At 6th with 4-4card in the company of three others and spread of 344 at the start of round nine, Leo Capuno went over drive and win seven of the last eight games Sunday for a final 11-5 win-loss slate, “outspread” his closest rival from Department of Education to win the Baguio Day Scrabble Tournament at the Baguio Sports Development Office.
It was a great come back for the former World Scrabble Championship Philippine representative and his first victory in Baguio since competitive Scrabble was started in 2003 here.
The overseas Filipino worker returns to the Philippine after working for nearly 15 years in the Middle East.
He finished tied with Alexis Joyosa but went home with the champion’s purse due to his higher spread of 1,028 against the 512 of the latter.
Spread is the total of the difference of score against all the player’s opponents and serves as tiebreaker in cases of ties competitive Scrabble.
After round 8, Joyosa was leading at 6-2 along Tony Malonzo due to his higher spread of 455 against the retired 379 of the retired police colonel and now a full time lawyer. But Joyosa could only win five more games.
Melvin Dalangin matched his first day output of five wins and finished with 10-6 and a tournament best spread of 1,061 to take third place.
Another come backer, who was third in the La Trinidad Scrabble Tournament in 2004, Ashby Rivera, was only 4-4, 47 and good for sixth at the start of day two but strung up five more victories to finish at fourth place at 9-7, -25 spread.
Malonzo, the Philippine Scrabble scene’s most senior player, went three of eight to finish at fifth in the city backed, Baguio-Benguet Word Builders Club organized tournament that is part of the city’s celebration of its Charter Day and which was started in 2003.
The event was missed in 2020 until last year due to the Covi-19 pandemic. Pigeon Lobien
