Leon Belony spells his way to the spoils

Apr 29, 2013 Sports

GASP Open Scrabble Championship

They say that sometimes words get in the way but for Leon Belony, who has been struggling to clinch the prime podium spot for most of the year, words flowed freely and he was able to amass 5 points and a positive spread of 530 to capture the honours when the Guyana Association of Scrabble Players (GASP) staged the GASP Open Championship at the Malteenoes Sports Club, Thomaslands yesterday afternoon.

Belony (right) is all concentration on his way to a decisive win over Krakowsky

James Krakowsky finished in the second place after amassing 4 points and a positive spread of 330 while Abigail McDonald closed off the podium spots with 4 games and a positive spread of 162.
Belony lost his first game to Colin Chichester by a close spread of 6 but rebounded to register wins against McDonald (79), Michael Benjamin (191), Wayne Cave (92), Krakowsky (193) and Orlando Michael (71). Krakowsky’s second place position came at the expense of Cave (81), Grace Hercules (150), Orlando Michael (91) and Maurice Munro (207). He also relinquished a game to McDonald (7) in the very first game.
The unpredictability of the game was underlined after Orlando Michael started at a brisk pace defeating Hercules (128), Munro (87) and Chichester (47) to go off at the lunch interval on an impeccable 3 points and a positive spread of 262.
His luck ran out in the post lunch session and he conceded games to Krakowsky (91), Cave (58) and Belony (71). Grace Hercules was also in full flow in her game against Benjamin and registered the largest bingo of the day, ‘fixtures’ which was a double triple play which netted her 221 points.
She might have clinched the prize for the top player outside of the top 10 but the organizers decided beforehand to only award the top three players.
The players will rest for a few days but return on May 1 for the May Day Open at the very venue. In between, they will congregate at the Maltenoes Sports Club on Wednesday for practice sessions. Further, the executive committee of the GASP is currently putting the modalities in place for the National Scrabble championships due to get underway soon.