By Aaron Chong
The 2011 MSA Nationals was held in Penang at the CityBayview Hotel in downtown Georgetown.
Players all the way from central KL came to join the camaraderie besides showing their support toward the MSA. This was also a crucial tournament for Scrabble players as the two Malaysian representatives would be selected immediately after the competition – one being the champion of the tournament and the other being the highest rated player post-tournament.
A total of twenty players took part in the Masters section while the Intermediate category witnessed 9 players.
Before the nationals, I under-performed in two tournaments – CNY Tournament and ICT Penang Open to realized that I had plenty of revision to do.
Although I won the Nationals last year, I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to defend my title with the strong field of players present in the tournament. There was Yeo Kien Hung, who had done very well in the ICT Penang Open and had markedly improved in his games due to his daily cardboxing exercises. Then there were the Subang kids, Khoo Beng Way, Ramaraj, Chang Ching Wei and Sean Chung; Pui Cheng Wui, Alex Tan and Martin Teo who could be potential title contenders too.
MSA had the pleasure of Nigel Richards volunteering as TD (tournament direction) for the two-day event. At roughly 9 a.m., Nigel finished tabulating the pairings. Armed with a stack of Jurong Green scoresheets and the blue rack that I’ve won from a tournament in Brisbane, I took a deep breath and began the first game of the competition.