Conrad Bassett–Bouchard of Portland, Ore., is the 2014 National Scrabble Champion, taking the title after a tournament that unseated Nigel Richards, who had won the previous four years in a row. Words used in the final round included "barf" and "florigen."
The championship went to Bassett-Bouchard, 24, after he drew both a blank wild-card tile and an S on his first rack of tiles. His first word was "zilch." His biggest score, of 82 points, came courtesy of "docents."
From a news release by the tournament:
"In the final round, Conrad Bassett-Bouchard defeated runner-up Jason Li, a 29-year-old chemistry teacher from Montreal, by over 120 points with a final score of 478-350. Over 25 words were played including MAR, ANNEXE, NAIAD, FLORIGEN, DOCENTS, and BARF."
The tournament also brought its share of agony for Li, who missed out on a chance to spell a high-scoring word.
"He's going to be kicking himself for missing 'gramarye,' " tournament director John Chew later said, according to the AP.
Here's how the final board looked:
Just in case you're rusty, here are definitions of the words mentioned above, from Merriam-Webster :
MAR: "to detract from the perfection or wholeness of"
ANNEXE: "chiefly British variant of
2annex
"
NAIAD: "any of the nymphs in classical mythology living in and giving life to lakes, rivers, springs, and fountains"
FLORIGEN : "a hormone or hormonal agent that promotes flowering"
DOCENTS: "college or university teacher[s] or lecturer[s]"
BARF: "vomit"
GRAMARYE: "necromancy, magic, enchantment"
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