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CNN Live At Daybreak

Scrabble World Championship Coverage

Aired December 18, 2001 - 05:57   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: You've probably played the word game Scrabble at least once, but I'll bet it was just for fun. But Scott Burton of CNN Las Vegas affiliate KTNV met some of the world's best Scrabble players, and for them, word play is serious business.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT BURTON, KTNV-TV REPORTER (voice-over): It's a witty little game of words that's been around for years. A tile here, a tile there, quite a bit of fun, actually.

For most of us, Scrabble is just a game we play at home, but for these guys, it's serious business. This is the Scrabble World Championships. Players from all over the world are here, intent, focused, looking for those lucky tiles to bring them the title of World Champion. You want to get to the head table and the last game is your goal and when you get there, it's hard to win that.

Luck alone won't take you to table one where the best of the best play the game. Luck applies, but then you do make your own luck. You need strategy.

BOB LIPTON, SCRABBLE CONTENDER: You need to conserve good tiles to work with on the next turn so you want to keep the balance of consonants and vowels.

BURTON: You need to be quick. But most of all, you need to be a dictionary.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had him in a stranglehold. I had eirenic (INAUDIBLE) E I R E N I C and I was going to play it making -- turning van into run (ph).

BURTON: Words like agog, a state of excited animation, may take you to the world championship. But make no mistake about it, try to put down a word that's not a word and you'll be challenged.

CHARLIE SOUTHWELL, SCRABBLE CHALLENGE DIRECTOR: If the play is unacceptable and if one of them -- at least one of the words is not valid, the play is removed from the board and that player has lost his turn.

BURTON: Each game is intense and losing can be crushing. Keep winning... UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know I was sitting at that table for 14 games and won every one of them.

BURTON: ... and you could end up at table one, champion of the world in a game most of us just play for fun.

With more complete Scrabble coverage, I'm Scott Burton, News 13, inside Las Vegas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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