This Year's World Scrabble Champion Blew Everyone Away With a Three-Letter Word

The 2023 World Scrabble Championship, held last month in Las Vegas, was an instant classic. The best-of-seven finals went the distance, with tense games, obscure words, strategic genius, and a Scrabble-record audience of 900 watching on Twitch. The winner was David Eldar, 33, of Melbourne, Australia, who defeated Harshan Lamabadusuriya, 44, a pediatrician who lives in Southmoor, England, to capture the $10,000 first prize. To reach the finals, they topped a field of 134 players from 29 countries--from Poland to Pakistan, Singapore to Sierra Leone--in a four-day, 32-game tournament. Game 6 of the finals was hailed by Scrabble experts as one of most exciting high-stakes games ever. I discussed it online with the two competitors. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Note: The event used the international-English Scrabble dictionary, which includes substantially more words than the lexicon governing competitive play in North America. To avoid confusion, words acceptable only in the international word list are marked with a #. Stefan Fatsis: David, you trail three games to two and are up first in Game 6.