Does scrabble possess criteria to be a sport?

Mpesa Foundation Academy student Priscilla Nduku (left) in a battle of wits with her teacher-cum-coach Anthony Maina during a scrabble showdown at the school's auditorium on February 1, 2019. PHOTO | VINCENT OPIYO |

What you need to know:

  • Annually, there are more than ten national competitions played in various cities namely Nairobi, Kisumu, Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Machakos, Nakuru, Homabay, Busia and Meru.
  • Universities and schools have their calendar of championship played in regions.

Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles bearing a single letter onto a board divided into a 15x15 grid of squares.

The tiles, according to Wikipedia, must form words that in crossword fashion read left to right in rows or downward in columns and be included in a standard dictionary.

These tiles are usually made of wood or plastic and are 19 by 19 millimetres (0.75 in × 0.75 in) square and 4mm (0.16 in) thick, making them slightly smaller than the squares on the board.

The game is available in 29 languages and sold in 121 countries with about 4000 scrabble clubs around the world.

In an English-language set, the game contains 100 tiles, 98 of which are marked with a letter and a point value ranging from 1 to 10.

The number of points for each lettered tile is based on the letter’s frequency in standard English with commonly used letters such as vowels are worth one point while less common letters score higher with Q and Z each worth 10 points.

Professor Jim Parry, who specialises in sports ethics and social and political philosophy, describes sport as institutionalised rule-governed contest of human physical skill.

Going by this definition, scrabble therefore isn’t a sport as it lacks the aspects of physicality and and skill.

Nonetheless, the game of scrabble has been played in Kenya since 1990 under their Scrabble Kenya federation.

Kenya has had very good rankings in the world championship incepted in 1991 with the championship being held every two years.

In the 1995 championship for instance, Kenya was ranked first in the world.

Annually, there are more than ten national competitions played in various cities namely Nairobi, Kisumu, Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Machakos, Nakuru, Homabay, Busia and Meru.

Universities and schools have their calendar of championship played in regions.