Collins, McDonald set for wordy finish

Defending champion Fred Collins is set to exchange words with Abigail McDonald in a best-of-five playoff as he seeks to repeat his performance last year in the Guyana Association of Scrabble Players (GASP) National Cham-pionships.

At the end of the preliminary round yesterday, Collins closed with 21 points and a spread of 2,717 while McDonald sits one point behind and has a spread of 1,667.

Fred Collins makes a move during Sunday’s preliminaries in the GASP National Championships. (Orlando Charles photo)

Collins picked up where he left off on Saturday when he finished with 13 points and a spread of 1,777 to show his superiority in the classic word game. McDonald who could have only mustered 12 points the previous day dug deep into the bag to overtake Moen Gafoor who was looking set to give the champion a run in the playoffs.

Gafoor could not have found the right combination of words to carry on his good form from the opening day last week and finished in t of 1,028. James Krakowsky was third with 20 points just like McDonald, but had a lower spread with 1,028.

Fifth place went to Orlando Michael who had 19 games and a spread of 1,059 with Evian Moore and Floyd Carmichael finishing sixth and seventh respectively with 18 points a piece.

Moore had a spread of 868 which was 36 more than Carmichael’s.
Leon Bellamy finished in the eighth spot scoring 17 points and a spread of 1,299. Kay Ramnarine also had 17 points but 96 on spreads while Colin Chichester rounded off the top ten with 16 points and a spread of 864.

The playoff between Collins and McDonald will be contested at a date and venue to be announced by the GASP. Up for grabs in the tournament is the winner’s trophy and $50,000, compliments of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports.