Who is That Masked Finfoot?

August 11th marked the last day of the National Scrabble Championships, an event that America’s geeks and freaks watch with all the fervor that our more sportif friends and neighbors reserve for, er, whatever those sorts of people watch. The Olympics, or something. Live coverage of the event was streamed on the internet, reaching even more millions of viewers than tuned in last year to watch tiles click.

Rafi Stern, a University of Washington student, played FINFOOTS for a whopping 203 points. The play was featured in an interview with Stefan Fatsis on NPR’s All Things Considered. Fatsis is the author of (the very entertaining) Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players and a competitive Scrabble player himself.

Competitive Scrabble, and the game in general, has seen an upsurge in popularity since the publication of Fatsis’s book. Contributing to the wave of younger players picking up the game is Hasbro’s Facebook Scrabble game, which allows Facebook users to play “friends” or to start and join open games. The game is smartphone-compatible, which makes it relatively popular with mobile addicts.

The NSC grand prize of $10,000 went to Nigel Richards of Kuala Lumpur. Tough break, Rafi.