The first UK Open Scrabble Championship in five years has been won by a man from Oxfordshire.
Harshan Lamabadusuriya, a 45-year-old paediatrician from Abingdon, claimed the title and the £500 prize in the 27-game championship.
He secured victory with two rounds to spare, finishing with a record of 21 wins and just six defeats.
He said: "The diversity in this room in terms of age, occupation, country, ethnicity, continents is unbelievable.
"The one thing that we have in common is the love of this wonderful game.
"The one thing that’s better than the game is the community. It’s an incredible community."
The three-day main event, held in Reading, was the centrepiece of an eight-day Scrabble extravaganza from January 3 to January 10.
The event attracted nearly 100 players, with some travelling from the USA, Ireland, and Hong Kong.
It was the first major tournament in the UK to officially use the new CSW24 word list, allowing words such as 'covid', 'rona', 'fam', 'unmute', and 'zoomers' to be played.
Tournament organiser and director, James Burley, said: "It is great to be able to bring people together to play the game they love.
"This game has created a community, lifelong friendships, and even marriages.
"It is very important to continue to bring people together over shared passions such as these."
Among the words played to win the tournament, Mr Lamabadusuriya extended the word 'ba' to make the nine-letter word 'backstory'.
He also scored 645 points in one game against American Bob Linn.
Other high-scoring moves included 'chickens' played across two triple word score spaces, by Amy Byrne from Edinburgh, for 122 points, and 'cabbages', played by Fiona Titcombe from Hampshire, scoring 167.
Ms Byrne said: "It was a very enjoyable and well organised tournament.”
The highest game score came from author Barry Grossman, who racked up 683 points in his round 13 game.
The second division was won by Paul Cousins from Bristol, who finished with 20 wins out of 27.
Ellie Mackin, a blind player who uses Braille tiles in her games, finished 14th in the event having started 28th, and received a prize for the highest performance above her start rating.
The event was hosted for the first time by the Holiday Inn, Reading South.
Sales and marketing manager, David Berry, said: "It was a great honour and pleasure to host players over the world at this fantastic tournament.
"We look forward to welcoming them again next year."
One player, Rick Blakeway, added: “It was an excellent tournament, superbly organised. I would definitely come again.”
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