Spelling nazi with a twist!

While profiling Sherwin Rodrigues, an amusing thought popped up. Sherwin could as well be an alter ego for a Marvel comics' superhero. Glasses. Check. Boy-next-door demeanour. Check. A day job that doesn't give a hint of his superpowers. Check. Superpowers. Check! His uncanny ability to conjure up winning words on the Scrabble board catapult the 25-year-old to being a six-time National Scrabble Champion with a world ranking of 26. And yeah, he confesses he can't stand misspelt words just like Superman can't stand Kypronite.

'Off' to a great start
Love for the word game always ran in the family, says Sherwin, who has clear memory of his first brush with Scrabble. He was nine then. "I was in Mumbai on summer holidays (Sherwin and his family were based in Oman then). While watching my mom and my grandparents play Scrabble, I happened to suggest a simple three letter word to my grandfather. The word gave him the best score for that turn in the game." He remembers the word too, "It was 'off', he smiles. "I started playing the game after that," he says.
Sherwin feels that his love for solving word building and jumbled words in newspapers as a kid drew him to Scrabble. "I realised it was an ideal game for jumbled words and word building, and soon learned there were a lot of factors like strategy, analytical thinking, math skills and quick counting, involved in the game, which made me enjoy it even more," he says.

Joining the league of Scrabble champs
Sherwin was hooked on to the game from the very first time he started playing at nine. At 10, he took part in his first tournament in Muscat and won that tournament convincingly with all seven wins in the junior category. His father encouraged his love for game the most, and introduced Sherwin to Scrabble tournaments. Of his first tournament he doesn't remember much except, "My dad saw an ad in the newspaper about a tournament being held in Oman and enrolled my name for it. All I remember is a tinier version of me being really happy about winning the first Scrabble tournament I ever played," he beams.
By 12, his father introduced him to playing the game with adults at tournaments. The first National Championship tournament (adults) he completed in was in Muscat in 2012. He won that tournament, becoming Oman National Champion at the age of 13.

Move to India
After class 10, Sherwin moved to Mumbai, in 2004, to pursue college. "While I thought I'd find it tough to adjust to life in Mumbai, it turned out to be quite the opposite. I liked that Mumbai helped me become more independent and gave me more freedom as life in the gulf is too sheltered." As a Scrabble player too, it was a good leap for him, he says, "because the competition in India was bigger than what it was in the Gulf. I knew in a way it would help improve my game and I was happy to take on the challenge of playing stronger opponents," he says.
In another four years, Sherwin went on to win the National Championship, in 2008, and has been the National Scrabble Champion for six years, undefeated from 2008 to 2011, and won the tournaments again in 2013 and 2014. He's also have represented India at five World Scrabble Championships. "This year, I finished 26. My best placing was in the Scrabble Champions Trophy in Prague last year though, where I finished 9th out of 111 participants. This was one of my biggest achievements in Scrabble as finishing in the Top 10 amongst the World's best players is extremely tough," shares Sherwin.

Scrabble influence
On his list of things he loves to do is travelling, playing sports (yes, he plays games besides Scrabble too - cricket, football, basketball, table tennis, badminton and chess), watching TV series and movies, not necessarily in that order. However, the lowest on that list is reading, " as I anyway have way too many Scrabble word lists to read," he sighs.
He also loves teaching Scrabble. "I taught during my first and second years of B.Com. I've also been teaching Scrabble for the past year over weekends at Wordaholix, a group dedicated to promoting Scrabble in India. We train kids to represent India at the World Youth Scrabble Championships (Under 18)," he shares.
To his friends and colleagues, he's also the go-to-guy for spelling confirmations, something he gladly helps them out with, because, "I can't stand spelling mistakes," he confesses.

Dual life
Sherwin has played non-stop all along, balancing his studies and playing his competitive game. The marketing graduate says, the only time he had to put aside the Scrabble board was in class 12. "I was forced to, as my tournament clashed with my prelims. Fortunately, my parents were pretty cool about me playing even during my 10th . I remember playing one of my earlier international tournaments in Mumbai over a weekend and heading back to Muscat to give my 10th standard prelims the very next day.
He continues to play for National and International Tournaments, alongside working as marketing professional in a popular music company. In fact recently he represented India at the sixth Sri Lanka Open International Scrabble Championship, where he finished third.
Ask him then how he likes to introduce himself, being a Scrabble player and a marketing professional, an amused Sherwin says, "Well, the ideal way to go about it would be to say – I'm a marketing professional but a Scrabbler by addiction! But I usually go with marketing professional."
Quirkier questions have been thrown his way, he tells us. "The first question everyone usually asks me is "So do you know the whole dictionary?" How I wish this was true, if only it were that easy," he laughs.
"Another commonly asked question he says is "So are you allowed to use expletives in Scrabble?" Are they? Yes, says Sherwin.

Sherwin's favourite word move
"It's Nartjie, which means a small sweet orange. Nartjies is also my highest scoring word with 257 points and it once helped in winning a game in which I was trailing by 150 points."