The World Scrabble Championship 1997 was the fourth World Scrabble Championship

World Scrabble Championship

The World Scrabble Championship is the most prestigious title in competitive English-language Scrabble. It has been held every second year since 1991. The current World Scrabble Champion is Nigel Richards...

. The winner was Joel Sherman of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Format

The World Scrabble Championship 1997 was held in the Stouffer Renaissance Mayflower Hotel

Mayflower Hotel

The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, known locally as simply The Mayflower, is a historic hotel in downtown Washington, DC located on Connecticut Avenue NW, two blocks north of Farragut Square . It is the largest luxury hotel in the U.S. capital and the longest continuously operating hotel in the...

, Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, and was the second to be held in the United States. Eighty players played a Swiss tournament

Swiss system tournament

A Swiss-system tournament is a commonly used type of tournament where players or teams need to be paired to face each other for several rounds of competition. This type of tournament was first used in a Zurich chess tournament in 1895, hence the name "Swiss system". The Swiss system is used when...

 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 the Milton Bradley Company

Milton Bradley Company

The Milton Bradley Company is an American game company established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the largest game manufacturer in the United States, and in 1987, it purchased Selchow and Righter,...

, 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.

Results

After the initial Swiss tournament, the top two players were Joel Sherman

Joel Sherman

Joel Sherman , nicknamed "GI Joel", is a top American Scrabble expert and former world champion. He is chronicled in Stefan Fatsis's book Word Freak, in Eric Chaikin's film Word Wars, and in Scott Petersen's film Scrabylon. He is also mentioned in Collins Gem's reference book...

 (16 wins, winning spread +829) and Matt Graham (15 wins, winning spread +993). Notably, all the top four players were representing the United States. This was particularly surprising since the WSC uses the SOWPODS

SOWPODS

SOWPODS is the word list used in tournament Scrabble in most countries except the USA, Thailand and Canada. The term SOWPODS is derived from the anagram of the two acronyms OSPD and OSW, these being the original two official dictionaries used in various parts of the world at the time...

 wordlist, which includes many words not present in the traditional American wordlist, TWL 98.

Graham took the first game of the finals 409-334 but lost a 387-363 squeaker in the second after missing BOWNED.

In game three, Graham made another error when he played HERB instead of BERTH and Sherman took another close game, 419-405.

In game four, Sherman got off to a big lead and began shutting down the board. Graham took a chance on FLEXERS for 101 points, but Sherman successfully challenged it off. Graham drew a rack full of consonants. Sherman won the game and was crowned World Scrabble Champion, after losing in the final two years earlier.

Complete results

Position	Name	Country	Win-Loss	Spread	Prize (USD United States dollar The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies.... )
1	Sherman, Joel	United States	16-5	+829	25,000
2	Graham, Matt	United States	15-6	+993	10,000
3	Edley, Joe Joe Edley Joseph Edley is a professional Scrabble player and author, and the first player to win the National Scrabble Championship three times.-Pre-Scrabble life:...	United States	15-6	+915	5,000
4	Felt, Robert Robert Felt Robert Felt was a computer programmer, USCF-rated chess Expert, Tennessee Junior chess champion, and champion Scrabble player.Born in Memphis, he entered the University of Chicago in 1971 and tested out of so many requirements that he was awarded Junior status...	United States	14-7	+814	3,000
5	Nyman, Mark Mark Nyman Mark Nyman is a Scrabble player originally from London, England now resident in Cheshire. At the end of2002, he was rated 205 and was top-ranked in the ABSP ratings. As at October 14th 2010 he is rated 208...	England	14-7	+741	2,000
6	Boyd, Kendall	New Zealand	14-7	+401	1,000
7	Byers, Russell	England	14-7	+396	800
8	Bhandarkar, Akshay	Bahrain	14-7	+353	600
9	Logan, Adam Adam Logan Adam Logan is a research mathematician and a top Canadian Scrabble player. He won the World Scrabble Championship in 2005, beating Pakorn Nemitrmansuk of Thailand 3-0 in the final. He is the only player to have won the Canadian Scrabble Championship three times...	Canada	13-8	+1064	400
10	Cappelletto, Brian Brian Cappelletto Brian Cappelletto is a Scrabble player who represents the United States in international competition. He was the runner-up at the inaugural World Scrabble Championship in 1991 and won the event in 2001...	United States	13-8	+946	300
11	Boys, David	World Champion	13-8	+935	250
12	Acton, David	England	13-8	+517	250
13	Grant, Jeff	New Zealand	13-8	+478	250
14	Saldanha, Allan	United Kingdom	13-8	+234	250
15	Tiekert, Ron	United States	13-8	-27	250
16	Okosagah, Sammy	Nigeria	12-9	+816	150
17	Nderitu, Patrick Gitonga	Kenya	12-9	+750	150
18	Warusawitharana, Missaka	Sri Lanka	12-9	+709	150
19	Fernando, Naween Tharanga	Sri Lanka	12-9	+588	150
20	Holgate, John	Australia	12-9	+556	150
21	Downer, Penny	United Kingdom	12-9	+408
22	Fisher, Andrew	United Kingdom	12-9	+382
23	Thobani, Shafique	Kenya	12-9	+85
24	Cleary, Paul Stephen	Australia	12-9	+82
25	Ndungu, Stanley Njoroge	Kenya	12-9	+16
26	Williams, Gareth	Wales	12-9	-179
27	Spate, Clive	United Kingdom	11½-9½	+344
28	Awowade, Femi	England	11-10	+711
29	Onyeonwu, Ifeanyi	Nigeria	11-10	+613
30	Yawo, Anaga Takyi	Ghana	11-10	+545
31	Perrins, Esther	Australia	11-10	+377
32	Pui, Cheng Wui	Malaysia	11-10	+305
33	Sukhumrattanaporn, Charnwit	Thailand	11-10	+94
34	Gruzd, Steven	South Africa	11-10	+63
35	Addo, Joshua	Ghana	11-10	+48
36	Wapnick, Joel	Canada	11-10	+27
37	Carter, Gerald	Thailand	11-10	-439
38	Daniel, Robin Pollock	Canada	11-10	-503
39	Hahn, Albert	Canada	11-10	-719
40	Sigley, Michael	New Zealand	10½-10½	+516
41	Webb, Mark	England	10½-10½	+127
42	Klaphajone, Jakkrit	Thailand	10-11	+606
43	Blom, Roger	Australia	10-11	+520
44	Hersom, Randy	United States	10-11	+511
45	Mead, Jeremiah	United States	10-11	+507
46	Schonbrun, Lester	United States	10-11	+379
47	Geary, Jim	United States	10-11	+218
48	Khan, Rashid Ateeq	Pakistan	10-11	-333
49	Luebkemann, John	United States	10-11	-400
50	Elbourne, Peter	Malta	10-11	-435
51	Grayson, John	Wales	10-11	-447
52	Khoshnaw, Karl	Kurdistan-Iraq	10-11	-582
53	Jonah, J.J.	Israel	10-11	-645
54	Chinnaiyah, Suresh	Sri Lanka	9½-11½	+124
55	Mensah, Edem Kafui	Ghana	9½-11½	-296
56	Butler, Lynne	New Zealand	9½-11½	-745
57	Lao, Armando	Philippines	9-12	+246
58	Lipton, Bob	United States	9-12	+12
59	Quek, Sim Ho	Singapore	9-12	-284
60	Raychbart, Paloma	Israel	9-12	-351
61	Lobo, Yvonne	Bahrain	9-12	-413
62	Saldanha, Norbert	United Arab Emirates	9-12	-551
63	Saliba, Mario	Malta	9-12	-586
64	Davids, Gerald	South Africa	9-12	-643
65	Tan, Kiat Hing Austin	Singapore	9-12	-769
66	Nanavati, Jim	Canada	9-12	-964
67	Ul-Haq, Assad	Qatar	8-13	+306
68	Abdullah, Raja Fuadin	Malaysia	8-13	+137
69	Salih, Sala Fadl Mohamed	Saudi Arabia	8-13	-47
70	Pray, Linda Hazel	Oman	8-13	-234
71	Chune, Albert	Trinidad and Tobago	8-13	-828
72	Nakai, Ken	Japan	8-13	-865
73	Clenaghan, Nuala	Ireland	8-13	-872
74	Meghan, Eileen	Éire	8-13	-891
75	Springer, Robert	France	8-13	-1097
76	Mamadou, Wone	Kuwait	7-14	-755
77	Paolella, Libero	Canada	7-14	-862
78	Sandu, Dan Laurentiu	Romania	5-16	-1528
79	Gibbons, Randall	Guyana	4-17	-913
80	Nanayakkara, Harischandra	Seychelles	3-18	-2141

• FINALS:
• Game 1: Graham 409 - Sherman 334
• Game 2: Sherman 387 - Graham 363
• Game 3: Sherman 419 - Graham 405
• Game 4: Sherman 410 - Graham 324