The founder of Manx Scrabble was runner-up at the All-Ireland Open Scrabble Championship in Wexford at the weekend.

Gilly Street of Douglas entered as an underdog but managed to beat high-rated players from Ireland and the United Kingdom.

She narrowly missed being overall winner, losing by 10 points in the final deciding game against former all-Ireland champion, Ronan Ward, who was relieved to reclaim his crown.

The event was rated for both the World English Speaking Scrabble Players Association (WESPA) and the Association of British Scrabble Players (ABSP).

The highlight for her was a drawn game against the top ABSP rated entrant, Chris Vicary, in which she played the tournament’s highest scoring word, a nine-timer for 185 points, a personal best for Gilly.

In Scrabble, a nine-timer is when a word’s score is tripled, and tripled again, because it spans from one triple word square to another. When a player uses all seven tiles on their rack in a single turn, they are given a 50-point bonus. I thought my rack of two Cs, O, U, T, D and S was rather awful,’ she said.

‘Chris had soared to more than 100 points ahead after playing the word “donzen” for 58 points.

‘I began to place “con”, using the n of dozen to block the triple word opening and get rid of one c, then realised my remaining tiles could be added to make “conducts”.’

Supported by Visit Isle of Man, the Steam Packet Company and the Copy Shop, Gilly organised the inaugural 2022 Manx Scrabble Championship at the Sefton Hotel in May. Another Irish contestant, Hugh Boland, who had attended the Manx tournament, told Gilly he had recently returned to visit the Isle of Man with his girlfriend, having fallen in love with it on his Scrabble visit.

Manx Scrabble welcomes and encourages players of all levels and abilities to meet at the Prospect Hotel at 3.30pm on the first, third and fifth Saturday afternoons of each month. People pay £2 and buy their own drinks.

Thanks to Manx Lottery Trust, games are played using WESPA and ABSP approved rotating Scrabble boards.

Southern Befrienders is trialling free Scrabble sessions at 10am on Wednesday mornings for the month of November at the Hub in Port Erin.

If there is enough interest, fortnightly sessions will run for £3, including tea, coffee and biscuits.

Enquiries can be emailed to Gilly at [email protected]