The tension and silence hit you as you walk into the room hosting the WESPAC World Scrabble Championships – broken only by the shaking of the tile bag as competitors replace their tiles.
The championships are being held in a function room overlooking a harness-racing track in East Perth.
Faces are grim, brows furrowed and some fingers seem to tap out the word score of the tiles their owner is thinking of placing.
Amongst the 260 players from more than 38 countries, is Israeli competitor Evan Cohen who’s playing a few different games than the one on the board.
“I play Scrabble like I play poker – I gamble,” the linguistics lecturer said.
“And it often works.
“You try to make them feel uncomfortable either by playing a certain way; not doing anything illegal, but if you play quickly against a slow player it could make them feel uncomfortable.
“If you open up things that are extremely dangerous, then they start panicking, that sort of thing.
“I rely more heavily on tactics and psychology and things like that because my word knowledge is inferior to the top players, there’s no question.”
The 47-year-old is playing in his sixth championship and came 15th last time.
This year he has brought company – his husband Omri Rosenkranzt who’s playing in his first tournament.
“It’s especially special for me this time because I’m playing with my husband who’s also playing in the world’s, so it’s really nice for us,” he said.
At first Evan Cohen is polite about his husband’s skill level, although a breath later, he’s willing to spill.
“I’m a better player, yeah,” he said with a smile and laugh.
“He’s not [standing] here, so I can say that.”
Leading the tournament – at the time of writing – is David Weigand from Portland, Oregan.
He is one of America’s best players – he could be first or second, but he’s not sure.
He has been playing competitively for 25 years.
“I’ve always liked puzzles and words. [There's] just something about the nature of the game and building words, solving problems on an individual level just works well with my brain,” he said.
“My best word ever was probably snapdragon.
“Not a lot of points, but major style points for a ten-letter word.
“A-G-O was on the board so I wrapped it around that.”
The mortgage underwriter is feeling calm under the pressure of leading so far.
“I think I’m playing well, I’m drawing some good tiles, just got to keep it up,” he said.
And despite other players, such as Evan Cohen, adding some extra dimensions to their game, he plays a fairly straight bat.
“It takes a lot of practise,” he said.
“You’ve got to learn the words and be able to remember them in the game and practise competition – I have some good sparring partners back home and I play them every week.
“There’s a little bit of gamesmanship sometimes, but mostly at this level you’re just trying to outplay your opponent and make the best of your tiles.”
David Weigand, who can count the remaining tiles as many of the top players do, isn’t in it for money although his largest prize purse was $25,000.
Usually he just breaks even with the travel and other expenses.
And he’s not fussed about new words such as obvs (for obvious), lolz, twerk, selfie, hashtag, and bromance now being accepted.
“Some of them are kind of goofy like obvs, it doesn’t really seem like it should be a word, but I don’t mind.
“It’s like a game piece, so I’ll use it if it comes up.”
The WESPAC World Scrabble Championships finish this Sunday when the world’s best wordsmith will be decided taking home $10,000.
