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Canada at the WSC

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPLACED. I'm keeping this up only for historical interest, but the system to be used in selecting Canada's team for the 2001 WSC can be found in the May 2000 issue of SCRABBLE News, or at http://www.scrabble-assoc.com/tourneys/2001/wsc/can.


The following section describes the qualification system for the Canadian team at the 2001 World Scrabble Championship. For more information, please contact John Chew (+1 416 876 7675 or poslfit@gmail.com).

Qualification System (Final Version, 1999-11-29)

  1. In what follows, a Canadian is deemed to be a person who is either a Canadian citizen, or a has been a Permanent Resident of Canada for the five years preceding the WSC.

  2. The reigning World Champion, if a Canadian, is exempted from this qualification system, if as is tradition, the Champion is invited to play in the WSC ex officio and outside of Canada's quota.

  3. The reigning Canadian Champion, if not the World Champion, qualifies for the Canadian team.

  4. Some Canadian players who placed in the top 25% of the previous WSC qualify for the Canadian team in recognition of their achievement, and their contribution toward the expansion of the Canadian quota. The number of such players is limited to half of the size of the new Canadian team, rounded down and not including the reigning World Champion. If this limit needs to be applied, players will be ranked for this purpose according to their final standings at the previous WSC.

  5. The remaining positions on the team will be awarded based on Qualifying Ratings and a Qualifying Tournament. Half of the available positions (rounded up) will be awarded based on QR, and the remainder based on QT.

  6. The QR will be calculated based on NSA tournament results during the N-month Qualification Period, this time to run from 2000-01-01 to 2001-05-31. During this period, a player who wishes to qualify based on QR must play at least 4N fully NSA-rated games. The QR will be calculated as the peak rating during the QP, after at least 2N games have been played, and posted at the NSA web site. Positions awarded based on QR at the end of the QP will go to those players whose QR is highest, and who confirm their acceptance of a position within one week of their being notified that they have qualified. Players who are attempting to qualify for the WSC for the first time must declare their intention to do so no later than 12 months before the end of the QP.

  7. A QT will be held in late June or July of the year of the WSC, in a Canadian city to be announced at least two months before the event. It will use the same word source and challenge penalty as the WSC itself, and consist of at least 14 games played over two days. To be eligible to play in the QT, a player must have played at least 2N fully NSA-rated games during the Qualification Period and must not have qualified based on QR. The Qualification Tournament Rating of such players will be defined as peak rating after at least one QP tournament. The QT will consist of those players wanting to play whose QTR is at least 1800, and those players whose QTR is among the top 16 QTRs. All players must register for the QT within two weeks of the end of the QP; acceptance after that will be at the discretion of the QT director.

  8. When counting games for the 2N (34) and 4N (68) quotas mentioned above, the director of an NSA sanctioned tournament may count one such event in any twelve-month period as 10 played games.

  9. If a player who has qualified decides not to play, then an alternate player will be chosen based on standings in the QT. If no QT players are available, then a player will be chosen based on QR, and failing that based on QTR. A player who attempts to qualify to represent another country at the WSC will be deemed to have decided not to play for Canada, regardless of whether or not they succeed in their other qualification attempt.