ayo encore

After ending Day 2 on a roll, Josephine Mayo (shown in photo) maintained her momentum to claim Day 3 and the overall honours in the Yearend 3-Day Tournament. 

The day at the Hilltop Gardens in Naxxar had not started all too well as she lost the first game to Nicky Vella Laurenti by just 4 points. Four games later, Mayo got her revenge, beating the top seed of the day by just one point.

Coupled with Laurenti's shock defeat to the fast-improving and eventual ratings prize winner Bryan Priest a round earlier, this narrowest of wins allowed Mayo to cement her position at the very top of the table alone on six wins out of seven, and to strengthen her lead in the overall weighted classification with a 76% win rate, 6 clear of runner-up Laurenti, who edged past third-placed Mario Saliba. 

Margareth Weaver, who started playing competitive Scrabble while a resident at Hilltop Gardens, was the best newcomer of the day, playing all seven games in her first ever Scrabble tournament and managing her first win as well. 

For Mayo, there was not one but two cherries on her Christmas cake. Thanks to her playing success, she climbed up five places, from 15th to 10th, on the National Player Ratings List.

Chapeau!

(text by Nicky Vella Laurenti, photo production by John Chew, photo selection & formatting by Bryan Priest)