zachary Dang. A huge thank you to all of you! Without your contributions, none of this would be possible.

5

People who served on the CoCo Board of Directors this year - David Whitley, Peter Armstrong, Randi Goldberg, Rob Robinsky, and myself. And for the first time ever, we'll be running it back with the same board members two years in a row! Randi and I were reelected this fall, so we will be returning for 2026 and '27.

6

Years that the CoCo as an organization has been alive and kicking. We first announced our existence to the world on Dec. 30, 2019, so our anniversary is coming up next week. We've had a blast these first six years, and we're already raring to go for year seven.

A year ago, we made history at the California Open by welcoming a record-setting field of 33 Collins players to downtown San Francisco for the 15th annual CO. It was a pretty earth-shattering number at the time - a testament to how much CSW enthusiasm has grown in recent years, not just in the Bay Area but across North America. We were thrilled. It was one of the CoCo highlights for the calendar year 2024.

So naturally, for an encore, we aimed to go even bigger for the 2025 event.

This weekend, we were pleased to see a new record of 36 CSW players join us for the 16th annual California Open. They included world and national champions, other experts, intermediates, and novices. They were San Francisco locals as well as travelers flying in from Texas, Missouri, Maryland, Australia, Uganda, and more. This group was big, diverse, congenial, and competitive as all get out. Everyone played 20 games, and the result was an exhilarating race (almost) all the way to the finish.

I say "almost" because (let's not bury the lede any deeper here) this tournament was Ben Schoenbrun's pretty much from wire to wire, culminating in his Gibsonization after round 19. Ben got off to an insanely hot start and didn't let up from there - when the dust finally settled, he'd finished 16-4, +1157, two games up on the rest of the field. Ben is now immortalized as the eighth unique champion in the eight-year history of California Open CSW.

While Ben was dominant throughout the weekend, his victory was far from a foregone conclusion, as we had a veritable horde of expert players chasing him in the standings the whole way.

Ben started 7-1 on Friday, but the one loss was to Rasheed Balogun, who was 7-1 himself; a whole bunch of us were close behind at 6-2. The leaderboard was as crowded as could be.

On Saturday, Ben kept winning, but the rest of the field kept chasing. Ben finished the second day at 12-4; meanwhile Wellington Jighere surged to 11-5 with a huge spread, putting him just barely off the pace. Four others were also at 11-5, including a pair of lower seeds who ran off streaks of upset wins - #17 Bharath Balakrishnan found his way to third place, and #24 Zachary Dang was in sixth.

In the end, Ben couldn't be caught on Sunday. I myself ended up being the last man standing with a chance to take him down, but it wasn't meant to be. After starting the tournament 6-6, I went on a hot streak to get to 12-6 and second place, which put me in a head-to-head showdown with Ben on the stream table in round 19. We had a tight, back-and-forth game that culminated in a tense pre-endgame; I ended up making a couple of questionable moves late under time pressure, and Ben was able to find just enough points at the end to secure the victory, 453-439. It was his tournament.

Wellington bested me in the second-place game that followed, finishing 14-6; Uganda's Edgar Odongkara capped off a strong tournament with wins in his last three games to finish third at 13-7. Enoch Nwali and Zach rounded out the top five moneywinners.

This was an absolutely thrilling tournament from a competition standpoint, featuring countless great games from countless great players. Congratulations to Ben and everyone else who put forth strong performances - and thank you to everyone who helped the event run smoothly, especially our director extraordinaire Ed De Guzman.

Scrabble is a zero-sum game, and every time someone notches a win, someone else has to take an L. But at a tournament as awesome as the California Open, it almost doesn't even feel that way. As Ed so eloquently put it in his post-tournament remarks, we were all winners this weekend because we got to spend this time together playing Scrabble. I couldn't possibly say it better myself.

This event featured wins all around, from the top tables on down. The 16th annual California Open was the best one yet. We already can't wait for the 17th.

In November, we announced that we were seeking candidates for our sixth annual leadership elections. As we have done every year, we invited any CoCo member based in North America to run for Executive Director or a member of the Board of Directors. Every CoCo member around the world - roughly 430 people - was eligible to vote, and we sent a ballot to each of them. If you were one of the many people who voted this year, thank you for making your voice heard!

I ran for Executive Director and was elected to continue serving in that position for another year. This election cycle, we had two open seats on the board. I offer a warm congratulations to Randi Goldberg and Evans Clinchy for being reelected to the open seats. Three other board members - Peter Armstrong, Rob Robinsky, and David Whitley - will continue to serve out their existing terms, having been elected to two-year terms last year.

I now present the 2026 CoCo Board of Directors:

Every board member serves a two-year term. Randi and Evans will begin the first year of their new terms on Jan. 1, 2026, while Pete, Rob, and David will continue into the new year.

This is the first year that the composition of our board has had complete continuity from the prior year. All five members of the existing board will continue to serve in 2026. All of these people have active lives with various personal commitments. We are grateful that they are willing to continue contributing their perspective, time, and energy to leading the CoCo.

As the CoCo’s principal decision-making body, the board represents you and your interests. That’s why every member of the board (as well as the Executive Director) is elected by the full CoCo membership, and why your vote is so important. In the year ahead, the board will focus on some exciting big plans and will continue to support our ever-growing coalition of directors in running tournaments across North America.

This board remains committed to transparency and will continue to publish summaries from every board meeting so that you can hold us accountable. If you have ideas or initiatives that you’d like the board to consider, you can contact the board at board@cocoscrabble.org. Thanks to all our leaders for contributing their time and energy to the Scrabble community.

It seems like, whenever I come across any kind of media coverage around Thanksgiving, it's always about either the food you cook for Thanksgiving dinner or the people who join you for said dinner. Every article, every podcast, every whatever - it's always either "How to Brine the Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey" or "How to Deal With Your Brother-in-Law and His Questionable Political Views."

I'm not knocking this, exactly. In fact, I'm here for any and all discussion of Thanksgiving food. More pie recipes, please and thank you. What I do find sort of funny, though, is the thing that's so often lost in all this discourse - the actual giving of thanks.

That's what the holiday is supposed to be all about, right? It's right there in the name, after all. And it's a good habit to do this from time to time anyway. It's nice to set aside a little time, take stock of all your various blessings in life, and make a point of saying thank you. It's good to do this just with your life in general... and, I reckon, it's good to do it with your Scrabble nonprofit on occasion, too.

From a CoCo perspective, this is something we try to prioritize on the regular. And rightfully so. We've got a whole lot of people and a whole lot of things to be thankful for, and this is the perfect time of year to speak up and say so.

First and foremost, what we're thankful for is you all, the players. Since our inception almost six years ago, we've watched our community of devoted Scrabblers steadily grow, little by little, and we now have a total of 223 members that have played at least one rated tournament. We're grateful that each and every one of you has taken a little time out of your busy lives to come and play a little Scrabble with us.

We're thankful for our team of directors. Without capable people at the helm, our tournament scene wouldn't exist. We feel very fortunate to have good people stationed all over North America who are willing to dedicate their time and their energy to running tournaments. As I always say in this space, directors are the lifeblood of any Scrabble organization. They're what keep us going.

We're thankful for all of the other volunteers who work behind the scenes to keep our tournaments running and our organization humming along. Whether it's our board members who endure countless hours of meetings, our technology team that handles everything from our website to our pairings code to our data management, or our finance team who keeps a close watchful eye on every last dollar and cent, everyone plays a pivotal role, and we're grateful for them all.

We're thankful that we're able to offer a robust slate of tournaments for Scrabble players across North America. That's no small thing, and we don't take it for granted. What started out six years ago as just a small-time operation with a couple of us running tournaments in our kitchens is now a thriving network of Scrabble events that stretches from sea to sea. It took all of the above people - players, directors, volunteers, and then some - to turn that dream into a reality. So, thanks to you all.

We're thankful for all of the partnerships we've developed over the years. Whether it's our friends at WGPO, with whom we've collaborated on many of our biggest and most successful tournaments, or the many other people we've worked with from time to time - a streamer here, a graphic designer there, a commentator, a content creator, what have you - we've had plenty of little helping hands pitch in over the years and help us to run successful tournaments. We're always grateful.

Finally, we're thankful for all the positive energy for the future that's all around us. Whether it's CoCo players, directors, volunteers, or anyone else, the good vibes are on display at every tournament. It's plain to see - everyone is excited for the future of the CoCo and the future of Scrabble as a whole. Speaking for our team, I can tell you, we are too. The next tournament is always right around the corner, as is the one after that, and the one after that, and the one after that. Thank goodness.

Earlier this month, we announced that the CoCo was soliciting candidates for its sixth annual elections. Any CoCo member who resides in North America was eligible to be a candidate for the Board of Directors or Executive Director. This year, there are two open seats on the Board.

I’m pleased to present for your consideration the candidates who have offered their ideas, energy, and leadership to strengthen our Scrabble community and the lead the CoCo forward. Below are your 2025 leadership candidates.

Candidates for Board of Directors

Randi Goldberg

Hi, I'm Randi. Since I started playing Scrabble about a decade ago, I've really reveled in everything about it - the strategy, the studying, and most importantly, the people. The Scrabble community is full of great people, and it's really important to me that it continues to grow. I've worked in recruitment and event-running for years, and as a result have a lot of ideas for how to help the Scrabble community grow bigger and better.

Evans Clinchy

I've been a member of the CoCo board since its inception in 2020, and I would love the opportunity to continue for another two years.

Throughout my tenure, I've focused on doing everything I can to grow the CoCo tournament scene and grow tournament Scrabble at large. Specifically, I've been plugging away at content creation, player and director outreach, and just directing as many tournaments personally as I can.

These are exciting times for our board - we've got a lot of ideas for the future of the CoCo percolating. I'm hoping to be right in the thick of it all in 2026 and '27. I'd be honored to have your vote.

Candidate for Executive Director

Once again, one person registered to run for Executive Director (me). Below is my election platform.

Jennifer Clinchy

Since co-founding the CoCo in 2019, I've led the organization as its elected Executive Director. This past year, I've focused on building institutional capacity and internal resilience so that the CoCo can live up to its goal of being a true coalition. Recruiting and training new volunteers has been a core part of my efforts to build up our team. The more help we have, the more we can devote resources to running bigger and better tournaments. To that end, I consulted with an expert grants manager this year to formulate a strategic plan for the CoCo's fundraising, with the goal to one day secure sustainable funding for paid staff roles and program support.

As ever, I continue to execute the necessary work of the Executive Director, making sure we pay our bills and have insurance coverage to protect our directors. I stewarded the popular CoCo Newcomer Discounts program and Access Fund to expand the game to more players. I also supported the CoCo's ongoing partnership with DC Public Libraries and submission of our first grant application. Looking forward to next year, I am excited to direct the 2026 North American Collins Championship and hope to bring many players together at events across the country.

Vote!

All roughly 430 CoCo members worldwide will receive a unique link by email today from ElectionBuddy, our online voting system. All votes are anonymous. You have 12 days to cast your ballot. After voting closes, we’ll announce the results of the election here and introduce your new leadership team. Make your voice heard and cast those ballots!

(P.S. If you think you should have received a ballot today but don’t see it in your email inbox, check your spam folder. If you don’t see it there either, contact us at info@cocoscrabble.org and we’ll check if an internet monster ate your ballot or if we lack a current email address for you.)

Back in 2023, we tried something no one had done before: We ran the first ever North American Collins Championship (NACC). It was a championship-level event, held on North American soil, in which Collins was the only game in town. The event spanned four days and took place in the heart of downtown Seattle. It attracted a strong field of players, split across two fiercely competitive divisions. At the end of the exciting playoff finals, we crowned Kevin Fraley as the inaugural North American Collins Champion.

After three years, the chance to dethrone Kevin and take that Collins crown for yourself is finally here. I am thrilled to announce that on November 6-9, 2026, the CoCo will host the second NACC in Minneapolis, MN.

Much of what the players loved about the first NACC will be the same this time around:

• The 2026 NACC will feature 24 games spanning the first three days. 

• On the fourth day, the top four finishers in each division will square off in semifinal and final playoff matches to decide the winners. 

• Everyone else will have the option to play 6 more games in the standalone "Afterword" event, bringing the total number of games over the 4-day weekend to 30 games.

• We'll broadcast a world-class livestream with the help of the world's best streaming duo, Christian Kay and Andrew Kay.

• A team of CoCo directors (including me) will keep the clocks ticking and the tiles clacking.

Some backstory on this event: To ensure we provide a fun and memorable tournament experience for all players, we sent every CoCo member a player survey back in February. We listened to your feedback to understand what you love in a championship event. Based on that information, we set about scouring the country for a fantastic venue that checked all the boxes. With the help of CoCo volunteer extraordinaire Carson Ip, I reviewed more than 100 attractive proposals across 10 cities. In the end, we chose a venue in Minneapolis that blew us away.

Next fall, we invite you to join us at The Marquette Hotel, a luxury hotel in the Hilton's Curio Collection. We know that Scrabble tournaments often double as a "treat yourself" vacation, so we made sure to choose a hotel with tons of amenities in a highly walkable downtown area. The Marquette Hotel has an insanely high walk score of 97/100, with many options for food, drink, and entertainment all mere steps away.

For those who live in the Midwest, Minneapolis may be less than a day's drive from your home. For those farther afield, there are many direct flights into MSP airport. The Marquette is easily accessible from the airport by light rail.

This will be the CoCo's marquee event for 2026, and an unmissable championship for Collins enthusiasts. You won't want to miss it. A former national champion deemed the 2023 NACC "the most well-run tournament" he'd ever played. We strive to make the 2026 NACC even better. And we expect players will have the chance to enjoy more than just Scrabble fun, too - think trivia night, escape rooms, group dinners, a side chess tournament, and more.

The 2026 NACC is now open for registration. Head over to the official NACC event page to check out all the details and sign up. This is your chance to become the next North American Collins Champion. Although, until then, I'll continue to greet Kevin as "the reigning North American Collins Champion" every time I see him.

For six years now, we’ve let democracy and accountability focus our efforts. We have welcomed many new players, directors, and tournament organizers and continue to find new ways to make the Scrabble tournament experience as enjoyable and welcoming as possible.

This month, we continue that commitment to transparency by holding our sixth annual elections. All of the CoCo’s leadership positions are elected. Elections are crucial to ensure that you all, the players, hold the power to guide the direction of Scrabble in North America. We know many players have ideas for how they want the Scrabble world to evolve. We hope you’ll share your vision by running for a leadership position or participating in our upcoming annual elections.

All CoCo members who reside in North America are eligible to nominate themselves as candidates for Executive Director or Board Member. The Executive Director leads the organization. The Board of Directors is the CoCo’s principal decision-making and governing body. All elected Board members serve two-year terms, while the Executive Director serves a one-year term. You can learn more about each role on our Leadership page.

People elected to leadership positions in this election cycle will begin their terms on Jan. 1, 2026. This cycle, two Board seats and the one Executive Director position are up for election.

The CoCo’s fifth leadership cohort has stewarded expansion of Collins tournaments to new cities and player communities. In the past six years, our membership base has grown to 430 Collins players. We’ve welcomed more than 40 tournament directors and organizers on board and sanctioned tournaments all around North America, including our first events in Canada.

Our leaders drive the CoCo forward. We are welcoming new volunteers, directors, and players to the CoCo team every month. We’d love for you to join us. To run for election, click the button below to register as a candidate by Friday, Nov. 21. After registration closes, we will announce the candidates here, and voting will begin. We hope you consider running, or share your energy and ideas with us in other ways.

The thing about election days is that every single one of them matters. Even the little ones. Like here in the U.S. this November - it's an odd-numbered year, so we're not electing a new president or a new Congress, but there are still matters of real consequence on the ballot nationwide. Every gubernatorial race, every mayoral one, every ballot referendum, it all makes a difference, be it big or small. Each little piece of the democratic puzzle carries its own importance.

The same is true for CoCo elections. Just like the U.S., we elect new leadership every November, dating back to 2020 when we first built out our governance structure with a board of directors and an executive director at the top. Over the years, we've had 12 different people sit on our board for a year or more - you can check out our leadership page to read through the complete history of who's served and when. And next week, our election cycle gets underway for the sixth time.

So I thought now would make the perfect time to explore - why does CoCo leadership matter, anyway? What do our board of directors and our executive director actually do? What role do we play in shaping the future of the CoCo and the future of Scrabble?

While I don't have all the answers to such questions, I can definitely give a little bit of perspective. Being one of the two individuals who have served on our board for the entire run since 2020 (shout out to the other one, Peter Armstrong), I can give a little bit of historical context around what our team has worked on so far and what we hope to accomplish in the future.

First and foremost, the board's job is to determine a long-term vision for the organization and set out to make that vision a reality. According to our mission statement, our aims are to become the premier Scrabble organization for players in North America, to build a network of directors and tournaments, to gain WESPA membership and cultivate relationships with the global scene, and to grow the game by attracting and retaining players. Are these the right goals for us to be pursuing? If so, then what could our organization be doing better to pursue them? If not, then how should we reorient our focus? These are the types of big-picture questions that our board members grapple with.

We also work on tournament strategy. At the risk of stating the obvious, the bread and butter of any Scrabble organization are the actual Scrabble tournaments they run. So - what events should we be running? Where should we run them? When? Who should be in charge? Who should we collaborate with? How should we go about organizing events, promoting them, and executing them? This is the stuff that keeps our organization going, and it rightly demands a great deal of our focus.

And then there's growth strategy. Our ranks currently include about 220 players and some 40-odd directors - not too shabby for a still-relatively-young organization serving a niche community. But we're always thinking about ways to expand. We're constantly looking for ways to reach new players, onboard new directors, and offer more opportunities to play Scrabble for everybody, everywhere. Our board meetings are abuzz with conversations about how best to achieve this.

Finally, there's the financial side of things. We're not a rich organization by any means, but we do have a little bit of money in the bank, and we do spend quite a bit of time talking about it. What should we do with the funds we have - save them, or invest them into the tournament scene right away? If the latter, then what's the best investment strategy? Moreover, what should we do to improve our fundraising efforts so that we have more resources to work with in the future? Our board searches for answers to all these questions and more. Much like Congress has the power of the purse in our nation's government, the CoCo board exerts its own form of financial decision-making power.

All of this stuff is important to us as an organization. It all matters. All of these little pieces have their place in the big puzzle that is the future of tournament Scrabble. And starting next week, election season gets underway, which means we start the process of putting that puzzle together all over again for 2026 and beyond.

We hope that you'll be a part of it. Whether it's by running for office yourself, engaging in civil discourse with those who do, or simply participating at the ballot box by casting your vote, we sincerely wish for everyone out there to play whatever role they can in our Scrabble democracy. The future of our game and our tournament scene depends on that.

When you spend your Scrabble weekend playing a pair of 1-days rather than a multi-game tournament, it's really a unique experience with a unique vibe to it. Each day is its own distinct thing - its own tournament with its own shape, its own unique feel. You've got one event Saturday, you play it out to the finish, and then you inevitably turn the page, win or lose. The second tournament is a whole new ballgame.

This weekend, at our home in northeast Seattle, Jennifer and I hosted such a pair of tournaments. We had one 7-game event Saturday, then a fresh clean slate for another 7-gamer Sunday. We were pleased to have 10 players for each event, though not the same 10 - there were 13 distinct humans in total. I played on Saturday, along with CoCo newcomer Norman Lemoine and legendary Scrabble spouse Chris "Mrs. Bing" Wiegand; on Sunday, the three of us shuffled out in favor of Jennifer, Eric Fox, and Walker Willingham. The result was two enjoyable tournaments, two exciting races, and ultimately two different champions.

Saturday's event got off to a weird start, with us scrambling at the last minute to even out an unexpectedly odd field, and Mrs. Bing graciously offering to play Scrabble for the first time in years. Eventually, we settled on a 10-person field, and we were off.

The tournament was highly competitive, with approximately half the field lingering around 3-2ish through 5 games and 4-2ish through 6. With one game to go, a whole bunch of us were still in the hunt to win it. I myself sat down to play Chris Grubb in the final game, expecting that we were playing for second place - Alec Sjöholm and Dave Wiegand were both way ahead of us on spread, so we were both pretty much out of it. But amazingly, Alec won a close one and Chris beat me by over 240! So much for that spread gap. The result was that our presumed "second place game" ended up with Chris finishing first in the tournament and me, seventh. One-day tournaments are volatile sometimes!

After a scrumptious pizza dinner on Saturday night, a little Anagrams, and a mediocre night's sleep, it was time to get back at it on Sunday morning. We were pleased to have Eric and Walker sneak away from school and work respectively and join us for a day; a new 10-player group took shape, and play began at 10 a.m. sharp-ish.

This time around, the top of the standings was a little bit less crowded. The tournament was more of a Dr. Bing-dominated affair, as Dave got off to a fast start and didn't look back. Going into the final game, he was 5-1 with a spread of almost 600. Against John O'Laughlin in the final round, he simply needed to avoid losing by 260 or more to win the tournament... and, news flash, he didn't lose at all. Dave closed out a dominant performance at 6-1, +675. David Whitley and Alec were a distant second and third.

Cheers all around! Well done Chris G., Alec, and David for finishing in the money in Saturday's tournament; the same to Dave, David, and Alec for their performances Sunday. And a wholehearted "welcome!" to Chris W. and Norman, the two newest CoCo members after their debuts this weekend. (Fast fact: Our total playing membership now sits at 222. Fun number.)

We love hosting people for Scrabble weekends here in Seattle. Whether it's a weekend-long tournament or a couple of quick 1-days, either way, it brings us joy to host events here and have Scrabblers come join us from all over. We look forward to having meals together, drinks together, playing some rousing after-hours games... and we even enjoy the Scrabble too, a little bit anyway. This weekend was an enjoyable one from start to finish, and I'm sure the next one will be also. Until then...

Over the years, I've attended a whole lot of different Scrabble tournaments in a whole lot of different kinds of venues. I've lost count of all the schools, libraries, board game shops, hotel ballrooms, and church basements. After a decade or two, they all start to blur together. But through it all, one thing has stayed constant - there's just no substitute for having a tournament in the comfort of your own home.

Coming up this weekend, Jennifer and I are excited to do just that. And in fact, we're hosting not one Scrabble event, but two - we've got a pair of 1-day tournaments on the docket, one Saturday and one Sunday. All in all, we're getting ready to host 14 wonderful humans for 14 games of Scrabble. And we're looking forward to it for all sorts of reasons.

For one thing, there's nothing quite like treating your Scrabble friends to a home-cooked meal or two. It'll be great to host players visiting from near and far, break bread together, and catch up with everyone. The Friday night dinner before these home tournament weekends has become one of my favorite occasions of the year, personally. I can't wait.

It'll also be great to show people around our local area. I love Seattle in October - you get a little bit of that crisp autumn cool air but not too much, just the right amount. It'll be nice to rove around Northeast Seattle with people, go for walks, check out our favorite neighborhood lunch spots, and so forth. We love our neighborhood and relish any opportunity to share that love with friends.

And then we'll have opportunities after hours to hit the town, too! Past Seattle tournament weekends have featured visits to the city's best breweries, best pizzerias, even its best escape rooms. We're looking forward to more of the same this time around. (And maybe this time our escape room team will actually win for once. C'mon now, guys.)

Oh, right - you also have the actual Scrabble. (I always seem to almost forget this part.) We're expecting some ridiculously strong fields for this weekend's two events, especially considering the setting. It's just a little Scrabble weekend at home, and yet we've got an all-star squad of great players heading our way. Who are Alec Sjöholm, Dave Wiegand, Peter Armstrong, John O'Laughlin, David Whitley, Chris Grubb, and Rob Robinsky? Quite literally, to paraphrase the classic Cheers episode, people who have been in my kitchen.

For all of the above reasons and more, we'll be raring to go this weekend. If you're planning to join us, you can expect a weekend of elite Scrabble competition and even more elite after-hours fun. And if you're not, well, follow along online at your own risk. We are not responsible for any FOMO that may occur.

When I take a look at the CoCo tournament calendar as it stands right now, one thing becomes clear - what we lack in quantity, we most definitely make up for in quality. There's the next California Open and the next Crescent City Cup already high atop our list of events, and - spoiler alert - the next Word Cup will be on there pretty soon, too. These are some of the biggest and most prestigious events in all of Scrabble, and we're proud to be a part of them.

The question now is how we build upon that. These flagship events make for a great skeleton, but we're still striving to put some more meat on those bones, so to speak. If you ask me, what we really need now is to add to our offerings when it comes to mid-sized regional tournaments. Events like the CO and NOLA are great - they bring people from all over North America and all over the world. But little weekend events, a day or two long, that attract people from nearby cities and states to drive an hour or three, are important also. Those, at the risk of overusing the food metaphors here, are a Scrabble organization's true bread and butter.

This was heavy on my mind a week ago, during our 2-day event in Charlottesville, VA. That couldn't have been a better weekend. We were with a great group of people in a charming little town, at a venue that showed us wonderful hospitality. And the field, all 14 of us, just had this positive vibe that you can only get from a regional community of players who enjoy each other's company and like playing together. Some players were native to Virginia, others were from nearby D.C. or Maryland, and still others traveled from a little farther away. But the group had that homey feel to it, just the same.

My dream for the CoCo is to have lots and lots and lots more weekends like it, all across the land. And I don't think that dream is all that unattainable. Why would it be? After all, when you travel around North America, you see plenty of local areas that have rich, vibrant communities of Scrabble players that should be able to support such a thing.

From a CoCo perspective, different local areas are in different situations. We've got some cities, like Seattle and Portland, where tournaments are already booming (though more can never hurt!). We've got others - like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Austin, St. Louis, and Atlanta - where we've had some success, but we're definitely interested in making tournaments a more consistent thing. In still other places - think Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, Madison, and Boston - we've dabbled a bit, but we could really use more of a presence. And then you've got places like New York, Phoenix, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa, where we're still trying to get things off the ground in the first place.

All of these places have something in common - they have great communities of players in place already. And think - that's the hard part! All that's left to do now is seize that opportunity and get some events going. In all of the above places, we have the potential to build bigger, happier, thrivinger (if that's even a word, which it isn't) local tournament scenes.

None of this will happen overnight, of course. But that's OK! Our whole CoCo team, we're eager to put in the work. And we'd happily accept any help that anyone out there in the community is willing to offer. So if you have any thoughts on how we can grow the Collins tournament scene, hit us up. We would love to hear from you.