THE VISION OF “ST. MICHAEL”

In Scrabble, we often focus on the amazing exploits of the game’s greatest players but neglect to properly appreciate the efforts of the event organizers and directors who make all of the action possible. Singapore’s Michael Tang is perhaps the best of the bunch: a brilliant tournament organizer and director with a passion for growing the game and a strong expert player in his own right.

Michael is extremely well regarded in the Scrabble community for his Causeway Challenge series of tournaments, which attracted the strongest players from all over the world. However, last year Michael retired the Causeway Challenge series to hold a team-based Scrabble event called the Alchemist Cup, which took place from December 5 through 9, 2018. (In true Scrabble fashion, the event is so named because “alchemist” is an anagram of “St. Michael.”) Held in Penang, Malaysia, the event was the second iteration of the Alchemist Cup; the first was held way back in 2010. Given the excitement generated by the 2018