He used to have a quiet life.
For two years Steven Turnbull, the principal of Paradise Hill School, has been the North American champion of online Scrabble in regards to the number of games won.
"I'm not the best player," said Turnbull, "in relation to word scores, but I have won the most games."
"I've been playing for six years, but this (title) is over the last three years. Six years ago Gail Noble convinced me to go on Facebook to play Scrabble and it snowballed from there. A few years back there was a copyright issue with the original Facebook game - prior to that you could play anyone in the world - and then three years ago the dispute was resolved and Hasbro took over. They restricted it to North America and it [the keeping of statistical records on wins /losses/point totals etc.] started over again.
"I've been number one for two years, and nobody cared. The reason it came out was because I got a request for an interview from Dan Amira, a reporter for New York Magazine, who wanted to do an article about how people waste time at work. I initially refused the request because I don't play it at work I play in the morning before work, and after school and I sometimes check it during the noon hour. He hounded me for a month and then said he could take it from a different angle, so I did the interview and then, after that, from one interview and one article posted, the whole thing just exploded in a very short time. It boggles my mind.
"The interview was Monday the seventh, he published it on the ninth, and then other media picked it up on the ninth and it's been constant since. The Toronto Star phoned for an interview and a picture. On the tenth or the eleventh someone from the Canadian Press wire service called and she did an article and that just went everywhere. CBC radio called yesterday."
All of which begged a question. So I asked it.
"So Steve, you were sitting here quietly as the King Of Scrabble for two years "
"And nobody cared," he answered, "except for Jonathan Cruz "
"Jonathan Cruz?" I asked.
"Yeah," he replied, "the guy who's number two. He cared. Nobody else did though, except well, maybe my mom."
How much Scrabble does a person have to play in three years to win that many games?
Not a lot, actually. "I play about two hours a day, a bit in the early morning over my coffee before work (Steve typically rises at 4:45 a.m.) and then again in the evening."
"Look," he said, "you need to understand that I know that even though I've won the most games, I'm not necessarily the best player."
Surely, I thought, this is modesty and humility at it's finest. To win and win consistently over a long period is the hallmark of a champion - think of the Montreal Canadians from 1976-79, the Oilers of the '80s or Jack Nicklaus. There are a lot of people playing Scrabble in North America, so it isn't luck. It's skill. Skill and mental discipline that are consistently present over a long period of time.
"I do it to relax. I find it very relaxing, a good mental exercise, and I enjoy the conversations with people all over North America."
A relaxing mental activity maybe, but Turnbull isn't the kind of player who believes that the score is less important than the cleverness of coming up with long elegant word combinations. He's more of a down and dirty in the corner kind of player: grab the triples, deny them to your opponent, use lots of two and three letter bread and butter scoring words, have a hundred plus active games on the go, finish 20 a day and become the North American On Line Scrabble Champion.
And keep that title.
"I'm looking forward to the day when it all goes back to normal and no one pays attention to Scrabble anymore," he said, "and then I can just kind of breathe a sigh of relief that people aren't trying to knock me off."
By the Numbers:
0: Hasbro runs North American Scrabble, Mattel runs the rest of the world, and, statistically, they don't talk.
4: the number of Google hits for Steve Turnbull prior to Feb. 6 (and three were guys in Ireland)
71,000: the number of results that turn up after Google searches 'Steven Turnbull Scrabble'
39.5: the number of seconds it takes Google to come up with 71,000 results
11,524: the number of games Steven Turnbull had won as of Feb. 9
11,104: the number of games that Jonathan Cruz had won as of Feb. 9
420: the gulf between the king and his followers
1: the number of acrimonious conversations in six years with online Scrabble opponents
7: the number of games Steven lost yesterday
20: the average number of games Steven completes each day
22: the number of hours Canadians spent watching TV each week in 2003
12: the number of hours Canadians spent watching TV each week in 2010
16: the number of hours Canadians spent online each week in 2010
1,785: highest word score played in a game, for oxyphenbutazone
2,044: what you'd score if you could only figure out how to play sesquioxidizing
3: the number of speeds for online Scrabble, fast, medium and slow. Steve likes medium speed games.
1 week: the length of time most medium speed online games last
