Recapping the June Portland Pub Scrabble event

Portland Pub Scrabble has been a wildly successful ongoing series of Scrabble tournaments for about a year and a half at this point, and that's largely been a tribute to the vibrant local community of Scrabblers in and around PDX. There's such an enthusiastic bunch of Portlanders playing Collins, month in and month out, that the PPS circuit has never stopped thriving.

But sometimes the Portland Pub fields are more than just the Portland locals, and that only makes the events all the more exciting.

This weekend's event, at Baerlic Brewing in Northeast Portland, featured two visitors passing through the area - Will Anderson and John O'Laughlin, both top-level Collins experts playing a Portland Pub tournament for the first time. Will and John, along with regulars Dave Wiegand and Travis Chaney, made up a four-man field that did battle over six games on Sunday afternoon.

Ultimately Dave won the tournament, as he's done at umpteen Portland Pub events before, but his path to victory wasn't without some drama. After starting the tournament 3-0, Dr. Bing slipped up and lost both rounds 4 and 5; meanwhile John rallied after losing the opener to Bing and won three games out of four. This set up a scenario where both players were 3-2 going into the final round. But Bing prevailed, beating Travis 468-338 to close it out, while John fell to Will, 413-344.

Will battled back from a rough start to finish in second place - he had been 0-2 to start the tournament but rallied to 3-3. John finished 3-3 as well, and Travis, holding his own while facing national champions in every single game, notched two victories.

Thanks to everyone for making this latest Portland Pub Scrabble event an enjoyable one. It was great to see the whole gang - locals and faraway visitors alike. Until next time, cheers to all.