Friday, August 24, 2007 12:44 AM CDT
Local Scrabble guru gears up for world contest
By NATHANIEL WEST, Staff Writer
nwest@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — Football trophies hug the walls of Marty Gabriel’s basement, like gilded soldiers marching in formation.
But his competitive concentration these days is dialed in on a slightly more cerebral game: Scrabble.
“As a kid, I was a jock,” said Gabriel, 55. “So this was like whole new thing for me.”
Now a Scrabble veteran ranked No. 2 in Illinois, Gabriel’s wits, vocabulary and spelling skills will be put to the ultimate test this fall, when the Charleston resident travels to India for the World Scrabble Championship.
Gabriel, a retired school social worker from Charleston, is one of 15 members of the U.S. team traveling to Mumbai, India to vie for the world title Nov. 9-12.
This will mark Gabriel’s first trip to the world championship.
The challenge, especially to American players, is adapting to the 30,000 or so words — mostly archaic British terms — that are allowed at the international venue but not in U.S. tournaments, Gabriel said.
In fact, he’s opting out of Scrabble tournaments stateside between now and the world championship. Instead, he’s practicing weekly with Nick Ball, a member of the British team who lives in Champaign and coaches Gabriel on unfamiliar words.
Gabriel secured his place on the U.S. team during a qualifying tournament in July in Champaign.
He was encouraged to try out by Ranji Adukia of Charleston, who belongs to the Charleston Scrabble Club. The Adukia family is traveling to India in November and plans to assist Gabriel while there.
“We should be so proud somebody from our area is going,” said Adukia.
A fixture at U.S. national Scrabble championships, Gabriel said he decided to aim for the world platform this year because of the Adukias; his affiliation with Ball; and the close proximity of the qualifying tournament.
“And I’m representing my country,” said Gabriel. “That’s pretty cool.”
According to World Scrabble Championship officials, a purse of $30,000 is up for grabs among the top 15 finishers, with the winner receiving $15,000.
The most recent U.S. world champion was Brian Cappelletto, a Chicago stock trader who claimed the honor in 2001 in Las Vegas.
Cappelletto, whom Gabriel considers a mentor, is still the top-ranked player in Illinois. “He’s like the Bobby Fischer of Scrabble,” Gabriel said.
Gabriel hopes to fare better in India than at the 2006 National Scrabble Championship a year ago in Phoenix. In first place after 12 rounds, Gabriel made the mistake of chit-chatting between games, which broke his focus.
“I choked,” he said.
And the world championship isn’t the only international prestige sought by Gabriel. He’s currently one of only three people on Earth to score more than 700 points in two different sanctioned Scrabble games (even top players normally score only in the 400s).
Another 700-point game would give him the lone hat trick and the unofficial presidency of a different kind of “700 Club.”
Contact Nathaniel West at nwest@jg-tc.com or 238-6860.
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vinay_42 wrote on Aug 24, 2007 12:25 PM: