Lately competitions to show off your hidden talents have been numerous, ranging from Top Chef showdowns and Assassins shootouts, to… Scrabble tournaments?

Cabot House recently hosted its first Scrabble Tournament this semester. Beginning in April, the event ended last night and even featured some surprisingly good competitors.

John L. Ezekowitz ’13, who won the event with a score of 490 points, turns out to be the Scrabble master.  He won the first National School Scrabble Competition in 2003 and then placed #24 at the 2004 National Scrabble Championship.

“I’m very happy to have won the Cabot Scrabble tournament. I won’t be in Cabot until next year, but the tournament has introduced me to a lot of great people and I’m exited to be part of the house for the next three years. Winning was really just a bonus,” he said.

As Jia “Jennifer” Wu ’11, organizer of the Cabot House Committee sponsored event, explained, “I was surprised by how many good Scrabble players we have in the house.  And what a fun community especially! I love that a bunch of students and tutors were gathered around the table for the final tonight.  And our resident tutor, Rich Johnston, color commentated and podcasted it… We had a great time!”

Her inspiration to create such a tournament?  Apparently Pfoho has been doing this kind of event for 7 years now! And Wu said she is hoping for a “quad throw-down” one day, especially since the event turned out to be such a success in her own house.

For Wu, it’s as simple as “for the love of the game.”

“I like weird words, like words with “aa” and “oe” in them, and “V” is a terrible letter, since it’s really hard to make words from, so the game completely changes based on luck,” she said.

So whatever your passion, there are bound to be others around who are willing to test your talent. Too bad Ezekowitz claims he’s retiring from Cabot Scrabble though: “I want to go out as a champion,” he said.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.