Moiz Ullah Baig stands first in Shangrila Scrabble Champion’s Trophy

The first edition of Shangrila Scrabble Champion’s trophy came to an end with Moiz Ullah Baig proving his intelligence skills yet again through winning the trophy of the championship and a cheque of 35,000 PKR. He finished the championship at the top spot with 18 wins out of the 27 matches and maintained a spread of 1525. 

The Shangrila Champions Trophy is the toughest scrabble tournament in the domestic circuit as only the top 26 players were selected to play based on their national ratings.

Moiz remained in the top 5 positions throughout the tournament but was in a serious danger of missing out when he lost a few crucial matches on the final day. Moiz had to win his last two games to climb back to the top. The threat of losing the game came to him from the 12 year old Syed Imaad Ali and it was very rare to see a runner-up overshadowing the eventual champion.

The 12-year-old defeated Moiz three times and Waseem Khatri twice and remained on top for most of the final day. In fact the little master had a two games lead with three matches to go but Moiz did not let his position slip away from him and made a wonderful comeback by beating Imaad who therefore ended as a runner-up due to a lower spread than Moiz.

Following are the other top ten winners of the championship:

1. Tariq Pervez - 4th position with a spread of 891.

2. Waseem Khatri - 5th position

3. Hammad Hadi – 6th position with a spread of 921

4. Sohaib Sanaullah - 7th position

5. Jawed Shamim – 8th position

6. Shahzaib Khatri – 9th position

7. Faheem Naqvi – 10th position

The chief guest of the event was Dr. Maleeha Ahmed who distributed trophies to the high achievers and announced that further tournaments will be held at Arts & Science Academy in the near future.