The worst Scrabble debacle ever?? 

The plot is even thicker than this. I was at this tournament. Early that same morning, Jesse Day entered the playing area holding a tray of coffees. One of said coffees was intended for the director of the event, a good friend of Jesse's. This nice gesture quickly turned into its own disaster, as Jesse placed the tray of coffees right next to the new version of the Tournament Rules. A tablecloth covered a small gap between two tables, and the tray tipped over, spilling fresh coffee all over the newly revised rulebook. The decision was made to trash said rulebook, and as a result, the director did not have access to it later that day, when it was needed. Jesse not only got away with the Scrabble equivalent of fraud, but he also sabotaged the evidence that would incriminate him, all because of a kind gesture gone wrong. Karma is an interesting beast.

The tournament director was clearly too hasty… he should’ve been *patienter* 😅

Oh no. Scrabble controversy. Great video! I'm so glad it didn't have to do with the word list.

While it certainly unfortunate, directors and bad rulings come hand in hand. No director from any sport or competition is going to be perfect they all make mistakes which may affect outcome and in those cases usually results aren't overturned. It definitely sucks but I don't think it was done maliciously.

No mention of how IR would come back to bite Jesse later in a nationals final?

Once a director had an old version of Zyzzyva running. I played CRUISIER and it was incorrectly judged as unacceptable. I had totally guessed on this word so I did not know enough to ask for a second opinion. It cost me the game.

Good idea to have a pdf saved on your phone with the rules when you play in a tournament

Would be very interested to hear from Sid and Jesse now that nine years have passed.

I feel like 25% of this video is missing. Yea, you explained everything about what happened in the situation but what was the aftermath? What were the results after Jesse looked up the rules and realize he had the right to challenge? Kind of disappointing listening to a story and not getting a ending.

In Australia, if you’ve written the score (which is a requirement even in the endgame), you can no longer challenge. This gets over the weirdness of apparently being able to challenge at any time during the endgame.

It seems to me that the challenge should always be allowed in this circumstance… all the information there is to know is already out there so why does it matter how long it takes for a player to realize a play is invalid. Tournament director should also be sanctioned for not even having the correct version of the rules they are meant to enforce

I think the wording of the 2012 rules is ambiguous. You're allowed to hold or challenge within 20 seconds **or** until the opponent has drawn a tile. I would interpret this as meaning you can challenge so long as at least one of these conditions holds: less than 20 seconds have passed, **or** the opponent hasn't drawn any tiles yet. The second of those conditions is true, so the whole "or" clause is true. In the video you say the second condition is irrelevant because there are no tiles for Jesse to draw from. But the 2012 rules didn't say "or the opponent needs to draw tiles but hasn't drawn any yet". There's nothing in the wording which would make the second condition not apply when the bag is empty.

Is there any rule preventimg you from saying 'hold' every turn? If not then i would do that to get into the habit of always checking every word

What is up with Jesse Day and playing IR?

I feel like in the spirit of the game, Jesse should've let the challenge go through. like he messed up and then got the win on a technicality it's dishonorable right

I feel like this video could have been shorter. You were repeating a lot. For example, the three minutes of checking tournament rules could have been brought down to half that time.

seems pretty pathetic sportsmanship to try and get a ruling on this, even if technically there was a 20 second limit in place under the old rules. I mean who really wants to win a game this way?