Komol Panyasophonlert struggles to string an English sentence together, but he is still hoping to be crowned champion of every wordsmith’s favorite boardgame, Scrabble, this week.
Komol, 31, the world’s third ranked player, is one of several top-ranking Thais hoping to showcase their talents in the King’s Cup tournament, which kicked off in Bangkok on Thursday.
While the computer programmer claims to have memorized “more than 90% of the dictionary” in English, he can only tell you what a few of those words mean.
I memorize small words first, then big words later,” he explained in Thai, adding that he tries to spend at least half an hour each day hitting the books.
With some 6,000 players set to attend, the King’s Cup is the globe’s biggest Scrabble competition and an indication of its wide popularity in Thailand.
The game is a favorite among schoolteachers, who use it as a language-learning tool. Thailand is the only Asian country to field world championships.
“At the highest level, Scrabble is a math game. It’s like poker. It’s all about probabilities and managing a rack (of tiles),” said John Williams a former director of the US National Scrabble Association.
The world’s best Scrabble players commit up to 100,000 words to memory, a figure more than double the lexicon of an average English-speaking adult.
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