Scrabble Tournament Has Fans Spellbound

Gwendolyn Bishop has spent much of this summer with her head buried in a dictionary, trying to memorize the spelling of 100,000 words.

Like hundreds of other word mavens, the 72-year-old Eagle Rock resident has been cramming for the 1994 National Scrabble Championship being held at the Universal City Hilton today through Thursday.

Bishop has a special interest in the event: She is defending her title as having the highest score for seniors in the intermediate division of the tournament.

“I sure don’t want to give that up,” she said Friday as she made final preparations.

Such is the dedication of those who get endless thrills from a game in which the object is to out-spell one’s opponent.

“They spend years and years studying,” said John Williams Jr., executive director of the National Scrabble Assn.

In the current event, about 400 contestants will play 27 rounds for a top prize of $15,000, said Williams, one of the organizers.

The game, in which players use seven letters to spell words and score as many points as possible, has steadily grown in popularity over the years. It is now played in about 30 million American homes, Williams said.

“There is a whole Scrabble culture,” he said. “There are about 25,000 tournament players worldwide, and we have about 9,000 ranked tournament players in the U.S. and Canada.”

Organizers say the event will attract contestants from 35 states and six foreign countries.

The competition will feature Scrabble superstars such as Tom Adams, a 13-year-old boy wonder from St. Paul, Minn., who is favored to win his division at this year’s championships.

Also competing is Mark Landsberg, a Los Angeles inventor who holds the record for the highest total score for a single tournament game, an impressive 770 points.

There will be enormous pressure on all the contestants, Williams said.

“You really need to have your wits about you,” he said. “There are a lot people in this who have the entire dictionary memorized.”