Team Warsaw won the overall title at the concluded first edition of the Scrabble Kenya Inter-club championships, the chairman’s Club Cup played over the weekend at the Stima Club in Ruaraka, Nairobi.
The three day tournament presented top players from each club with Warsaw, the team that represented the country at the 2011 World championships accumulating 16 points.
Made up of the newly crowned East, Central and Southern Africa (ECASA) champion Gitonga Nderitu Manase Otieno and Patrick Litunya stunned Stima club players made up of Grand Master Allan Oyende, former Scrabble Kenya chairman Bernard Amuke and David Kimani to second with 13 points while the Geeks team of Chris Okioma, Daniel Machanje and Nicholas Kamunyu settled for third position on 12 points.
For the individual prizes, Expert Gitonga was the best player and the most valuable player of the tournament with Grand Master Oyende coming second and Otieno settling for bronze in a hotly contested two day tournament.
Oyende said that the Warsaw team played very well and it was a wakeup call for his Stima club to improve in the coming tournaments.
“We finished second at the tournament and that means a lot that my club must wake up. We were the competition favourites and we hope we shall do best next time. Because this is the first edition, we need to restructure in the next edition,” said Oyende, the winner of both Eldoret and Kirinyaga Scrabble Kenya tournaments.
He added that they had one of the best Kenyan players (Gitonga) who anchored the team to earn more points followed by Oyende and Otieno.
“The Warsaw team was at the 2011 World Cup and they used their experience very well to outshine us. They gave us a lot of problems in their playing. We tried but they had their day very well catered for. It was their time,” he said.