Who Will Be New Zealand’s First Women’s Scrabble Champ?

WHAT: Inaugural New Zealand Women’s Scrabble Championship

WHERE: Mt Albert Bridge Club, Councillors Drive, Mt Albert, Auckland

WHEN: All day Sat 10 Jan and Sunday 11 Jan 2026

Twenty avid female Scrabble players will be descending on Mt Albert in Auckand this coming weekend to decide who will be New Zealand’s first ever Women’s Scrabble Champion.

This inaugural Scrabble New Zealand event has attracted entries from home and abroad. Trying to keep the top women’s title in New Zealand are several New Zealand Scrabble Grand Masters and world ranked players including:

Joanne Craig (New Zealander living in Sydney) Grand Master: Currently ranked #5 in New Zealand; NZ National Champion 2009, 2017 and 2022; Member of the winning 2024 Trans-Tasman Challenge team against Australia; Australian Masters Champion 2016; NSW State Champion 2012, 2015 and 2019; World Seniors Champion 2017; Winner of the inaugural Australian Women's Championship in 2023 and runner-up in 2024

Anderina McLean (Whanganui Scrabble Club ) Grand Master : Currently ranked #12 in New Zealand; Represented NZ in the World Championships twice; Member of the winning 2024 Trans-Tasman Challenge team against Australia

Liz Fagerlund (Mt Albert Scrabble Club) Grand Master: Currently ranked #26 in New Zealand; Extensive experience representing NZ in overseas tournaments; 2nd in the 2025 Australian Women’s Championship

Cicely Bruce (Whangarei Scrabble Club) Grand Master: Currently ranked #16 in New Zealand; Member of the winning 2024 Trans-Tasman Challenge team against Australia; Extensive experience in overseas tournaments

Val Mills (Mt Albert Scrabble Club) Expert: Currently ranked #20 in New Zealand; 4th in the 2025 Australian Women’s Championship; Extensive experience in overseas tournaments

The strong home field will be challenged by Australian Carmel Dodd who is currently ranked #3 in Queensland and #27 in Australia.

Tournament Convener Jenny Litchfield says she is delighted that the inaugural New Zealand Scrabble Women’s Championship has come to life:

“Hosting a Women’s Championship is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the achievements of New Zealand women who have competed in Scrabble tournaments both here and overseas. We hope that creating a dedicated space for national female players to compete and connect will inspire more women - especially younger women - to discover the fun of competitive Scrabble.

“We will have live-streamed coverage and expert commentary of the games on day two (Sunday 11th). Our aim is simple - to reach out to that wider audience of people who love a friendly boardgame of Scrabble. We want people to think about joining a local club or perhaps even entering a tournament. We hope this event will encourage more women, particularly younger women, to get involved in the competitive Scrabble community throughout New Zealand.”

Members of the media are very welcome to attend the event, film it, take photographs and talk to players.

Live results will be posted here during the tournament: https://landonsoftware.azurewebsites.net/Elixs/Results

To enjoy the excitement of the final day of the tournament (Sunday 11 Jan) please join our livestream here: youtube.com/live/VZ88DJfBFY4?feature=share

Notes:

WOMEN IN NZ SCRABBLE: SOME FUN FACTS AND RECORDS

• More women than men play Scrabble at our 18 local clubs. Scrabble New Zealand currently has 302 members, 72 percent are women.
• More women than men have been rated to play competitively in New Zealand’s extensive tournament calendar. Analysis of NZ rankings shows that 89 of our 135 (or two thirds) of our ranked players are women.
• In New Zealand’s top fifty ranked players, half are women. In our top twenty, seven are women. In our top ten rated players, we currently we have two women: Lyres Freeth at #4 and Joanne Craig at #5
• We have seven women who have attained Grand Master status in New Zealand Scrabble: Anderina McLean, Cicely Bruce, Glennis Hale, Joanne Craig, Liz Fagerlund, Lynne Butler and Lyres Freeth
• We have four women who have attained Expert status in New Zealand Scrabble: Karen Richards, Olivia En, Rosemary Cleary and Val Mills
• Our seven female Grand Masters and four Experts have played a total of 26,936 competitive Scrabble games!
• In 2024, New Zealand won the Trans-Tasman Challenge against Australia for the first time in 14 years. There were three women in the winning ten-member New Zealand team: Cicely Bruce, Joanne Craig and Anderina McLean
• Seven women are life members of Scrabble New Zealand: Liz Fagerlund, Glennis Hale, Allie Quinn, Joan Thomas, Lynn Wood, Clare Wall and Val Mills. (Also now deceased: Bev Barker, Daphne Curl, Glenda Foster and Noel Maisey)
• Lyres Freeth won the 2023 New Zealand Scrabble Championship
• At the 2025 Australian Women’s Championship, New Zealand women featured strongly in the top ten with Liz Fagerlund coming second, Joanne Craig fifth and Cicely Bruce sixth
• Over the years many of our top female players have represented New Zealand at the World Scrabble Championships in various countries.
• Lynn Wood holds the record for playing over 6,000 tournament games
• Glennis Hale has played in the Invite-only New Zealand Masters championship 40 times (as at 1 Jan 2025). It has been held 41 times and she only missed one due to family visiting from overseas
• Since the 1987 Nationals Allie Quinn has held the record for the most consecutive bonus words (7-letter words) in one game. She played five!
• The record for the highest single turn was captured at the 2011 Nationals by Lynn Butler with a score of 302!
• At the 1997 Nationals, Ruth O’Neil took the record for the highest non-bonus single turn with a whopping 135!
• Since the 2001 Nationals, Yvette Hewlett has jointly held the record for playing the most bonus words in one game – six!

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