Islamabad-Shangrila boy Moiz Ullah Baig of Pakistan won the Junior World Scrabble Championship played at Torquay, England.
This is the second youth title of Moiz' career having won the World Youth Scrabble Championship in 2013. He is the only player in history to achieve this feat. Moiz climbed to the number one spot after round no 6 on the first day and never relinquished his position till the end. He was declared the champion with one round to go as he had an unassailable lead.
Moiz ended with 20 wins out of the 24 matches and a huge spread of 1968 winning praise from all the senior players that witnessed the game on a giant screen at the venue. Hammad Hadi Khan, title holder of Princess Cup Youth tournament, was the runner-up with 17 wins and a spread of 1598 while defending champion Matthew O'conner of USA made an astonishing recovery on the final day winning 7 of his last 8 matches to climb to the third position. Matthew was surrounded by Pakistani players as the fourth position was claimed by 12-year-old Imaad Ali with 16 wins and a spread of 870. Sohaib Sanaullah finished fifth and Hassan Hadi Khan sixth.
Shangrila Pakistan team created history by winning all six age categories titles. Moiz was of course the world champion overall but Pakistan also won all other age group titles. Sumbul Siddiqui, who moved from Pakistan to UK in 2012, finished as top female player and the highest ranked player from England.
Chief guest, 2016 world scrabble champion, Brett Smitheram was all praise for Pakistan and predicted bigger things to come in future from this part of the world. The World Scrabble Championship will begin from tomorrow. Waseem Khatri and Tariq Pervez will be joined by some of the youngsters, who will try their luck against the adult players.