The World Scrabble Championship 1999 was the fifth World Scrabble Championship and was held at the Carlton Crest Hotel, Melbourne, Australia. The winner was

Joel Wapnick Joel Wapnick (born 1946) is a Scrabble player from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, best known for winning the 1999 World Scrabble Championship (WSC). Wapnick reached the WSC finals in 1993 and 2001. Wapnick also won the US National Scrabble Championsh ...

of Canada. This was the second time a player representing Canada has won, the first being when David Boys won in

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

. The

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

champion, Peter Morris, was also a Canadian but represented the United States. Eight games were played on each of the first three days with the top two players advancing to a best-of-five finals. In the first game, Wapnick opened with the

bingo Bingo or B-I-N-G-O may refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * Bingo, a game using a printed card of numbers ** Bingo (British version), a game using a printed card of 15 numbers on three lines; most commonly played in the UK and Ireland ** Bi ...

CHAPLET and took a 249-60 lead three turns later with the double -double FILTHIER then cruised to a 624-307 victory. Nyman took the second game and Wapnick took the third then got off to an early lead in the fourth before losing a turn when he tried the phony FUROUR. The game remained tight, with both players getting down two bingos, until Wapnick drew the X and

DEOXY Deoxygenation is a chemical reaction involving the removal of oxygen atoms from a molecule. The term also refers to the removal of molecular oxygen (O2) from gases and solvents, a step in air-free technique and gas purifiers. As applied to orga ...

for 50 to take a one -point lead and take the last tile out of the bag. With Wapnick having multiple places to go out, Nyman was unable to catch him and lost by a single point. Joel Wapnick could now add a world title to his US national title and Canadian title, one of only two players to have won the big three.

Complete Results

*Finals *Game 1: Wapnick 624 – Nyman 307 *Game 2: Nyman 444 – Wapnick 330 *Game 3: Wapnick 462 – Nyman 339 *Game 4: Wapnick 403 – Nyman 402

References

{{WSC

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

1999 in Australian sport 1990s in Melbourne November 1999 sports events in Australia