Dan, thanks for posting...
I've been out of touch with the tourney scene, and especially that
across the pond...
I heard it briefly mentioned on the radio this morning and called
afirend to find out who it was.
I played Allen in 1988 at the North American championship in Reno. He
won by about 30 points (no I didn't remember, I looked it up.) I'd hate
to think the allegations were true... sometimes the accusers are a bit
overzealous when they are losing. Good thing I dont play in tourneys
now I can't even hold the bag up at arms length and shoulder height.
ann
On 11/18/2017 5:30 PM, Daniel J. Matyola wrote:
EUROPE <https://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/europe/index.html>
Spelling Trouble: Did a Scrabble Champion Cheat?
By ALAN COWELL <https://www.nytimes.com/by/alan-cowell>NOV. 14, 2017
C
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/world/europe/uk-scrabble-cheat.html#story-continues-1>Save
Photo
Allan Simmons, right, competing in the final of the 2013 British
national Scrabble tournament, which he won. CreditRex Features, via
Associated Press
LONDON — Tongues are wagging across the world of competitive Scrabble.
Allan Simmons, one of the game’s top-billed British players, has been
barred from tournaments for three years after an inquiry concluded he
had broken the rules of the word game.
Mr. Simmons, a former British Scrabble champion who has written
several books about the game, was accused of putting a hand with
freshly drawn letter tiles back into a bag to draw more favorable
tiles. Mr. Simmons has denied wrongdoing.
The punishment, imposed by the Association of British Scrabble
Players, made headlines in Britain.
Yet many organizers of tournaments where a fluency with words may
spell victory or defeat seemed to tilt toward reticence on Tuesday.
For a game played in the glare of open competition, its inner
machinations were more opaque.
“For some unknown reason, I don’t think they want it to be public,”
Len Moir, a tournament organizer in the English Midlands, said of the
accusations against Mr. Simmons. “He is such a high-profile player.”
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Continue reading the main storyNicky Huitson, who is overseeing the
Broadstairs Seaside Special in southern England next year, said the
ban was “not very positive for the game, and that’s why most of us
don’t want to talk about it.”
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/world/europe/uk-scrabble-cheat.html#story-continues-2>
When the news of the ban broke on Monday in The Times of London, Elie
Dangoor, a leading figure in the Association of British Scrabble
Players, said in a statement that Mr. Simmons had been “a huge part of
the game’s development,” adding, “There’s no one person bigger than
the game.”
The tournament rules require players to show opponents their empty
hands before they draw letter tiles from a cloth bag, so that they
cannot be accused of dropping unfavorable letters back in. The bag is
also supposed to be held at shoulder height, to prevent players from
peeking at the tiles.
Mr. Simmons, 60, could not be reached for comment on the accusations
against him. But he told The Times of London that he had suffered the
same “untimely bad luck from the bag as anyone else.”
Mr. Simmons had written a weekly column for the The Times of London,
but the newspaper said on Monday that he would “no longer be a
contributor.”
The Scrabble group’s inquiry began with a complaint about Mr.
Simmons’s behavior in the British Masters tournament last June. The
organizers of the 2016 Scottish Masters tournament then came forward
with similar allegations.
“The natural conclusion had been that he had been cheating,” Mr.
Dangoor said. The inquiry into the complaints against Mr. Simmons
ended several weeks ago, but news of the ban only recently reached a
wider audience.
This is not the first cheating scandal in competitive Scrabble. In
2012, at a major tournament in Orlando, Fla., a young man confessed to
pocketing blank tiles
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/sports/scrabble-community-rocked-by-cheating-at-tournament.html> —
the game’s wild cards — in an attempt to cheat. His name was not
released because he was under the age of 18.
“It’s easy to poke fun at Scrabble, but people who play it
competitively take it very seriously,” Stefan Fatsis, author of the
book “Word Freak,”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/books/zo-qi-doh-hoo-qursh.html> about
competitive Scrabble, said at the time. “The community prides itself
on integrity and honesty and sportsmanship.”
In the latest episode, Lewis Mackay, a Scrabble player who filed a
complaint against Mr. Simmons, used a Facebook post last week to
publish an excerpt from an email he had sent to the organizers of the
British Masters
<https://www.facebook.com/notes/lewis-mackay/cheating-incident/10155729771243604/>.
It read: “On Sunday, at the Masters tournament, I witnessed Allan
Simmons behaving suspiciously during our game. As a result, I strongly
believe he was cheating. I should give some background to this incident.”
It continued: “In September 2016, in Lille, I was sat waiting for my
opponent for a round on day three. I was idly watching several other
players play their games. One of those players was Allan. At one
point, I was surprised to see him draw a tile, look at it, and return
it to the bag, all at shoulder height. I thought I was seeing things
at first — I was shocked to witness this at all. I said nothing to
anyone at the time. On reflection, perhaps I should have.”
In the drama of Mr. Simmons’s exclusion, Amy Byrne resigned as
chairwoman of the Association of British Scrabble Players, saying it
was unusual to publicize bans. Contacted by telephone, Ms. Byrne
declined to comment.
For his part, Mr. Simmons told The Times of London, “While I believe I
always showed an open hand before drawing fresh letters, if drawing
one or two at a time, I may not have always had an open hand for each
dip of the bag.”
“Likewise, holding the bag may not have always been strictly at
shoulder height,” he added. “You have to remember that at the top
level, games can be quite intense, and there’s a lot going through
one’s mind, let alone remembering to religiously ensure tile-drawing
rules are followed meticulously.”
Mr. Simmons said he would not try to overturn the ban, in order to
avoid creating a “distraction.” In any event, he said, he had already
been thinking about retiring from competitive play.
“I will rise above this issue and get on with more important things in
life than playing Scrabble,” he said.
A version of this article appears in print on November 15, 2017, on
Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: How Do You Spell
Trouble? A Scrabble Star Is Barred. Order Reprints
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Dan Matyola
http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola
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