On January first the official club and tournament word list used by competitive Scrabble players outside of North America (SOWPODS or CSW or Collins) will change. The updated international word list contains 1532 additions and 145 deletions (pdf) of words of eight or fewer letters. There are no new two-letter words. New words of note: CLIT, CUMS, INBOX, MUNGE, QIN, SPLOG, VOIP, WIKI, XRAY No longer allowed: ACIDFREAK, FOOTROT, MOLEHUNT, PORNOMAG, VICTROLLA, WYSIWIG, YOS [more inside]
posted by jessamyn on Dec 30, 2011 - 76 comments

In 1839, soon after Queen Victoria's accession, the Earl of Eglinton staged a re-enactment of a medieval tournament to mark the beginning of what he hoped would be a new age of chivalry. Despite torrential rain, the Eglinton Tournament was attended by 100,000 people and sparked off a popular craze for all things medieval. A new website tells the story of the tournament and reproduces, for the first time, twenty original watercolours recording the event in all its romantic splendour and absurdity.
posted by verstegan on Jun 4, 2009 - 6 comments

Wunderkind James Leong of Vancouver, BC defeated veteran Jerry Lerman of Foster City, California, with a score of 423-377 to win the 2007 Scrabble Player's Championship in Dayton, OH. He takes the top prize of $12,500. Held during years when the bi-annual Nationals don't occur, this is the biggest tournament of the year. The tournament attracted about 450 players from around the world. Think you've got what it takes? You'll probably want to study up.
posted by solid-one-love on Aug 8, 2007 - 38 comments

A Chip and a Chair: The World Series of Poker's Main Event started today at the Rio in Las Vegas. That's a change from every other year, when Binion's Horseshoe hosted the event. With the rise of online poker and televised tournaments, it's no surprise this is the biggest year ever: 5,661 people registered for the $10,000 no-limit event. That's about $50 million in prize money, once the tournament and casino costs are taken care of. CardPlayer has up-to-the-minute updates on the tournament. Things at the WSOP can get pretty crazy, as you've got thousands of gamblers ready for any sort of action. For instance, poker celeb Phil Gordon put together a Roshambo tournament (paper rock scissors) together with a $10,000 first prize, just to kill time. The main event, by the way, is only one of 45 events, started back in 1970 by a group of hard-core gamblers. Despite the record turnout, however, there's still plenty of people who didn't make it to the main event, including former Harper's reporter James McManus, who placed 5th in the Main Event in 2000 and wrote a fascinating novel on the subject.
posted by Happydaz on Jul 7, 2005 - 22 comments

Tyler Hinman: Legend, Zoalesquianist, Champion. The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament has a new kid in the grid.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies on Mar 14, 2005 - 4 comments

It looks like that the British network einstein.tv and the FIDE may open negotiations this month for a reunified world chess championship. The championship was split in 1993 when Garry Kasparov left the FIDE to start his own failed league. Kasparov claims the world championship left with him, while the FIDE claims he abdicated by refusing to play nice with others. Kasparov lost the championship last year to Kramnik. Einstein.TV is milking the publicity while the FIDE says we are meeting but no comment. Wood pushers like me are probably better off leaving the politics to the people who can't stand each other and sticking to the internet chessclub, the free chess servers or simply email chess.
posted by KirkJobSluder on Apr 30, 2002 - 2 comments