ESPAC(hampionship) 2019

Malta is one of twenty-eight nations taking part in the World English Scrabble Players Association Championship (WESPAC) 2019, being held in Goa, India in mid-October. Proudly flying the Maltese flag is the Malta Scrabble Club whose top three players, Theresa Brousson, David Delicata and Charles Micallef (seen in photos from bottom to top), will be among well over a hundred contestants in the invitational Main Event. 

MICALLEF is somewhat of a rookie to elite international Scrabble. After starting out in competitive Scrabble just over ten years ago, the former chess player and champion has made great strides, going on to win his first national title in 2016, A good showing in WESPAC 2019 would constitute a new height for this rising star. 

DELICATA is the most experienced member of the Malta Team, having played in the World Scrabble Champions eight times previously and achieved his best result in the 2017 edition in Kenya with a 19th placing out of 119 participants. The six-time National Champion has shown his mettle in international competition on many occasions, including the Early Bird tournament of this year's Malta International Scrabble Open, which he won undefeated. 

Another seasoned world championship competitor, BROUSSON (nee Camilleri) can also count on an awesome arsenal of words that enabled her to clinch a record twelfth national title earlier this year. She will be looking to better her performance in the 2014 championship in London, when in placing fourteenth she repeated the feat achieved more than twenty years earlier in the same city and in the first ever World Championship by the late Peter Elbourne.

Between the 16th and 19th of October, Brousson, Delicata and Micallef, reigning national champion, runner-up and third placed respectively, will face four days and thirty-two rounds of stiff opposition and nerve-wracking situations where they will have to mull the best move in many a close and tight game. The three reps will support one other in these tense moments as much as they may face off against each other in a championship that does not follow a teams format.

The participation of Malta's Amazing Three in WESPAC 2019 is being partly sponsored by the Malta Scrabble Club. Their progress in this highly prestigious event can be followed in real time here. 

(penned & published by Nicky Vella Laurenti, photos credit: John Chew)

Venue: Peddem Indoor Sports Stadium, North Goa, Goa, India