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Tournament SCRABBLE® play in Canada and the United States is administered by NASPA and its Tournament Committee. All questions about tournaments should be sent to that committee’s mailing list.
Tournaments are organized by NASPA-sanctioned Directors and listed on our calendar. You must be a NASPA member to play in a NASPA event. All players are expected to know and follow the Official Tournament Rules.
First-time tournament players (i.e. those who do not have a tournament rating) may buy either a full NASPA membership or a trial six-month membership (US$15) through their tournament organizer. If they opt for a trial membership, they have the option to extend it to a full membership by sending in an additional $15 at any time during the six-month trial period.
Score sheets and other player forms are available for download from the Player Resources page.
Directors: As players want to register for your tournament, you will need to check the Membership Database to be sure their NASPA membership is current.
Directors endeavor to accommodate players with special needs.
Tournament results and ratings will be posted at the NASPA website and later at cross-tables.com. The first step to viewing results is to consult the monthly list of tournament results.
You can also find tournament statistics at cross-tables.com.
Directors: Submit tournament results to NASPA
In order to direct a tournament, you must be a NASPA member and certified as a director. For more information about and for directors, please see our Directors page.
Most tournaments are open to all and fully rated by the NASPA; these are referred to as Open Rated Tournaments (ORT). However, there are also a few other tournament types that are sanctioned and rated. See table below (excerpted from the Director's Manual and expanded) to compare them:
| Open Rated Tournament (ORT) | Local Club Tournament (LCT) | Team Challenges or Championships (TCC) | |
| Advance Notice/ Sanctioning | 6 Weeks with no exceptions | 10 Days with no exceptions (effective September 1, 2010) | 6 Weeks (effective September 1, 2010, with transitional exceptions for events previously planned. No exceptions after transitional period.) |
| Tournament Calendar Listing | Effective September 1, 2010, all rated events must be listed on NASPA calendar | ||
| Rating Method | fully rated | 1/3 rated | fully rated |
| Frequency/ Geographic Restrictions | Multi-day tournaments: no other multi-day event occurring within two weekends and 200 miles of your proposed tournament; no other one-day event on the same day as one of your tournament days.
One-day tournaments: No other tournament on same day within 200 miles. Tours/cruises with similar itinerary need 90 day separation. Exception: if the organizers of conflicting tournaments mutually agree, NASPA will sanction both. |
Must be sponsored by a NASPA-sanctioned club. No more than one event per club, per month. | Multi-day tournaments: no other multi-day event occurring within two weekends and 200 miles of your proposed tournament; no other one-day event on the same day as one of your tournament days.
One-day tournaments: No other tournament on same day within 200 miles. Tours/cruises with similar itinerary need 90 day separation. Exception: if the organizers of conflicting tournaments mutually agree, NASPA will sanction both. |
| How Many Games? | At least 4 games | At least 3 games | At least 4 games |
| How Many Players? | At least 4 players in each division, at least 2 rated players in each division | ||
| Membership Requirements | All players must be current NASPA members | ||
| Player Restrictions | None permitted | None permitted | Entry restricted by club/region (for team challenge) or region/rating (for championship). |
| Participation Fee | $.50 per player per game | ||
| Examples | National Scrabble Championship, most tournaments | One-day tournament that is created on short notice | Portland-Seattle Interclub Challenge, Texas State Championship, Can-Am, Kingston Cup |
NASPA maintains its calendar of sanctioned tournaments as an information resource for its members. You may use the Tournament Listing Form to gather information about your tournament for sanctioning. Registered directors must apply to the Tournament Committee to add fully rated tournaments (and, effective September 1, 2010, all rated tournaments) to the calendar by emailing the committee mailing list naspa-tourney@yahoogroups.com.
The tournament and director running the tournament must satisfy the following conditions for ORT and TCC events:
Local Club Tournaments (LCT), which are 1/3-rated, will require advance sanctioning as of September 1, 2010 and will be listed in the calendar. LCT's have the same Player Participation fee as Open Rated Tournaments.
As of Jan 2010, NASPA is sanctioning and rating tournaments using the SOWPODS word list (now more commonly known as the Collins SCRABBLE Words, or CSW). If you would like your tournament to use CSW, please specify that when requesting sanctioning.
All tournament players, whether a newbie or someone with a rating who hasn't joined NASPA yet, must join NASPA in order to play in your tournament. Here are some scenarios that might apply to your tournament:
1. You are gathering entries for your tournament and you look on cross-tables to see if they are members. Cross-tables says "check with NASPA". You check on the NASPA member database, accessible by clicking on "Member Search" on the sidebar. If they have a member number in the NASPA database, they are good to go. Occasionally a membership does not show up on Cross-tables right away but will already be listed on the NASPA database.
2. You are gathering entries for your tournament and you agree to let someone join NASPA at the door. If you know ahead of time that one or more people are going to do this, go to Member Services and click on the “Add New Member” button in the Director section. Fill out all the membership information and then choose “Payment with your next tournament’ participation fee” payment method. Your players’ memberships will be activated right away, and a charge will be placed on your account with NASPA, so that it will be totalled with your participation fee after your tournament.
3. You are checking in players the day of the tournament and you have a walk-in who is not a member.
Check to make sure that all of your players are listed on the NASPA site as members. Rating data will not be accepted if any players are not members. Ask nonmembers to fill out printed membership forms, then activate their memberships as in case 2 above. If you have players who say they have recently mailed membership checks to NASPA, do not pay that portion of the amount shown owing; it will be removed from your director account when their checks clear. If their checks do not clear, you will be liable for their membership fees and will not be able to run a tournament until we receive full payment.
By “director account” that simply means there will be a list of directors and what they owe for the new members and your “account balance” will go away once you have paid. This does not go on your credit card when you submit your results.
You also have the option of authorizing the membership monies to be charged to your credit card, which you might do to help a club member join NASPA when you do not have an upcoming tournament.
4. A tournament entrant says he has joined NASPA. Ask what his membership number is. If it starts with AA followed by 6 digits, you're fairly sure he joined NASPA and not the NSA. Occasionally people join the NSA thinking that it will entitle them to play in NASPA-rated tournaments.
Major events, such as national championships, are webcast on this website, and web coverage is archived in perpetuity.
Web coverage typically consists of standings updates continuously throughout an event, commentary about the event’s highlights, photos and interactive games where you can follow along at the top board in real time.
Tournament sponsorship is permitted with the prior approval of the Tournament Committee. In pursuing sponsors, please remember that we are licensed users of a registered trademark for a board game which is primarily marketed to families, and that sponsors should be appropriate for that demographic.
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