As I enter Brixton's Scrabble hall I am greeted by the sound of hundreds of tiles ploying new words to beffudle and demoralise the opposition.
I had entered Brixton's first scrabblecometishian, a tournament with a very special design which is dragging in huge crowds from all over London.
Cometishians are a unique type of tournament,with no buy-ins, and no cash prizes. Just the braclet and glory. This way the game will be seen less as gambling and more a game of skill, a real cometishian, a sport. It opens the door to all.
It wasn't always so easy. When I had my Scrabble hustle on in the street growing up as a mouse child I hadn't even heard ofcometishians, scrabble tournaments with no cash buyin and no cash prizes, just glory? Unheard of. Life was tough trying to scrape by a meagre survival with my Scrabble hustle.
As I enter the room, greeting by the Scrabble tournament director Toby Terrance whoimmediatelygets a board out and places it infront of us.
"Heads up?" sure I say starting to take a wad of hundos out my pocket. He laughs, "son, this is acometishian!". I go red fromembarrassment, I'm so used to noncometishian format tournaments.
We play, and he sends me to the felt with 'perturb' over atripleletter. How the game has progressed, my Scrabble hustle revolved around only playing 2-3 letter words. People, the game, Scrabble has evolved. Competitors don't just play the safe words, "hi", "dog", "mat" or "cup", they have balanced their preflop ranges a lot more with longer, shorter more medium length words. It's nearly impossible to get a read on the better players, and attempts at 4betting them light can often end in disaster.
I talked to him afterwards over a jar of milk:
"Thecometishian format is perfect for scrabble. Where people were put off before hand from entering tournaments because of the lack of glory on offer, thecometishian format has allowed us to offer a lot more glory which is attracting bigger crowds. The format is very sucesfull."
As I bid him fare well and step outside the hall, I sadden when I think about my past. Hounds bark in the distance and a cold wind blows past me. I wrap my jacket around me tighter, and finger the lucky Z in my pocket I've had since I was a half pint man. Time will tell if the Scrabblecometishian will take off, but I've got a feeling all the tiles are in place.
