Utica, New York: Local Scrabble star has top-class skill

UTIcaOD.com: Local Scrabble star has top-class skill

ROME — Chris Lipe’s first foray into competitive Scrabble wasn’t exactly what you’d call a success.

“I showed up, and I did awful,” said the 30-year-old Rome resident about that day at the Mohawk Valley Scrabble Club.

That was six years ago. Now, Lipe is unquestionably one of the best in the nation.

Earlier this month, Lipe participated in the World Scrabble Championship Qualifier in Akron, Ohio.

There, he placed second, securing one of three remaining places on the National Scrabble Team. (Prior to the tournament, 12 of the 15 spots were filled solely based upon the players’ national ratings.)

As a member of the team, Lipe will participate in the World Scrabble Championships in Warsaw, Poland, in October.

Recently, Lipe sat in a booth in the Denny’s on South James St. in Rome – where he practices each week with a local club.

And as he thoughtfully discussed his participation in tournament Scrabble, he folded his long limbs into impossible shapes.

It was easy to imagine what he’d look like behind a rack filled with Scrabble tiles, intensely planning his next move.

“I’m really stereotypical for a kind of person who gets involved in tournament Scrabble,” he said.

Lipe is a computer programmer and Scrabble is popular among his peers and mathematicians, he said.

But his first degree was in music (he plays the saxophone) and a good number of musicians play the game as well, he said.

Lipe said Scrabble appeals to him because of the game’s puzzling element.

“It’s about putting the right words in the right places,” he said.

Sounds deceptively simple, right?

Fortunately, “like any kind of puzzle, there’s tricks to solving them,” he said.

For example, tournament Scrabble players study word lists: two-letter words, words containing high-point tiles (J, Q, X, Z), words ending in Y, etc.

As Lipe described Scrabble strategy, he set up a custom-built wooden Scrabble board on the table. He drew his finger across the empty board as if envisioning tiles and explained simple techniques for greatly increasing scores.

Lipe said it is difficult to describe his overall strategy, as so much depends upon the factors from each game – the tiles drawn, the available areas on the game board, what words are played by the opponent.

But, he said, he considers a number of factors before playing a word – the primary concern being the number of points a move will score.

He also considers what tiles he’d like to keep, what tiles he’d like to play and what areas on the board he’d like to open up. But, he said, all things being equal, he will make a longer play and see what new tiles he’ll pull from the bag.

Lipe said he still remembers attending his first tournament in New Hartford. He performed poorly, but already had decided to participate in a tournament in Saratoga Springs the next month.

He recalled another early tournament where he studied his word lists during the downtime.

Lipe was self-deprecatingly funny – “You know, I’m not stupid,” he said – as he talked about those early days, and turned serious when he talked about the long hours of study that contributed to his success.

But, he said, he had “a certain level of strategic ability and being able to see patterns unfold.”

Across the board

It was Lipe’s hard work and determination that helped him succeed at Scrabble despite his rocky start.

And it was those qualities that led Jeremy Cahnmann, a 36-year-old player from Chicago and one of Lipe’s opponents, to call him “one of my favorite people to play against.”

Lipe and Cahnmann began playing seriously at about the same time and rose through the ranks together.

During this time, Lipe and Cahnmann were topping the list of the top 10 ratings-gainers – meaning they were two of the players advancing the quickest.

“Chris said, ‘I’m better than this. I’m smarter than this,’” Cahnmann said. And then, Cahnmann said, Lipe set out to prove it.

And in the two years after he started playing tournament Scrabble, Lipe rose from having one of the lowest possible rankings to being ranked “expert.”

Now, Cahnmann said, “he’s probably one of the 20 to 50 best players in America at any given time.”

While Cahnmann won’t be going to the National Scrabble Championships or the World Scrabble Championships – he described himself as semi-retired – he’ll be following Lipe online at both.

Cahnmann said while Lipe’s rating proves his ability – he’s currently rated at 1859, a level Cahnmann described as “rare air” – his attitude makes him a fun competitor.

Whether he wins or loses, Cahnmann said, Lipe is the player who you want to have lunch with or hang out with after the tournament.

‘Really excited’

For the Akron tournament in July, 14 participants played in 20 games over three days using the Harper-Collins dictionary, the official guide for international play.

“It has all of the words in our dictionary (The Official Scrabble Players’ Dictionary), plus about 25 percent more,” Lipe said.

The additional words come from English-speaking nations outside the United States. Examples might include South African slang or a bird native to New Zealand.

So to prepare for the qualifier, Lipe focused his energy on studying lists from the so-called Collins dictionary, “especially learning the short words because those are the most useful.”

The field included a former national champion and many former members of the national team.

Lipe lost his first two matches of the tournament and “threw a mini tantrum,” throwing his scorecard in the trash. But he was able to rebound and finish the first day with 2 wins and 2 losses.

The next day, things turned around – a combination of better play and better tiles, he said.

Lipe finished the second day with 10 wins and 2 losses. Fourth place – and the threat of not attending the international championships – was three games behind him.

At this point, Lipe said, “I’m joking around, like, ‘Why does the tournament have to be so long.”

And while he had shaky moments on the final day – even losing his first two matches – he eventually found solid ground.

With two games to go, both Lipe and participant Mark Kenas clinched their spots on the National Team, and their tickets to Poland.

“At this point, I’m just really excited,” Lipe said. “I’m thrilled to have qualified.”

He said he’s sure he’ll be nervous once he sits down to play – there are some great players coming from around the world – but “once I start playing and it’s the same game that I’m used to, I’ll be fine,” he said.