Floyd Carmichael finally nets a win in GASP ‘Scrabble Scramble’ shutdown

Dec 16, 2008 Sports

By Michael Benjamin
It seemed as though second place was an allotted position for Floyd Carmichael, evident from the last three tournaments when he retained this position with alarming monotony.

Last Sunday, the promising scrabble player defied the odds to cart off the top prize of eight thousand dollars ($8,000) and the prestigious ‘Scrabble Scramble’ trophy when the Guyana Association of Scrabble Players (GASP) closed its season with the staging of that tournament at the Chamber of Commerce headquarters, Waterloo Street, South Cummingsburg, Sunday last.

The enterprising scrabble player chalked up 5, of his allotted 6 games and posted a positive spread of 553, to eclipse the performances of Colin ‘Chico’ Chichester, who finished with 5 games and a positive spread of 328 and Ulric ‘The Master’ Harris whose tally read, 5 games and a spread of 303. The persistent Carmichael added a bonus thousand dollars to his takings when he formed the most bingos (11).

Carmichael started the tournament on a positive note, defeating Carlton Murray by a massive spread of 129.
He then took care of Julian Skeete in the second round by a spread of 97 and then disposed of national champion, Fred Collins in similar fashion (117) before the players went off to lunch.

Chichester also enjoyed maximum success in the pre lunch period. He started with a win over R. O. Michael (83) then humiliated Curtis Liverpool by a spread of 103. Ulric Harris was his pre-lunch victim by a spread of 47.

Harris scraped home in his first two games against James Krakowsky (17) and Ovid Williams (11) before dropping his pre-lunch game to Chichester. He came out fighting in the post-lunch session with wins over Julian Skeete (89), Moen Gafoor (186) and Carmichael (47).

Maybe the first sign that it was Carmichael’s ‘moment in the sun,’ occurred in his first game after lunch against Chichester.

In this game, Carmichael found himself against the ropes after the tiles in the bag were exhausted and the score reading 375-283 in Chichester’s favour.

It was here that Carmichael called on his extensive vocabulary. Somehow, he managed to come up with the bingo ‘sighted,’ that earned him 81 points and improved his total to 364, falling short of Chichester’s total by a spread of 11. It was only after he was awarded the total on Chichester’s rack (14) that Carmichael could have breathed easy.

These were indeed crucial points that when added to Carmichael’s total, proved to be decisive as he managed to eclipse Chichester’s total by a mere 3 points. Krakowsky was not so lucky and suffered a 207 spread whipping in Carmichael’s penultimate game.

The nervous tic that had beset Carmichael in previous tournaments returned to haunt him in the final game against Harris. ‘The Master’ employed all his wiles to stop Carmichael’s progress by a spread of 47.

However, this setback proved to be inconsequential as by then, Carmichael had already established himself as the day’s top word former.

Meanwhile, acting President of GASP, Moen Gafoor lauded Carmichael’s win and attributed it to a high level of determination and perseverance.

He said that this was a sure indication of the strides the young players have made over the past year. Gafoor boasted that his executives, by dint of hard work, have hosted more tournaments this year than 2007.

He also feels that GASP has been able to generate a high level of awareness which resulted in several new faces in tournaments.

Gafoor intimated that the fact that GASP enjoyed representation at the World Scrabble Championships in Mumbai, India as well as the Tri-Nation tournament in Barbados, speaks volumes of the hard work of his executive and the progress made in the establishment of the sport.

“We have big plans for 2009, all aimed at raising the quality of the game while encouraging new membership,” Gafoor concluded.