Senior School student Cooper Ashley (Year 11) will represent New Zealand at the World Youth Scrabble Championship in Kuala Lumpur later this year. 

 

Cooper always liked playing Scrabble as a kid, now and then, but one day stumbled across an American Scrabble grandmaster’s YouTube channel:  

 

“I didn't even know people played Scrabble competitively. I thought that looked really interesting, so I watched all the videos, then downloaded the training software he was using, and used it to learn words to get an edge against my family. My mum got sick of losing, so she suggested we see if there is a Scrabble club I could join, and we found one in Mt Albert. Once in the club, I was encouraged to start playing tournaments. I always like the competitive side of things, so I thought that sounded amazing,” says Cooper. 

 

In less than a year of competitive play, Cooper has remarkably risen to be the number one ranked youth player in New Zealand, the category for players under 18; Cooper is only 15, something he is “pretty pleased with”. 

 

The Youth World Championships in Kuala Lumpur are something he is really looking forward to testing himself in:

 

“I haven't had much global experience yet, so this opportunity will allow me to see what the game is like at this high level. I am quite excited to be playing in a tournament of this calibre for the first time,” says Cooper.  

The competition will be held in a large school hall, a far cry from the Bridge clubs where most of his games are played in New Zealand, and will consist of 24 games across three days. To prepare, Cooper studies the Collins Dictionary and uses special software programmes that allow you to do anagramming with different word lists.  

 

Scrabble is more complex than some might think, but it’s the words that Cooper really enjoys: 

 

“A lot of people like it for the strategy, but I have always been a big fan of the words. Although it is catergorised as a word game, some players like to downplay how much of a word game it is and say it’s more about maths and probability, and it is a lot of those things, but for me its just so exciting to play a really weird and obscure word and think ‘wow I can’t believe I found that’,” says Cooper. 

 

Over King's Birthday Weekend, Cooper competed at the New Zealand Association of Scrabble Players (NZASP) National Championship, where he lived up to his number one ranking by winning the youth category, a fantastic confidence boost before heading to Malaysia. 

 

We wish Cooper all the best as he represents New Zealand on the global stage and look forward to following his journey in the world of competitive Scrabble.

 

 

This article is from the 2025 Kaleidoscope magazine. Read the full edition here