The World Scrabble Championship 2007 was held in the Taj President Hotel, Mumbai

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

, India between 9 November and 12 November. The winner was Nigel Richards

Nigel Richards (Scrabble)

Nigel Richards is a Scrabble player who represents New Zealand in international competition. He is the reigning World Champion and a three-time U.S. National Champion, the only player to have held both titles concurrently...

 of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

The tournament began with a 24-round Swiss tournament, whose top two players contested a best-of-five final.

Results

The preliminary stage involved 104 players, the largest number of players in WSC history, over 24 rounds, using the "Chew Pairing" system to select the draw for each round.

Nigel Richards beat Ganesh Asirvatham

Ganesh Asirvatham

Ganesh Asirvatham is an English language teacher from Klang, Selangor. He is a Scrabble player who represents Malaysia in international competition. He was the World Scrabble Championship 2007 runner-up. Ganesh is also the current Guinness World Record holder for the most Scrabble opponents played...

 of Malaysia 3-0 in the final. This was the first time either of them had reached the final. Ganesh was the number 1 rated player in the world at the time, and Nigel the form player had always been knocking on the door in majors and was a multiple winner of the Brand's Crossword Game King's Cup including 2007.

Nigel won the first game 412-316. He bingoed

Bingo (Scrabble)

Bingo is a slang term used in Scrabble when a player uses all seven of their own letters in one play. This also applies to use 8 or 9 tiles in a turn of 9-tile scrabble. Any player who does this receives an extra 50 points on top of what the word would normally score...

 VARSITy; Ganesh bingoed sERINGA. Nigel's opening play was GAVOT with the V on the centre star. During the game Ganesh missed the bingo OUTCRAWL.

Nigel won the second game 400-371. Ganesh took an early lead with AETHERS but had to exchange tiles twice, and although he caught up again with ANTIENTS and a late-game bingo DUPLiED, and Nigel only bingoed once with ODONAtE, Nigel won on the strength of the value he got out of the J, Q and X with JERBIL, QUOHOG and FAX.

Nigel wins the third game 499-470 and becomes New Zealand's first world champion. This game was a bingo-fest with Nigel's RECOPIES, EQuINIAS and OVERAPT to Ganesh's TRECKING, ADNATION, DIrTIEST and a triple-triple TAILLEUR. However, once again, Nigel's luck with drawing the high scoring letters saw him have the edge in a fitting finale.

Complete Results

Position	Name	Country	Win-Loss	Spread	Prize (USD United States dollar The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies.... )
1	Richards, Nigel	New Zealand	19-5	+1594	15,000
2	Asirvatham, Ganesh	Malaysia	18-6	+2501	6,000
3	Jighere, Wellington	Nigeria	18-6	+1635	3,000
4	Wapnick, Joel	Canada	17-7	+1075	2,000
5	Bhandarkar, Akshay	United Arab Emirates	16-8	+1056	1,000
6	Litunya, Patrick	Kenya	16-8	+845	900
7	Wee, Ming Hui Hubert	Singapore	16-8	+824	800
8	Adamson, Tim	United States	16-8	-363	700
9	Umujose, Emmanuel	Nigeria	15-9	+983	600
10	Oyekunle, Lanre	South Africa	15-9	+907	500
11	Eldar, David	World Youth Champion	15-9	+578
12	Ong, Suanne	Malaysia	15-9	+503
13	Okulicz, Edward	Australia	15-9	+263
14	Sukhumrattanaporn, Charnwit	Thailand	15-9	-103
15	Gipson, Helen	England	14½-9½	+376
16	Fisher, Andrew	Australia	14-10	+1154
17	Boys, David	Canada	14-10	+682
18	Panyasophonlert, Komol	Thailand	14-10	+542
19	Williams, Gareth	Wales	14-10	+419
20	Sulaiman, Mohammad	Pakistan	14-10	+414
21	Thevenot, Geoff	United States	14-10	+407
22	Warner, Howard	New Zealand	14-10	+365
23	Webb, David	England	14-10	+266
24	Kramer, Jim	United States	14-10	+198
25	Logan, Adam	World Champion	14-10	+140
26	Brousson, Theresa	Malta	14-10	-124
27	Rio, Odette Carmina	Philippines	13½-10½	+506
28	O'Laughlin, John	United States	13-11	+1050
29	Kantimathi, Sam	United States	13-11	+850
30	Gongolo, Michael	Kenya	13-11	+516
31	Fernando, Naween Tharanga	Australia	13-11	+371
32	Benedict, Nathan	United States	13-11	+333
33	Cheah, Siu Hean	Singapore	13-11	+322
34	Hovelmeier, Trevor Mark	South Africa	13-11	+272
35	Chakrabarti, Amit	United States	13-11	+207
36	Tamas, Adrian	Romania	13-11	+96
37	Hoekstra, Ron	Canada	13-11	+76
38	Carter, Gerald	Thailand	13-11	+75
39	Robertshaw, Phil	England	13-11	+5
40	Simmons, Allan	Scotland	13-11	-4
41	Lobo, Ralph	Oman	13-11	-80
42	Allan, Paul	Scotland	13-11	-363
43	Appleby, Phil	England	13-11	-538
44	Katz-Brown, Jason	United States	12-12	+692
45	Dennis, Di	England	12-12	+534
46	Kirk, Terry	England	12-12	+251
47	Saldanha, Dean	Canada	12-12	+248
48	Hingorani, Varisht	India	12-12	+214
49	Baker, Michael	United States	12-12	+167
50	Sujjayakorn, Panupol	Thailand	12-12	+165
51	Philpotts, Adam	England	12-12	+164
52	Berofsky, Evan	Canada	12-12	+158
53	Schellenberg, Mark	Canada	12-12	+100
54	Martin, Edward	England	12-12	-91
55	Lamabadusuriya, Harshan	England	12-12	-148
56	Saengsit, Weera	Thailand	12-12	-177
57	May, Christopher	Australia	12-12	-214
58	Iqbal, Wajid	Pakistan	12-12	-285
59	Martus, Teodoro	Philippines	12-12	-337
60	Ali, Mohammed Zafar	Bahrain	12-12	-580
61	Pratt, Daniel	United States	11½-12½	+69
62	Manase, Joshua Otieno	Kenya	11-13	+507
63	Grant, Jeff	New Zealand	11-13	+348
64	Gabriel, Marty	United States	11-13	+211
65	Kelly, Wayne	England	11-13	-66
66	Ikekeregor, Dennis	Nigeria	11-13	-149
67	Linn, Robert	United States	11-13	-258
68	Kenas, Mark	United States	11-13	-315
69	Credo, Ronald	Philippines	11-13	-319
70	Chow, Jie Ming Benjamin	Singapore	11-13	-346
71	Jackman, Bob	Australia	11-13	-356
72	Polatnick, Steve	United States	11-13	-452
73	Matsuda, Manabu	Japan	11-13	-975
74	Buddhdev, Anand	Netherlands	11-13	-1035
75	MacNeil, Rod	United States	11-13	-1090
76	Wachira, Francis	Kenya	10½-13½	-417
77	Charles, Leslie	Barbados	10-14	+102
78	Rodrigues, Sherwin	India	10-14	+11
79	Anthonius, Ferdy	Indonesia	10-14	-260
80	Chunkath, Mohan Verghese	India	10-14	-270
81	Wanniarachchi, Lakshan	Sri Lanka	10-14	-286
82	Delicata, David	Malta	10-14	-306
83	Butler, Lynne	New Zealand	10-14	-322
84	Delia, Jojo	Malta	10-14	-406
85	Kalumba, Paul Yandisha	Zambia	10-14	-443
86	Hemachandra, Sanath	Oman	10-14	-576
87	O'Neill, Shane	Wales	10-14	-950
88	Chakravarthy, Ranganathan	India	9-15	-8
89	Leah, Tony	Canada	9-15	-376
90	Craig, Joanne	New Zealand	9-15	-445
91	Amarasinghe, Asanka	Sri Lanka	9-15	-468
92	Amarasinghe, Indunil	Sri Lanka	9-15	-531
93	Ajayi, Olajide Ademola	Ireland	9-15	-533
94	Bohbot, Herve	France	9-15	-542
95	Esmail, Mushtak	Tanzania	9-15	-551
96	Jegels, Llewellin	Germany, Federal Republic of	9-15	-686
97	Collins, Frederick	Guyana	9-15	-786
98	Usakiewicz, Wojciech	Poland	8-16	-844
99	Reshamwala, Shakir	Kuwait	8-16	-883
100	Ntege, Chris	Uganda	8-16	-984
101	Kuroda, Kunihiko	Japan	8-16	-1003
102	Modeste, Anthony	Trinidad and Tobago	8-16	-1011
103	Nässén, Greger	Sweden	6½-17½	-2347
104	Alban, Loreta	Qatar	5½-18½	-1345

• FINALS:
• Game 1: Nigel 412 - Ganesh 316
• Game 2: Nigel 400 - Ganesh 371
• Game 3: Nigel 499 - Ganesh 470