Congratulations to Olaiya Kabir for winning the gold medal for the Mind Sports Olympiad 2020 Scrabble main event, finishing with an unbeaten 12-0 (+1445) record in a field with over 70 players, featuring many strong players from around the world.
Although Olaiya had been Gibsonised, there were 9 other players sitting on 8 or 8½ wins going into a tense final round. Adegboyega Akintokun (9-3, +847) took the silver medal and Samuel Onifade (9-3, +728) the bronze, with Austin Shin (9-3, +612) and Olumide Oyejide (9-3, +425) just missing out on spread.
Over 50 players took part in the Speed Scrabble event the previous evening. There were three players level on wins after the 10 preliminary rounds were completed: Adegboyega Akintokun (8-2, +920), Olaiya Kabir (8-2, +894) and Waseem Khatri (8-2, +538) This tournament used a play-off to determine the medallists, where Adegboyega defeated both Olaiya and Waseem to take the gold medal, with Olaiya beating Waseem to secure the silver.
The two events were organised in partnership by ABSP and Mind Sports Olympiad. Chris Harrison and Wayne Kelly ran the tournament, with assistance from Natalie Zolty. Many games were streamed live on Facebook and/or Twitch:
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Will Anderson and Sumbul Siddiqui: Main Event, rounds 9-12
and also Speed Scrabble (FB);
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Craig Beevers: Main event and also
Speed Scrabble, his own games (Twitch)
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Ben Schoenbrun: Main event, rounds 6-12, his own games (Twitch)
Note that streams on Twitch may expire after a few weeks
Results: Main Event | Speed Scrabble | Speed Scrabble Play-offs (PDF)