NATIONAL scrabble champion Abigail McDonald collected her third consecutive national title when she defeated Moen Gafoor in the finals of the 2013 COURTS National Scrabble Championship last Saturday  at the Bank of Guyana Roof Garden.

Playing to the best out of five games, McDonald kept the competition short after she defeated a surprised Gafoor in three straight games. A satisfied McDonald won from Gafoor playing 375 – 349 in the first game, 396 – 466 in the second game and 391 – 390 in the final match.
“I am very happy with the outcome, I didn’t expect to win in three rounds. As much as I won in three games, all three games were keenly contested I don’t want to undermine his (Gafoor’s) competition in any way because the games were well played.”
McDonald will now be Guyana’s representative at the World Scrabble Championships  slated to take place this December in Prague, Czech Republic. A venture which McDonald is proud to be part of.
“I feel extremely honoured, I have been putting in a lot of work lately and have been putting a lot of pressure on my self to prepare. I have a lot of aspirations (for my performance at the World Scrabble Championship), but at bare minimum I’m looking to do better than I did the last time. That is my first goal right now, to do better than I did before.”
McDonald was the sole representative the last time Guyana attended the World Scrabble Championship back in 2009.
For his part, Gafoor shared that the three straight wins came as a surprise to him, conceding that in the end Abigail had the better method.
“I certainly didn’t expect it to finish in three games. Abigail simply played better scrabble, she applied better strategy, she played a very good defensive strategy.”