SCRABBLE KING

THE word is out that the kingdom has a new world champion in its midst … investment specialist Akshay Bhandarkar, the king of Scrabble.

The Indian expat and a former pupil of the Indian School Bahrain took on the best players of the board game from around the globe and won a seven-game final thriller in Africa.

The Scrabble World Championships took place earlier this month in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi and Akshay, 37, won the title and $20,000 in prize money by beating Nigeria’s Peter Moses.

“I was quite overwhelmed after the final game and it’s still to sink in that I’m world champion!” he told GulfWeekly. “It’s an honour to be part of an elite club that has some of my Scrabble idols as members and this is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

Scrabble, the game that sold a million in the year it hit the market, had been quietly played just by its inventor and his friends for the previous 21. In 1931, in the depths of the US Great Depression, out of work architect Alfred Butts set out to devise a game based only on words, combining skills and luck in equal measure.

It wasn’t until 1948 that his friend, James Brunot, started manufacturing sets in his home and after a slow start it spread all over the globe to become the world’s leading word game.

Once people start playing it they are often captivated for life … and that has certainly been the case for Akshay, senior investment analyst in the investments/asset management department at TAKAUD. “I started playing at the age of nine in Bahrain,” he said. “My mum was a founder of the Bahrain Scrabble League in the early 1980s and she taught me how to play during summer vacation one year.

“I began beating older and more experienced players fairly early on and that’s when I realised I could be competitive. I love that it’s a combination of strategy, word power and anagrams.”

Players face the challenge of making the best use of seven letter tiles, drawn at random, and taking turns to form words, in crossword fashion. Scoring the letter values and competing for boosted scores on premium squares, at the end of the game the highest total score wins.

Akshay was born in Mumbai and now lives in Hoora. After studying at the Indian School Bahrain he went on to Mumbai University gaining an MBA in Finance and Strategy before studying for a Master’s degree in Management at the UK’s Loughborough University.

He is now happily married to Nandita Kulkarni, who works for Emirates Airlines. They have two children, Aditya, nine, and Advait, five.

His parents Ashok Bhandarkar, 71, and Mangala Bhandarkar, 62, both former long-time residents of Bahrain, are now living in retirement in Pune, India, and his sister, Preeti Chhatbar, 35, is deputy MD with Grayling, a PR and communications firm in Dubai.

“They are all thrilled at my success and have been very supportive,” said Akshay. His colleagues at TAKAUD, a specialist provider of pensions, savings and investment solutions in the MENA region, are equally delighted. The company covered the cost of his flights and accommodation.

“I was fortunate to be sponsored fully by my company for this World Championship,” said a grateful Akshay. “I could not have done this without the support of Team TAKAUD!”

His bosses believe his participation in the event helped demonstrate the company’s belief that the training, dedication and preparation required for such a challenge, alongside high-level international competition, works wonders in the workplace and benefits clients too.

Head of human resources, Hawra Shubbar, said: “Everyone at TAKAUD is so excited about Akshay’s great accomplishment. Our management is very proud to have sponsored him for this prestigious event. We value our employees highly and Akshay’s win is a shining example of what our company aims to achieve in Bahrain and throughout the region.”

Success at this level is not simple.

“I’m a strong believer in the 10,000-hour rule popularised by Malcolm Gladwell - you can master any discipline if you put enough effort into it!” said Akshay.

That determination paid off at the World English Scrabble Players’ Association (WESPA) Championship 2017, an invitational tournament which attracted 300 players, representing more than 50 nations, from November 6 to 12. Akshay battled from 117th place to the top in four days of competition.

Each player competed in a total of 32 games leading to the grand finale. He won all of his eight games on the final day before facing a best-of-seven game play-off.

With three wins each to their name, Akshay triumphed in the final game 558-385. His best score was 93 with a ‘bingo’ NIGGARD, which means a mean or miserly person. Bingo is a term used when a player places all seven tiles in a single play, earning 50 extra points. In the last game, Akshay started with two and was soon 144 ahead of rival Peter on his way to glory.

He has scored more in the past, recalling that MYTHICAL once helped him notch a memorable 230 points.

Incredibly, English is not his first language, as his mother tongue is Konkani, a language from coastal India and Akshay also speaks fluent Hindi and Marathi.

“But I’ve grown up speaking English for as long as I can remember,” he said, “and I usually think in English. It’s the language I mostly use nowadays.

“As for playing Scrabble, you need to be extremely focused, prepare for long hours and compete regularly to do well,” he explained. “You have to be able to recall the precise spelling of any word while under simultaneous time and competition pressure.

“Winning this tournament has been a lifelong dream. I have played Scrabble in Bahrain for 28 years and enjoyed every game, every challenge. After reading the dictionary, I never seem to have trouble with spelling!”

Akshay also uses a freely-available online software programme for word study and regularly plays the game against a computer to practice and analyse his game. He also regularly competes on an anagramming challenge site.

He has been playing competitively since 1989 and taken on all-comers in several cities including London, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Cape Town, Washington DC, Nairobi, Bangalore and Bangkok. On the way to his world title he has notched the Gulf Scrabble Championship and the Indian Nationals four times, as well as spelling success in more than 20 other local and regional tournaments.

Prizes have ranged from between $100 and $3,000 and a ‘guesstimate’ for total career winnings is in the region of $25,000 before this event.

He plans to invest his latest winnings in his children’s education and enjoying ‘a nice family holiday’. But Scrabble is not too far from his thoughts either.

“There are some exciting tournaments next year including the King’s Cup in Thailand, the Cape Town Open, the CapGemini International in India and the Alchemist Cup in Malaysia,” he said.

“I plan to participate in a few or all of these depending on motivation, preparation and work schedules. Winning the World Championship is the ultimate achievement so I am unsure of how to challenge myself in the future.”

Another game may be on the cards too, although he also enjoys playing squash and cricket. “The other game that I’ve been playing quite a lot of over the last few years is poker,” he said. “I believe that it is quite similar to Scrabble in terms of managing the resources that you have, making optimal choices and maintaining an even temperament under pressure.”

There are few people who would bet against him succeeding.

The BBC covered Mr. Bhandarkar’s win in a short video. Check out https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-41975316/big-words-big-money-at-world-scrabble-championship