The road to the world Scrabble championship starts at SM City Sucat in Paranaque this weekend as some of the country’s best tile pushers including players from Baguio will be seeing action.
“I will be playing along with my wife,” announced Huub Luyk, who will be at the first of three legs of the Philippine Scrabble Caravan to be done in the three major island groups.
Luyk’s wife, Becky, said that she will join her Dutch husband in the tournament which will be first to select the country’s representative to the World English Scrabble Players Association Championship in July next year in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States.
The Luyks took a leave of absence from the Philippine Scrabble scene in 2018 after nearly 15 years of leading the Baguio-Benguet Scrabble scene and Huub even led the national association at some point.
Baguio’s top lady player Malou Coronacion will also see action in the two day, 16-round event, said Lear Jet dela Cruz of the Cebu Scrabble scene, who acts as secretariat for the event.
Baguio’s top player, William Caluza, however, will not be seeing action.
“Yes the three players have already enlisted but not Caluza,” said dela Cruz Friday.
He likewise said that the country’s top players like Mohammad Suma and Melvin Dalangin are joining for the PhP20,000 tip purse as well as old guns like Odette Rio, one time touted as the possible first Filipino world champion.
Suma won the last Scrabble tournament in Baguio in February 2019.
Dela Cruz in his Facebook page earlier posted: “Ilang tulog nalang and we’ll officially launch the 1st Leg of the Philippine Scrabble Caravan 2023 at SM City Sucat!”
Registration is PhP500 for 21 years and older players and those 20 years and younger will pay PhP250.
The first runner up gets Php 6,000.00, whil Php 4,000.00, Php 2,500.00, Php 1,500.00 and Php 1,000.00 will be given to the second to sixth placed players.
The last two legs will be held in Cebu for the Visayas and Mindanao, either in Iligan or Butuan, on January and March, respectively, next year. Pigeon Lobien