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Joel Wapnick1999 World Scrabble ChampionJoel Wapnick out of Canada is one of the best and most consistent Scrabble players in the world. |
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 Joel Wapnick was one of the most consistent
Scrabble players in the 1980's and 1990's. From his victory at the
U.S. National Scrabble Championship in 1983 to his second-place
finish at the World Scrabble Championship in 2001, Joel Wapnick was
considered one of the top contenders in every major Scrabble
tournament he entered. At 61 years old, Joel Wapnick remains is the
33rd rated player as of 2007.World Scrabble ChampionshipJoel Wapnick is the most successful competitor in the brief history of the World Scrabble Championship. Wapnick won the 1999 World Scrabble Championship, while placing second in he 1993 and 2001 WSC. Had he won those two championships, Wapnick would be considered the dominant figure in this generation of Scrabble. The Wapnick-Nyman showdowns in the 1993 and 1999 World Scrabble Championships are legendary. Either match could have gone to either competitor. In 1993, Mark Nyman won 3-2, coming back from a 2-1 deficit to win the title. In one of those matches, Mark Nyman came back from an incredible 174-point deficit to win the Scrabble game. In 1999, Joel Wapnick and Mark Nyman had another nail-biter. In the ultimate game of the match, Joel Wapnick won the Scrabble match by one single point. U.S. National Scrabble ChampionshipJoel Wapnick's first major tournament victory came in the 1983 U.S. National Scrabble Championship. He has also finished a U.S. National Scrabble Championship in 2nd place and in 3rd place. In 1988, Joel Wapnick finished 3rd in the NSC, going 19-8 in matches to Robert Watson's 20.5-6.5 match record. In 1992, Joel Wapnick finished 2nd in the NSC. In this instance, Wapnick finished 21-6, behind Joe Edley's 22-5 game record. Canadian National Scrabble ChampionshipJoel Wapnick has also won his nation's top Scrabble honor, taking home the Canadian National Scrabble Championship in 1998. Atomic Bomb of Scrabble StudyJoel Wapnick developed his own system for the memorization of large Scrabble words in the 7 and 8 word range. Joel memorizes lists of 20 of these words at a time. He chooses these lists according to the sorts of consonants and vowels contained, making each list easier to remember. Joel Wapnick calls this method of word memorization the atomic bomb of Scrabble study. Using this study technique, Joel Wapnick has been able to memorize over 16,000 7-letter and 8-letter words. Despite consistent success over a 20 year period in competitive SCRABBLE, no other major Scrabble player has chosen to use Joel Wapnick's "atomic bomb" method. Joel Wapnick Personal InformationJoel Wapnick is an associate professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Wapnick teaches music at the university. Joel Wapnick also writes fiction and plays the piano.
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