Here is a chronological summary of all posts. To help those outside of tournament Scrabble in understanding this, at the end of this post is a short blurb about the different organizations that I originally wrote for my lawyers.

The Crucible & The Fallout

A two parter that details how the tension between the Clinchys and me began, around the January 2017 New Orleans tournament, shortly after they had started dating, as well as the first three years they spent gossiping about me and turning mutual friends against me.

The Scapegoat

A summary of the campaign to get me banned from Scrabble conducted by the leadership of the North American Scrabble organizations, based on the false accusations that had been brought against me by the Clinchys and Lola McKissen in April 2022.

The Conspiracy

A document dump of all of the communications with the Scrabble organizations that corroborates the entire story in The Scapegoat. Includes the accusations against me and the documents I provided, which prove the falseness of those accusations and the intentional wrongdoing of my accusers.

The Smokescreen & The Circus

These two and the next one were released on consecutive days as a three parter. They detail my attempt to seek justice in the court of law against the Clinchys and Lola McKissen for defamation.

The Abusers

Includes the North American Scrabble Players Association’s (NASPA’s) long overdue response to my appeal of my suspension, and summarizes the wrongdoing of all parties who had contributed to banning me from tournament Scrabble in North America to that point.

The Obstructionists

Details my attempts to get the World English-language Scrabble Players Association (WESPA) to handle an appeal of my NASPA suspension, and WESPA’s own wrongdoing in handling the matter, which hinders my ability to play Scrabble even outside North America.

The Millstone

The aftermath of the court case: Defense attorney Michael Fuller’s attempts to squeeze extortionate legal fees from me, the malpractice claim against my former attorney Marc Mohan, and the ethics complaints about both of them.

The Prejudice

The audio recording of the court hearing described in The Circus, analysis of the contents of the recording, and the new case for contempt of court that the Clinchys and Michael Fuller have brought against me.

Organizations

World English-language Scrabble Players Association (WESPA)

WESPA is an international umbrella organization for all of the different national Scrabble associations around the world. A small number of tournaments are run by WESPA directly. Most are run by the member associations. WESPA’s primary power and function is in recognizing what is the official Scrabble association of a particular country. Generally, WESPA does not make disciplinary decisions resulting in suspensions or bans of players. The member associations do that. However, WESPA notifies the other national associations around the world of these decisions, and they are generally respected reciprocally. So if a player is suspended from tournaments by their own national association, they are suspended around the rest of the world.

WESPA has its own rating system, but historically a small number of tournaments were WESPA rated.¹ The majority of tournaments are rated by the individual rating systems of the member associations. When there are international events which require qualification of a limited number of players from each country, the process has generally been to delegate the qualification procedures to all of the WESPA member associations. For example, NASPA would determine the qualification procedures for Team USA and Team Canada at an international event.

North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA)

NASPA has been the official national association for tournament Scrabble in the United States and Canada since about 2009, and is the only association in these countries which is a member of WESPA.² I have been competing in tournament Scrabble in the USA and Canada since 2002, both under NASPA and its predecessor organization. The USA and Canada are often considered as a single entity in Scrabble politics, and when the term “North America” is used, it usually refers to these two countries.

NASPA has organized the official National Championships in the USA and Canada since its inception, including the 2022 Scrabble Players Championship in Baltimore, Maryland in late July.

Word Game Players Organization (WGPO)

WGPO is a renegade Scrabble organization which was founded by a group of American tournament players and organizers who were disaffected with NASPA in the early 2010s. It has never had WESPA recognition, and for almost all of its history it was a significantly smaller organization than NASPA and primarily a regional one, with most of its tournament activity concentrated in the Twin Cities, Reno, and Arizona areas. Many prominent Scrabble players in other areas, including me, did not take it seriously, did not play in its tournaments, and did not recognize it as an official Scrabble association. For many years WGPO has organized a tournament called the Word Cup, which is their alternative US national championship, and it generally happens earlier in the summer than the NASPA organized US national championship. In 2022 the Word Cup was in Naperville, Illinois in early July.

In late 2021 a Scrabble player Jon Shreve pledged to donate $100,000 per year to WGPO over several years, which immediately increased its prominence. This led to the 2022 Word Cup having a larger prize fund and a bigger turnout than the 2022 Scrabble Players Championship, including a higher number of prominent international players attending. Some prominent North American players who had not previously been involved with WGPO also got involved organizationally, including top worldwide Scrabble Twitch streamer Will Anderson, who is now on the WGPO Board of Directors.

I have never intentionally played in a WGPO tournament. At an informal tournament in New Jersey several years ago, one of the players said that he was going to get the tournament rated by WGPO after the fact. I did not care, and I paid no fees or dues to WGPO that I am aware of.

Collins Coalition (CoCo)

CoCo is a second renegade Scrabble organization which was founded by Evans and Jennifer Clinchy at the end of 2019. CoCo only organizes Scrabble tournaments using the international English Scrabble lexicon, called Collins Scrabble Words or CSW. Evans and Jennifer were the preeminent Scrabble tournament organizers in the states of Washington and Oregon, running their tournaments under NASPA from late 2017 until the end of 2019. A significant reason for the founding of CoCo was specifically to ban me from their tournaments. Much of the history of how Evans and Jennifer behaved as unethical tournament directors under NASPA and how it resulted in them forming CoCo is documented in The Fallout and The Conspiracy.

CoCo in its short history has primarily consisted of a few dozen of the top CSW Scrabble players in North America, mostly concentrated around the west coast of the USA, almost all of whom were longtime good friends of mine until Evans and Jennifer poisoned their minds about me. After WGPO got its large donation, CoCo struck a deal with them to have the CSW division of the 2022 Word Cup carry the CoCo label. CoCo listed the entries to the CSW division of the Word Cup on their website and said that everyone who played in it would automatically be added to their membership rolls. Essentially, CoCo sucked on the teat of another organization that got a large donation and used their connection to WGPO to inflate the size of their own organization.

I have never played in a CoCo tournament nor attempted to sign up for one.

Association of British Scrabble Players (ABSP)

ABSP is the official national association for tournament Scrabble in the UK and is a member of WESPA. It also rates some tournaments in Europe, such as the Continental Scrabble Championship. All tournament Scrabble play in the UK uses CSW, as does almost all tournament play everywhere outside of North America.

Footnotes

1. WESPA has more recently changed its policy and begun rating many more tournaments, including many CSW tournaments run in North America by any organization. See the next note also. ↩︎
2. After the Clinchys and Lola McKissen made their false accusations against me and before I submitted my defense, WESPA began rating CoCo and WGPO tournaments too, although as far as I know neither CoCo nor WGPO has been recognized as an official member association. I have gotten no explanation for why WESPA has been willing to rate tournaments of these unsanctioned organizations. ↩︎