World Scrabble Championship 1997
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World Scrabble Championship 1997
Won by Joel Sherman from 80 players
20th November 1997 - 24th November 1997
Held in Washington, D.C.
Sponsored by Hasbro
[edit] Format
The World Scrabble Championship 1997 was held in the Stouffer Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, Washington, and was the second to be held in the United States. Eighty players played a Swiss tournament of twenty-one games each, with each player playing seven games on each of the first three days. The two top players from this tournament then played a best-of-five game final to decide who would be World Scrabble Champion 1997.
Prize money was provided by Milton-Bradley, owned by the tournament's sponsor Hasbro, to a total value of $50,100. The winner received $25,000, the runner-up $10,000 and the remainder of the top twenty players received prizes down to £150.
This was the first World Championship to have featured a live web site, a copy of which is now archived at the main [WSC web site].
[edit] Results
After the initial Swiss tournament, the top two players were Joel Sherman (16 wins, winning spread +829) and Matthew Graham (15 wins, winning spread +993). Notably, all the top four players were representing the USA. This was particularly surprising since the WSC uses the SOWPODS wordlist, which includes many words not present in the traditional American wordlist, TWL 98.
The final was to be a best of five, and Graham won the first game 409-334. Sherman took the second game 387-363, and the third 419-405. The final game was relatively comfortable win for Sherman, 410-324. By three games to one, Joel Sherman was crowned World Scrabble Champion 1997.
