Despite  uncertainties in the schedule and modality, the Accountancy (ACC) Griffins secured gold for both men’s and women’s divisions in the recently concluded Palarong Atenista scrabble tournament.

Accountancy students Paul John Alvarez and Regine Cabel triumphed over the rest of the clusters. Alvarez shared his preparations prior to the game, saying he had studied and memorized two and three letter words from the Collin Scrabble Words (CSW) dictionary. 

“We practiced a few times with my cluster’s scrabble women[‘s] participant. Also, I studied and memorized all two letter words, and a bunch of three letter words from CSW,” Alvarez said.

He also noted that this was his edge against his opponents, saying he had memorized all two letters words since he was young, and believes it is quite rare for people to do so.

Amidst the triumph, the champs shared their frustrations with the online set-up of the game, saying it felt unfair and discriminatory to have the chess tournament face-to-face while the scrabble competition was held online.

“They always reasoned that online set-up is better, which everyone with a sane mind would definitely disagree. It is much easier to play scrabble in an F2F set-up, because the players can score, challenge, and manage the game by themselves, which would not only be more convenient for the ushers, but for the players as well,” Alvarez said.

The gold medalist also said it is more fun for the players if the game was set face-to-face as it is a hassle for them to have to set up cameras, Discord accounts, screenshares, and other equipment needed for the online game.

“It is extremely frustrating, especially for the players, who were definitely expecting a full face-to-face Palaro because classes are now fully face-to-face. I am very disappointed because we appealed very early on, but we were never given the attention,” Alvarez said.

Apart from this, the scrabble tournament’s schedule was also delayed as the game was supposedly held last October 1 but was postponed to October 6.

In the men’s division, the School of Nursing (SON) Panthers came in second place, with the School of Engineering and Architecture (SEA) Tigers securing third place. The women’s division had the Business and Management (BM) Vipers in second, with the SEA Tigers again winning bronze. 

The game was held via Rackword and was ushered by facilitators through Discord.