Jessica's Progress - the early years (click picture for a larger one - mouse over pic for caption)

1996	1999	2005	2005	2005	2006	2006	2006	2006	2007	2007

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Jessica's Progress - the younger years (click picture for a larger one - mouse over pic for caption)

2008	2008	2009	2009	2009	2009	2009	2009	2009	2010	2010

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Other young players who have laid their tiles for the London Scrabble League On 7th October 2012 Ronnie Bennett set a new record at the Sunday Swiss Cottage Drive. At 6 years 4 month he became the youngest person to attend and play four games at a London Scrabble League Drive. Previous holders of this record were Jessica Pratesi who was 8 years and 5 months on 16th May 2004 who attended the Sunday Chigwell Drive, which in turn, had previously been held by Andrew Perry at 9 years and 4 months in his first drive on 8 April 1991. Austin Shin was 10 years 3 months when he first attended a drive on 12 March 2000. And on 8th January 2012 seven year old Samvit Nagpal made his début at Swiss Cottage, but played only one game against Natasha Pratesi. Samvit made a further one game appearance at the same venue on 5th August 2012. So who would be the youngest ever person to play a London League fixture? We are looking at seven prospective candidates, Mark Nyman, Harvey Freeman, Richard Evans, Allan Saldanha, Daniel Simonis, Andrew Perry and Paul Howard. Mark burst onto the scene as a 13-year-old in late 1979 after seeing his dad play a London League match. Mark went on to become World Scrabble champion in 1993 winning one or two tournaments and Sunday Drives in the process but never won a League season. Harvey first entered the National Scrabble Championships (NSC) in 1976 and in the 1980 NSC he was 14 when he came second to Joyce Cansfield at the Connaught Rooms, Holborn. He joined the League in 1977 as an eleven year old after his début in the NSC and twice won London League seasons in winter October '87-March '88 and summer April-September '91. Richard was 9 years 11 months when he first went to Redbridge Scrabble club having won his age group in a Save the Children sponsored Scrabble event. His sisters, Jane and Cathy, joined the Redbridge club the following week. They were 15 and 12 respectively. They attended the Sunday drives in Bayswater from an early age and had often helped out Angela in subbing for League matches. Richard's short spell playing League matches was in the late 90's, being much older and an already established 180+ rated player. Allan made his League début in the winter season of 1986-87 aged 9 and a few months. He started playing Scrabble when he was 7 and took all the headlines competing in the NSC from 1989 until he won it in 1993. World Championship player and won London League in the winter season of October '93-March '94. Andrew made his League début in the winter season 1991-92. He was also aged 9 and a few months. Andrew with his dad, Steve, spent a short time in the League before moving to Faringdon near Swindon. Andrew competed in the National Schools Championships in the mid to late 90's and was a member of the English team which played in the World Scrabble Championships in Kuala Lumpur. Also débuting in 1991 was Sandie Simonis' son, Daniel Simonis. Daniel was 15 when he joined the London Scrabble League in the spring of 1991 and 17 when he won the inaugural Drive Cup in 1992. In his first League season he played 12 fixtures and finished 24th. Finally Paul. Paul made his début at the beginning of the September '99-March '00 season aged 11. He won a gold medal at the Mind Sports Olympiad at 12 and was a winner of the Most Improved Player award in October '00-March '01. A regular on the Internet Scrabble Club he rejoined the London League in 2006-07 after a short break due to finishing schooling. So it is between Andrew Perry and Allan Saldanha. Actual records of their first League matches will have been long destroyed so they will just have to share the honour of "youngest member" until someone happens to find the relevant fixture details.

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UK YOUTH TOURNAMENT 2013 (Sunday 17th November)

10 young players travelled to Reading and competed over 7 rounds to find the UK Youth Scrabble Champion of 2013. Veteran Joe Knapper was playing in his fourth Youth Championship in a row. Shrinidhi Prakash was playing for the first time since winning Channel 4's Child Genius contest. Jack Durand being the favourite and highest rated among the youngsters. Sumbul Siddiqui was fresh from winning Division C at Chigwell last weekend. Other contestants included Jack's sister Alice and Reeyaaz Goolamhossen's daughter Zara.     The end was a very close and nerve-racking affair. Shrinidhi had lost to Jack, Joe and Sumbul and was well lagging behind the top three. In consecutive rounds: Sumbul lost to Joe, Joe lost to Jack and Jack lost to Sumbul. Those three players were all on five wins going into the last round. Jack faced Joe and Sumbul faced Shrinidhi in the last and seventh round and defeated her 470-437 and momentarily led the division. Jack scored his third 500+ score of the four 500+ scores in the event by beating Joe in their repeat pairing 540-368. Jack was crowned UK Youth Champion for 2013 with six wins and 822 spread. London League member Sumbul came second with six wins and 437 spread.     Final results are available here.

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UK YOUTH SCRABBLE CHAMPIONSHIP 2012 (9th-10th August)

. . Deep in the heart of Shropshire is a school. Situated in the tiny town of Shifnal is the Idsall Secondary School and venue for this year's UK Youth Scrabble Championship 2012. The event was organised by the ABSP Youth Officer Paula Davenport. Last year's winner Oliver Garner and Tim Butcher became overage and uneligible to play. Shrinidhi Prakash was also unavailable leaving eight players, four players who represented the UK at the WYSC in Manila last December, one former UK Youth competitor and three newbies.     The format was to play 10 games over two days with the top four rated players playing each other twice and the four newbies once and vice versa. Favourites for the honour was always going to be between 16 year-old Jessica Pratesi and 12-year old Jack Durand. It was no surprise that they were tied for top place going into the final round of Day 1. Jessica beat Jack by 544-304 which included the nine-timer DELAINES for 122. The highest word of Day 1 was by Natasha Pratesi who scored 131 for FLOUNDER against Jack! Some extraordinary scores came in showing the difference between the top four and the bottom four. None more so than the 680-79 win by Jack against Bethany Paget. Obviously the highest winning margin in a rated ABSP Tournament but a record to be recorded separately from the main records.     The second day continued in the same vein. Jessica impressed with ANETHOLE for 94 in game 6. Jack scored 185 for FIDDLERS against Natasha in game 7. Another big score, and personal best for Joe who scored 678 in round 8. More wins for Jack and Jessica in round 9 which set up the head-to-head finale Jessica v Jack.     Jessica, was one win ahead of Jack, takes up the story: "Before this game, we worked out that I was 541 spread points ahead of Jack. He needed to beat me by 271 to win the title. I needed to NOT open a 9 timer and I would be fine.     "Jack did actually get some goodies in this game. I wasn't being a greedy little madam any more ;) though I did managed 2 bonuses (ISOTONE and LUSTIER) before greedily taking both blanks from the bag to steal control of the game and play with only 5 tiles on my rack. Before I picked both blanks Jack managed to find a 5 point lead for somewhere :O Though my knowledge of 3's hooks was a bit better than Jack's as I knew ARC-O and BEN-I. By the time I managed to find playable bonuses with my blank racks, the board died (must have been my fault again) and I had blocked the board to such an extent that neither of us would make any stupid openings for the other to use. While Jack still blocked my bonuses during this time, he is unaware that this is my favourite style of play. The only thing I managed to use these blanks for was to go out with TEAboX". Her full report is here     Jessica Pratesi was now UK Youth Champ for a second time. Jack Durand was second and won the most improved player/highest word score, 185 for FIDDLERS, Joe Knapper came third, Kiran Pal came 4th and won a trophy for the Best Under 12 award, Natasha Pratesi came fifth won highest losing score of 406, Bethany Paget was awarded the 'Bravest Award', Alice Durand (Jack's younger sister) won the 'Best Newcomer Award' and Caitlin Paget won the 'Fair Play Award'.     Full standings here. Photos can be found on Facebook here. Further pictures available here.

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WORLD YOUTH SCRABBLE TOURNAMENT 2011 (6th-8th December)

Johor Bahru, Malaysia. 84 players competed, but no Nigerians (they didn't get their visas in time). 32 adults competed the side, progressive round-robin tournament which was won by the current world champion Nigel Richards.     After seven games Eden Choo from Singapore was on maximum wins. The UK's Joe Knapper and Oliver Garner were in 4th and 5th on six wins respectively, Jessica Pratesi was 17th with five wins and Natasha Pratesi somewhere near the bottom with two wins. But it's a marathon not a race so plenty of time to show some mettle. Jessica managed to win five games on the trot to be one away from the leader by round 12! Of the eight players behind the leader Australian Anand Bharadwaj, Oliver Garner and Jessica Pratesi were on nine wins each but with a low spread difference from the other seven on nine wins! Both won game 13 (Jess went up to 4th) but both lost games 14 and 15 and were still behind Anand Bharadwaj. Natasha Pratesi meanwhile put three wins together but was languishing in 64th on 7 wins and behind ten year old Jack Durand and Joe Knapper, Joe had had a disasterous time and had won just once in eight games and dropped from 4th to 54th!     It was pouring with torrential rain in Johor Bahru so it is keeping the temperature down. A hairdryer was used to dry out wet shoes after a breif spell outside for food! At the end of Day 2/Round 18 there were two Australians in first and second (Anand Bharadwaj first, Michael McKenna the second), In 7th and 8th we found Jessica and Oliver with 12 wins each. They will start the last day comprising of six games having to play each other! They are still three games behind the Australian Anand in pole and it looks a fair bet that either Anand or fellow Australian Michael will be there at the end of the tournament.     Jessica and Oliver were hopeful to finish in the top five but it was not a forgone conclusion. Jessica has a poor recent record against Oliver having lost the last four encounters! Could Jessica have a Thursday steamer winning lots of games as Jessica is used to playing long tournaments but Oliver not so. The rest of the UK contingent were holding their own with Shrinidhi in 51st with nine wins and Joe and Natasha in 61st and 62nd respectively with eight wins each. Joe and Natasha got to start day three's proceedings paired against each other!     Day 3/Round 19 saw Michael McKenna defeat Anand Bharadwaj 426-397 to briefly take the lead on spread. Oliver continued his dominance over Jessica beating her 436-328!! This dropped Jessica to 13th. Jessica none too happy at this stage. Sadly Jessica lost again... and again before finishing with two straight wins, and with results going her way, climbed from 20th to 9th to finish with 15 wins and 654 spread. She hoped for a top five place this year but confirmed she is still 9th best youth in the world (as she was last year)! Roll on Birmingham 2012!     After two initial losses Anand Bharadwaj won his last four games to win the title, his last game was the defeat of Oliver Garner to secure the championship with 19 wins and a massive 1322 spread. Oliver had helped Anand on the way by defeating leader Michael McKenna 467-395 in the penultimate round, a further loss by Michael in the last round dropped Michael into third overall with second place going to Victor Gwee from Singapore. Oliver finished top Brit with 16 wins and 505 spread in sixth and with it the award for the best newcomer to finish the highest. Congrats to Anand Bharadwaj from Australia, the new 2011 WYSC champion. Anand means happiness. Anand still has SEVEN years' eligibility left to compete in WYSC.     Of the other UK representatives. Joe Knapper beat fellow Brit Natasha 364-353 in the opening game of the final day. Bit of a blip for Tasha but this was her only loss in the last EIGHT games!!! Tasha defeated fellow Brit Shrinidhi 397-334 in the last game and finished third top Brit in 34th with a +17 spread! Yeah Natasha!! 34th in the World!! Shrinidhi finished 47th. Jack Durand and Joe Knapper finished with 11 wins in 54th and 57th place respectively, Tim Butcher way behind in 62th on 10 wins. FORMATES for 158 was the highest single word score played and 625 the highest single game score achieved.     Some pictures can be found here You may need to be logged onto Facebook to view them.     Full results are available here.

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UK YOUTH SCRABBLE FEST/CHAMPIONSHIP 2011 (2nd-4th September)

. . In a full programme crammed with coaching, tournaments, more coaching and the UK Youth Championship comprising of eight games, it was amazing everything got squeezed into three days! At the end of the day nothing replaces studying words and getting into the right mental and physical state to be a winner at Scrabble. If it is good for athletes then it is good for Scrabble players. So it is best to start them young. Do you know all the OTARINE + 1 combinations?     The Saturday afternoon/early evening competition was an "All-in" event where young players faced adult opposition. The three divisions all had six players each and played to a simple round robin format. Division A was won by one of the two teachers for the event, Australian Alastair Richards. Alastair and his mum Karen stayed over from the BMSC to help run and organise this event along with the new ABSP Youth Scrabble co-ordinator Paula Davenport who helped from this side of the pond. Alastair won all his five games with Karen and Diane Pratesi in second and third with three wins respectively. Jack Durand won Division B from Christine Cartman on spread both had four wins each. Natalie Zolty, who apparently plays a lot of Scrabble on-line but as yet to play tournament Scrabble and was unrated, won the C Division with five wins from Paula Davenport in second with four wins. Paul Cartman was playing in A and scored 203 for REQUIRES.     On the Sunday the main tournament to decide the 2011 UK Youth champion was played. Basically all seven qualifiers for the World Scrabble Championships to be held in Malaysia competed in the A Division. They played 8 games - a straight round robin with king-of-the-hill final round. The other four youngsters competed in a special recreational division and played a double round robin of only six rounds. Once top two rated players Jessica Pratesi and Oliver Garner lost their opening matches to Jack Durand and Shrinidhi Prakash respectively we knew it was going to be a tough tournament. Further losses for Jessica and Oliver didn't help their situation and it was Tim Butcher who led the tournament going into the final rounds. For Jessica to retain her title she had to hope Oliver could beat Tim and Natasha Pratesi could beat Joe Knappper. Jessica was the sit out for that round and due to play Oliver in the last of the round robin pairings. Oliver did beat Tim and Natasha did beat Joe. In round seven Oliver bested Jessica 365-335 while Tim lost to Joe 395-401, which set up Tim and Oliver to battle it out for the championship. Oliver got off to a bonus start with AFFORDS for 76. TELAMONS for 70 through Tim's BEEPERS made the game safe for Oliver. Finishing with the impressive RAOULIA Oliver beat Tim 503-297 to become UK Youth Champion with five wins and 586 spread. Jessica beat Joe 448-371 to finish second with four wins and 438 spread.     There were very few high scoring games and very few high scoring words. Jessica topped both with the highest game score of 509 and the highest word score of 106 for EVINCES and won trophies for both achievements, altough Jessica kindly gave up her high score trophy to sister Natasha who had the next two highest word scores of 91 for RUSTING/PRIZES and 90 for TOWNIER/JAR. In the "All-in" Natasha had scored 92 for WINGERS/NETS. Kiran Pal won a trophy for the highest performance above their rating.     Full tsh ratings and standings here. More photos can be found on Facebook here.

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WORLD YOUTH SCRABBLE CHAMPIONSHIPS 2010 (8th-10th December)

. . Jessica Pratesi set off Saturday morning with mum Diane when the snow was still affecting air travel across the UK and Spanish air controller's strikes affected everything else! Two hours late leaving Heathrow meant a missed connection and overnight stay in Paris. A transfer to a Hong Kong flight on Sunday lunchtime plus late departure meant a second transfer and wait in Hong Kong. Arrival in Manila was Monday morning 05.00 our time - midday theirs. Manila is eight hours in front of the UK.     After an exhaustive journey normal Scrabble resumed. 86 young players were expected for the fifth World Youth Scrabble Championships at the Great Eastern Hotel in Quezon City. The winner being the one winning the most games over three days comprising 24 games. Day one was curtailled by one round for the gala dinner. The opposition was tough and older, epitomised by the way virtually all of the country's top players were to be found studying cardboxes on Zyzzyva on their laptops during the game breaks! Rules were strict. No glasses or bottles of drink allowed on the table and once the game was finished you HAD to leave the playing area. 82 actual players played with Jessica well of the pace with 4 wins out of seven and down in 27th place on day one. Only two players were on maximum seven wins; Oluwafemi Akinlosotu from Nigeria and Ng Li Ki from Singapore.     Day two: Jessica was the leading UK player in 14th after 18 rounds with 11 wins and ahead of team mates Tim Butcher (40th, 8 wins) and Jack Durand (73rd, 6 wins). Nigerian Akinlosotu did not have it all his own way, after 12 straight wins he lost three out of the next four and now was tied with Preedee Khongthanarat of Thailand and William Kang of Malaysia on 13 wins.     Day three: Jessica beat Looi Yih Feng in round 23; 475-337 and placed 5th! Her final round opponent was Malaysian Ker Jen Ho, who she had played in round one! A win would secure fifth place and maybe deny Ker overall victory. Going into the last round Ker led with 18 with fellow Malaysian William Kang also on 18 wins. Yet they didn't play off for first place?! Ker beat Jessica 418-334 to reach 19 wins and 1576 spread to become WYSC champion for 2010. William had lost 357-460 and finished third with 18 wins and 1283 spread. Thailand's Preedee Khongthanarat nipped inbetween them with a 417-251 win and finished on 18½ wins and 1459 spread. With Jessica's final score of 15 wins she finished in 9th place. Other UK placings; Tim Butcher came 45th with 12 wins and Jack Durand came 66th with 10 wins. Jessica Pratesi played VEERINGS for 158 and with it tied for Highest Scoring Word prize of the tournament with Pranav Kaarthik of Qatar who played SELECTED for the same score. Final positions can be found here.

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UK YOUTH SCRABBLE CHAMPIONSHIP 2010 (5th June)

. . . Fifteen young players aged between 7-16 contested the UK Youth Championships held at the Idsall School, Shifnall in Shropshire. Of the fifteen, five were ABSP rated and had previous tournament experience - the others had workshop practice on the previous day run by Chair of the Youth Committee of WESPA, and co-organiser, Karen Richards.     The event was fully ABSP rated with Mattel, represented by Philip Nelkon, providing travel Scrabble sets, books, scrolls for the newbies and shields for the main winners. Kim Hands and Sarah Wilkes (now Sarah Stokes) were also on hand to provide assistance and guidance to the less experienced players.     Originally advertised as 3 events: a UK Championship, a recreational division and a teams event for the non championship players. With the small turnout it was decided to amalgamated the UK Championship and recreational division, awarding prizes to the new players after 4 rounds. There was no team event. Jack Durand from Highgate won the recreational event with 3 wins from four games, and a 237 spread. His only loss coming at the hands of Jessica Pratesi! Jack also won a prize for the highest game score of the newbies; 415. Shrinidhi Prakesh, from Staines in Middlesex, was second with 2 wins and one loss. Kiran Pal, from Hockley Heath, Solihull, came third with 2 wins and 2 losses. Leah Pendlebury, from Barry, Wales, and local Shifnal player, Gemma Davis, also finished with two wins. Kiran, additionally, won the highest scoring word prize by playing ZA for 66.     After four games the 5 rated players played on for three more games along with three willing newbies. Shrinidhi, Leah and 7-year-old Kiran. Pairings had been predetermined so that all rated players played each other once during the tournament.     The main prize on offer was not just the title of UK Youth Scrabble Champion of 2010 but a fund of £500 towards the costs of representing the UK at the World Scrabble Youth Championships in Manila this coming December shared out for the lucky qualifiers. The UK have four places available.     All was going according to ratings. The five rated players performed way above their normal average creating a vast chasm of experience and level of play between them and the newbies. Some of the new players showed great promise and need more practice by attending tournaments, learning the basic words and have a local club member tutoring them to the finer points of the game. It does take time and patience.     There were three important results. Natasha Pratesi's 379-373 win against Joe Knapper was enough to oust Joe from fourth spot! That win with Joe and massively larger wins against three of the newbies earned Natasha that valuable fourth spot in the table with four wins and 475 spread. Tim Butcher won 424-293 against Oliver Garner to claim second place. His wins against Natasha and Joe along with large wins over three newbies gave him a finish of 6 wins and a 1079 spread. Oliver came third with five wins and 974 spread and in addition took home two other trophies. The highest game score of 554 achieved in the last round and the highest scoring word prize. In fact he had the three highest scoring words! FRIZ for 93, GATHERS for 96 and DWARVES for 103.     Top rated player Jessica Pratesi won all seven games with 1149 spread to become 2010 UK Youth Scabble Champion. She never found it as easy as it sounded. But it almost came to an end in round four against Tim Butcher. Jessica takes up the story:     "I had only played Tim once before and I thrashed him so I was looking forward to doing it again but he got both blanks in two bonuses (SNOOTILY and RAILINGS) and I trailed by 72 points. I thought the game was out of reach after I tried FARINGS** as an outplay which Tim challenged off!     "But then Tim had a no-go with QIS/TOS**, which gave me the chance to try the other plausible bonus I saw... FARSING. It scored 79 and I won the match 377-356. See final board here.     "This was the second match between numbers 1 and 2 on the standings which was another must win situation and the win was made harder by agonising waits between the first four games as the newer players went overtime and made everyone (adults and kids!!) very tired.     "I was now the sole leader on four wins with some sort of ridiculously high spread (+717)".     Jessica's final thoughts: "I was pleased to finish on an easy game (beating sister Natasha) and was no longer bothered by a fly that troubled Joe (Knapper) and I in the previous game. So all's well that ends well     "I was a little surprised at the end result as I rarely end up in form after a short while off the board so I'm assuming I lived up to the expectations that Karen was setting on me, explaining to the other youths that I finished 11th in the WYSC last year and am the best under 18 in UK. At least I can now prove that second part as I have the trophy to prove it". Averages. High Wins. Standings. Scorecard. Stats. Total Scores. Wallchart

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