NYSC 2020 - Under the New Norm The year 2020 looked set to be yet another successful year in so far as Scrabble outings were concerned for us Scrabblers – youths and adults alike, what with two new venues, the 1Shamelin Mall and Metro Mall KL came on board to offer their premises for the hosting Scrabble events. Following past years practise, we lined up 14 tournamnets for the year Calendar of events to he held at various venues. But things did not work out as planned. Whatever preparations that had been made went awry and into disarray as Covid 19 pandemic set in and MCO was imposed on us starting March. Any activity requiring participants to physically face each other was not allowed. This therefore put into jeopardy our scheduled events, whether the ad hoc or annual ones, major or minor. It would be upsetting if those major annual events like the Masters and NYSC were to be let to pass as these events were something our members would always be looking up to. It was somewhat promising when initially the pandemic seemed to have eased up with new cases were in single or double digits. But it was not to be as towards the third quarter of the year however, new cases spiralled and seemingly out of control. The MCO was continually extended after the set expiry. With such gloom, we more or less resigned to fate and ready to just play with the computer ! Came January 2021 we were overjoyed to the announcement that an international Scrabble youth event would be held after all – but online. Apparently a mechanic had been found to conduct an online competition with minimal or next-to-none cheating element. This world youth tournament was sanctioned by WESPA to be spearheaded by the Pakistan Scrabble body. Sponsored by Gladiators Quetta the tournament was styled as the Gladiators WESPA Youth Cup 2021. It was a team event whereby Scrabble bodies in 16 countries from the five continents were invited to ”send” a team of of 6 players (plus 2 reserves) each to the event. Malaysia was among those invited. The event was held from January 22 to Feb 7, 2021. It was a huge success. NYSC 2020/2021 The successful hosting of the Gladiators WESPA Youth Cup (GWYC2021) led us to have the confidence that we could conduct our Scrabble events in the same fashion. Top on our mind was the need to reinstate the continuity of the NYSC series which had seen the 2020 edition disrupted due to the Covid 19 pandemic. As it was then already 2021, it was a missed opportunity for students to gain points under PAJSK for 2020 in Scrabble. That being the case, the tournament was named as NYSC2020/2021 – the 2020 NYSC held in 2021. The main challenge about hosting the tournament online is how to address possible cheating since players could not be supervised in the usual way. However, the mechanics employed for GWYC2021 proved that elements of cheating could be curtailed if not totally eliminated. And so our NYSC2020/2021 was quickly set in motion : Date : Feb 2, 4, 6, 7 (exact times notified) Platform and Apps : 1. Woogles for Scrabble platform 2. OBS Ninja for sharing of computer screen and player-view 3. OBS Studio for invigilators Number fo Partcipants : Capped to 72 (on logistics and monitoring issues) 8 (Malaysia’s representatives to GWYC) seeded Registration was opened on January 30, attracting 72 players from 39 schools in 9 states. Briefing and Tutorial was conducted on January 31 on game preparation/set-up and on playing the game using Woogles platform. Game Format : Round Robin/Knock Out 64 players were grouped into 8 groups of 8 in the initial stage. Each Group played Round–Robin. Top 3 in each group proceeded to next round 32 players (24 + 8 seeded) then played Knocked-Out system (Best of 3) 16 players then played Knock Out System (Best of 3) 8 Players proceeded to Quarter Final (Best of 3) 4 Players to Semi Final (Best of 3) 2 Players to Finals (best of 5) Results : Champion : Tengku Ariff Shah bin Tengku Shahrir Runner-Up : Eirfan bin Razman Summary Overall the event went well. This was a deviation from the customary NYSC that we have been organizing where players would physically face each other and play with real tiles, timers and boards. Here players faced opponents virtually - on computer screen, playing with a computer software, namely Woogles. Players however, need not worry about score calculation, nor tile-tracking as this were done autommatically by the software. Players who had been playing on ISC had an a slight advantage of having had the experience of online Scrabble. This online game had another dimension in that invigilators were there monitoring the play remotely. Unseen to the players, they could monitor each and every move of the game as well as the players, whether they would be referring to notes or in consultation with anyone. Players, conscious of being watched appeared somewhat tensed and stiff, while parents and/or siblings sitting idling by in the environ would step into the scene should there be a need to restore phone settings or to convey message from tournament director or invigilator. For this tournament we recruited volunteers to be invigilators from a few senior players and from Chegu Kanaka’s Scholar’s Scrabble Club. In the initial stage of the tournament, those youngsters who had earlier represented Malaysia in the GWYC2021 had the time to volunteer to invigilate as they were given byes in this first stage. Though at the start, things did not go very smoothly due to incorrect game set-ups or unstable internet connection with some players, the overall tounament went well. There were cases when some players forgot to immediately enter the game results onto the formatted Google Sheet but this was quickly sorted out. But most heartening was that there was no incidence which required cautionary or punitive actions on the players. The semi-finals and finals could be watched by others on Twitch as these were live-streamed. Thanks to Khoo Beng Way and Chang Ching Wei who made this happen as well as gave commentaries on the games. It was anxiously gripping especially to the parents who followed the games live, more so when seeing players missed ”simple” optimal moves. It became truly nail-biting when the game was very close and could go either way watching players lay their moves in trying to outwit the other to wrest the winning point. It was unnerving when the player missed the winning move. Key to the success of running and participating in this online game is to have good internet connection. It is very important for players to have stable and strong internet connection as weak connection could result in lost time in a game, and disconnection of the camera link to the invigilator which might trigger alarm for possible cheating. As the players and administrators are becoming familiar and gaining competence with the mechanics of online Scrabble tournaments, it is foreseable that we may just carry on with our usual games online. As the counntry is very much in gloom with spiralling new cases of Covid 19, it does not augur well to revert to the ”old days”. Indeed face-to-face tournament does not look like going to happen anytime soon. So let us brace ourselves for prolonged MCO and get familiar with new norm of playing Scrabble : online ! Appended below are details about the tournament – breakdown of participants and results. Some selected photos are also presented, including screen grabs of ”rare” interesting boards Appendix 1 :Summary of Participants Gender Total No. Schools State Student M F M C I s 1 SJK (C) Chung Hwa (2B) Johor 1 1 1 2 MRSM Baling Kedah 1 1 1 3 Kolej Yayasan Saad Melaka 2 1 1 2 3 4 SJKC Keh Seng 1 1 2 2 5 SK Bachang 1 2 3 3 6 SK Bukit Tembakau 1 1 1 7 SK Convent Infant Jesus (2) 6 1 2 3 6 8 SK Kampong Gelam 1 1 1 9 SK St. Francis 2 2 2 10 SK Tun Syed Ahmad Shahabudin 1 1 1 11 SMK St. Francis 1 1 1 12 SMK Bukit Baru 1 1 1 13 SMK Infant Jesus Convent 3 3 3 14 SMK Sri Pengkalan 1 1 1 15 SMK Tinggi St. David 3 2 1 3 16 Kolej Genius@Pintar UKM Negeri 1 2 3 3 17 SK Sikamat Sembilan 3 2 3 2 5 18 Kolej Tunku Kursiah 1 1 1 19 SEMSAS Kuantan Pahang 1 1 1 20 St. George's Girls' School Pulau Pinang 1 1 1 21 SJK(C) Chee Vun Sabah 1 1 2 2 22 SBPI Gombak Selangor 1 1 1 23 SJKC Damansara 2 2 2 24 SJKT Kajang 1 1 2 2 25 SK Desa Pinggiran Putra 1 1 1 26 SK Taman Megah Selangor 3 1 2 2 4 27 SMK Bandar Utama 4 1 1 1 28 SMK Convent Kajang 1 1 1 29 SMK Convent Klang 1 1 1 30 SMK Damansara Jaya 2 1 1 2 31 SMK Damansara Utama 2 1 2 1 3 32 SMK Jalan Bukit 1 1 1 33 SMK La Salle 1 1 1 34 SMK Lembah Keramat 1 1 1 35 SMK Sungai Pelek 1 1 1 36 SMS Kuala Selangor 1 1 1 37 MBSS Kuala Lumpur 1 1 1 38 SMK Aminuddin Baki W.P. Kuala 1 2 1 2 3 39 Wesley Methodist School Kuala Lumpur 2 1 1 2 Lumpur (International) TOTAL 39 33 27 16 29 72 Appendix 2 : List of Participants Year / No.