Khaleej Times Online Sports News dated 21st May 2009

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Lobo Wins Scrabble Tournament

21 May 2009

DUBAI - Selwyn Lobo clinched first place in the UAE qualifications for the Annual Inter-Gulf Scrabble tourney to be held in Bahrain on June 5 and 6, a press release said.

The eight qualifiers in order of rankings are: 1. Selwyn Lobo 2. Ronald Credo 3. Akshay Bhandarkar 4. Leo Capuno 5. Robins Magaki 6. Makbul Manji 7. Ralph Lobo 8. Nikhil Soneja.

Lobo won the Pre-Gulf scrabble Tournament held at the Marco Polo Hotel, Dubai was awarded a painting by Marian Lishman of Azureart. Prizes were also sponsored by Mohamed Al Awadhi of Wildpeeta.

The competition saw some of the best players of different nationalities from Dubai, Sharjah and Al Ain trying to qualify for the Bahrain event. The UAE Scrabble Group has an excellent chance of clinching the Gulf scrabble Tourney this year.

Besides Selwyn who is an ex-Gulf champion and nine times UAE winner, they have Akshay, a former Gulf, Bahrain, UAE champion and World No. 5, Ralph ex-Gulf and Oman champion, Robins Kenya no. 3, Leo and Ronald both champions of Philippines Scrabble Tourneys and last but not the least ‘dark horses’ Nikhil and Makbul.

The two top UAE players in the Gulf Tourney will qualify to represent UAE in the World Scrabble Championship to be held in Malaysia later this year. Zahid Sachak and Madhu Soneja will be the standbys for the UAE team.

The day-long contest attracted 25 scrabble enthusiasts. The highest game score was achieved by Ralph (569 points). The highest word score was DENTARIA (140 pts by Leo). Most bingos were placed by Akshay and Mak 17 in seven games.

For those wishing to participate in future Scrabble Tourneys in the UAE kindly contact Mak 0552926583, Nikhil 0506774729 or Selwyn 0506537992 or log on to uae-scrabble@googlegroups.com.