THE STRONG MAKE THE JOURNEY, THE WEAK FAIL AND THE WISE LEAD THE WAY

Royal College Scrabble has in the recent years been a fierce contender at both the national and international level, the team has progressed to an extent where the Royal College A Team is stronger than any other national youth team. The development of the game in Royal has led to an increase of highly ranked players at the World Youth Championships and the first Champion to bring the coveted crown to Sri Lanka was none other than Royalist Aabid Ismail. In conjunction players of the likes of Janul De Silva and Qays Sangani consistently achieved highly and together the Royal team has always made significant contributions to advance Sri Lanka’s current winning streak of Best Team. (Currently it stands at three years in a row and counting).  As such the Scrabblers of Royal College viewed it as their bounden duty to give back to the game. Currently the path towards becoming a top Scrabbler is hard and many players quit before ever making the international level. Royal Scrabble sought a solution to this in the form of a new publication, IMPOSSIBLE IMPROBABLE. Comprising of three different segments, the publication contained three key regions of Scrabble expertise, Word Learning, Strategy and Practical Implementation. The publication was aided by international players including current World Champion Akshay Bhandarkar and included a complete set of top rated games with expert analysis. The publication was released at the All Island Age Group Championship which was a much awaited event on the Scrabble Calendar and the publication gathered immediate publicity as the value of it was clearly apparent. The positive feedback of the players was appreciated as the new forays of Royal Scrabble included the usage of compact discs as a medium of teaching and this has never been previously implemented in Scrabble. The Publication is also revolutionary in the sense that it is the first publication Sri Lanka has published and is on the wake of many triumphs of Sri Lankan Scrabble. The Royal Scrabblers will continue to try and develop the digital publication and retains the pride that dozens of players without access to proper training and support will now be able to improve with our publication.

Topping off the icing on the cake, The tournament itself was won by Royalist Janul De Silva, making it the fourth time a Royalist has become U-18 Champion and the first time a player has managed to place first twice. The tournament was continuously lead by the Janul, Aabid duo and fellow Scrabblers Qays and Pasindu were always within striking range. The two Royalists unfortunately played in the sixth round and  a hard fought match resulted in Aabid having to be content with fourth due to lower margins. Qays and Pasindu overcame early losses with some excellent play to end seventh and fifth respectively. In the junior division Mohamed Muaz managed to clinch sixth place while Kavindu Malawarachchi had to be content with fourteenth due to a lower margin.

Another great achievement for this year was Aabid’s second place at this year nationals. As the defending champion Aabid played some excellent games of Scrabble and had to be content with second with a nailbiting finish.

The most important event on the Royal Scrabble Calendar, the Royal Thomian Encounter was held on the 1^st of September this year. Hosted by Royal College Scrabble, the Encounter was the seventh consecutive Encounter with the tally standing at 4-2 in Royals favour. And this year the Royal Team did not hesitate to chalk up yet another win making the tally 5-2. The Royal team lead by Janul De Silva along with Vice Captain Qays Sangani was able to outwit the Thomians in the battle of words with a final score of 14-11. Janul, Qays and Pasindu three seniors of the team delivered and managed to gain twelve wins between themselves, with Janul winning all five games and Qays and Pasindu winning four and three respectively. Debuting in the A team Kavindu and Rashad both managed to gain a win for Royal. Not only the A team but the B team too performed extremely well with both Nishan and Muaz managing to win all five of their games. Simultaneously Senuka, Musharraf and Thehan managed to rack up four, three and two wins respectively ensuring a more than comfortable tally of 19-6. The bond between the two schools was apparent at the end of the day when both Royalist and Thomian cheered for one another in unison and the victory was accepted with the same face as of the defeat. As a Scrabbler is not limited by the bounds of his strength it is truly a game played in the mind, where the youngest player can rise to the top through hard work and determination it was both pleasing and a just reward to view the development in the junior team and both teams will continue to achieve at both a national and international level.