Students Quest for Scrabble Prowess

Steve Williams '75-4 strutted into the Scrabble Players' Club in Brooklyn looking for a match. "I thought I was good. And besides, what could I lose at five cents a game?" he said yesterday. "Next thing I knew a Russian ace had ripped me off for nineteen bucks in four games."

A year later, figuring he had sharpened up his play, Williams went back for more. "The same guy, Mark Kaszamavich, took me for ten bucks in two games. Those New Yorkers are tough," he said.

Williams is one of Harvard's most dedicated Scrabble players. During a year off in '73-'74, he stayed in Cambridge to learn the finer points of the game from a local expert. Now he takes on ten to twelve opponents a week on his home board in Adams House.

On December 21, Williams and Alfred P. Lewis '78 pitted themselves against rugged competition in the qualifying round of the New York City Scrabble Players Tournament. In the initial qualifying round, Williams placed seventh and Lewis finished ninth--not good enough to pull them into the quarter-finals.

But Lewis brought home a t-shirt for putting down the highest-scoring word in the round--"BREATHES" for 95 points. The "B" earned a Double Letter score, the word crossed a Triple Word square--and Lewis managed to empty all seven letters from his rack for a 50 point "bingo."

"Winning the shirt made me feel great. Last year I entered the same tournament and got clobbered," Lewis said yesterday. Despite his success, however, Lewis plans to exchange Scrabble this term for a spot in "Scoop" Jackson's campaign organization.

Williams says he may stick around Cambridge after graduation to organize a local Scrabble club. Or else he may head for New York to improve his game. Until then, he plans to shoot for a coveted goal: topping the personal word-score record of 149 points he set in Adams House last year.