National Scrabble team, Word Warriors are set to East, Central and Southern Africa (ECASA) Scrabble championships that get underway this weekend in Livingstone, Zambia.
Patrick Nderitu Gitonga, is optimistic defending his individual title at the 2018 event that kicks off on 30th March to April 1st.
“Right now I am 90% prepared and we are just waiting to jet out of the country for the championships and bring back the glory to our country,” said Gitonga.
Kenyan players willcompete against hosts Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi in a three-day contest of wits and resolution. The Kenyan Scrabble team walks into the battlefield with fourteen years of valiant history behind them.
Scrabble Kenya Secretary General Muema Muumbi said the fourteenth edition of the tournament will be great since Kenya will be sending a contingent of experienced and battle-hardened wordsmiths, among them several former champions and runners-up of the championship.
“Kenya has won the team and individual titles in every single edition since the inception of the competition in 2003. The Kenyan team to ECASA 2018 includes all former ECASA champions,” said Muumbi.
Kenya has been dominating Scrabble in the region since the nineties. However, Team Kenya will be eager to reverse an upset by Uganda during last year’s World English Scrabble Player’s Association Championship held in Nairobi.
Uganda finished ahead of Kenya for the first time in history and the Scrabbling cranes will be eager to repeat the feat in Livingstone.
Muumbi added that Kenyan qualification system is rigorous and involves a series of eight grand prix qualifying tournaments with eighteen games each. The tournaments are fiercely competitive and upsets are common in individual games.
“The championship seems to rotate in a few hands with an almost accepted established status quo in the premier division with only six champions in 18 editions since November 2016 but upstarts, mainly under the Geeks banner has been relentlessly fighting to end this domination,” explained Muumbi.