KOPIKO Thailand World Master Open 1999 Crossword

 When discussing about this KOPIKO Thailand World Master Open 1999 Crossword Tournament, what was being remembered was the round 27 game between Nigel Richards and Mark Nyman having played a total of nine bingos between them with a final score of 534-483, an amazing combined score of 1017!

Cheah Siu Hean of Singapore recounted this explosive match as the "Game of the Gods":

"No collection of session reports would be complete without it; and watching this game as it was played altered my perception of what was possible at this game. It was played between Mark Nyman and Nigel Richards in the Queen Sirikit Convention Centre in Bangkok in January 1999. Both Mark and Nigel have substantial mentions in Stefan Fatsis' Word Freak, and Stefan would doubtless have mentioned this game had he been there, but he wasn't, so he didn't.

The game was played in the 27th round of the Thai Open, which has since been merged into the annual and highly prestigious King's Cup. Nigel had already ensured a spot in the final. Mark had had a bad start but had won 11 straight games before losing one to Nigel and so needed to win this last game to make the finals; it was therefore a high stakes game. In 1999, this event was played to 22 minutes a side, although it is now 25. The dictionary in use was the combined British-American dictionary known as SOWPODS. Challenges did not attract a penalty and in any case no phonies were played in this game, although Mark, as I recall, challenged every bonus.

By this time the 5,000-strong students' divisions had finished playing so spectators were clustered in a throng around Table 1, where this game was played. It was therefore claustrophobic and noisy at the table, especially when the spectators started to applaud every play, and understandably so. The applause and buzz were such that other players hurried through their final games to see what was happening.

Mark opened with 8d WROTE and Nigel promptly played h7 BEGULFED. In all 9 of the 18 plays made were bonuses. Each player consumed about 15 minutes of their time.

 Mark played 13g HEARTENS, n7 NOVELISM, o1 CLIQUEY (Y was a blank), m1 JINGOES and 3b ANESTRUM. Nigel played h7 BEGULFED, j7 TRIHEDRA, d5 FATWAING and finally b2 JANIZARS (the J was a blank). A lesser player might have settled for TZARINAS.

Mark won the game, and the finals 2-1, but even at the time that seemed almost irrelevant."

Furthermore, Mr. Phil Appleby had the best description and account of the game:

"The following report appeared on a Thai website in 1999... Both players played nine moves, which meant that Nigel lost with an average score of 53.7.

Game of all times?

...here is a game which, I think, will go down in the annals of Scrabble as one of the greatest games of all times. It was played in the 29th round of the masters category of the multi- level KOPIKO Thailand World Master Open 1999 Crossword on Jan 20 to 24.

Mark Nyman from Britain won the game against New Zealander Nigel Richards, top qualifier for the finals, by virtue of his unassailable lead. In less than 10 minutes, Nyman, world champion in 1993, and Richards produced a remarkable game which attracted everyone's attention. They scored nine bingos between them, five by super-cool Nyman, and four by imperturbable and staid Richards.

Nyman started the game by playing WROTE for 24 points. Richards, whose rack was BGULFED, immediately played BEGULFED for the first bingo of the game, off the E of WROTE for 69 points.

Nyman answered with his own bingo by playing his rack of HARTENS to the second E of BEGULFED to form HEARTENS for 82 points. Richards then played WOVE for 20 points, and Nyman played NOVELISM straddling the S of HEARTENS for 80 points. In response Richards played FATWAING using the W of WROTE to spawn his rack of FATAING into his second bingo.

Nyman was hungry for more bingos and hardly breaking a sweat, he completed a hattrick by playing CLIQUEy on the triple word score red line, using the blank tile to represent Y for a bone-crunching score of 132 points and a lead of 149 points (318-169).

With a rack of TRIHEDA, the ever-alert Richards instinctively punched down his third bingo, using the R of HEARTENS to form TRIHEDRA for 72 points and cutting down Nyman's lead to 77 points. After a short word each from the two Scrabble supremos, the score stood at 334-278 in favour of Nyman.

Nyman played yet another bingo, JINGOES, in his next move for a score of 85 points, while Richards with OUKAIDO on his rack, played DOOK for 28 points. Nyman then moved ahead to 440 points with IMPALA and he looked set for late runaway victory. The fire with which the game had started appeared to be dying out. In his next draw from the tile bag, however, Richards picked a blank.

The game hot up again when Nyman played his fifth bingo ANESTRUM, and boosting his score to a seemingly untouchable 534 points.

One of the greatest Scrabble games ended with Richards' fourth bingo, a demonic jANIZARS, using the blank to represent J for 122 points with the mighty Z falling on a triple-letter premium square. The final score read 534-483 with the game going to Nyman. But what a game it was! With nine divine bingos, a combined score of 1,017 points and a loser's score of 483, it looked like it was played by the gods!"

Having read all of these stories, I tried to reboard the game and I think these were the sequence of moves:

Check out the move by move here.