2025 AUSTRALIAN MASTERS

Twenty of the top players will play the Australian Masters as a round robin in Victoria on Sep 6-7. At the same time, teams of three players from each of seven states or territories play the State Team Challenge as head-to-head matches.

Rule variation

Masters section has 5 point penalty for each word challenged but correct.

The contenders

The table below shows the teams according to qualification criteria set by the Council of the Australian Scrabble Players Association. A player must be an Australian citizen or permanent resident. Temporary visa holders are not eligible.

IMPORTANT: Selection processes will now give priority to Australian players who have told CASPA that they will attend or might attend. Send an email to barry.harridge@gmail.com with the subject line including AMSC25, and an indication of YES, NO or MAYBE. Any Australian ASPA member may ask to be considered, not just the ones listed as contenders.

Australian Masters

The selection comprises the best twenty active players (those players who have played at least one game during the qualification period) ranked by Q statistic.

State Team Challenge

Each state team will comprise three eligible players who have not already been selected for the Masters event and are the next best three from their state, ranked by Q statistic.

If insufficient eligible players are available …

If insufficient eligible players are available, the state will not be permitted to participate in the State Team Challenge for that year unless a maximum of one stand-in can be fielded before the tournament from any state (generally, but not necessarily, that state in which the tournament takes place). That stand-in must also meet the above criteria.
An eligible stand-in may also be fielded in the event of illness or other unforeseen circumstance during the tournament.

Selection by ratings

The primary criterion for ranking candidates is the Q statistic

Details

Subperiods are Jun to Sep 2024, Oct to Jan and Feb to May 2025.
The Qstat: The qualifying statistic is Q = (P1 + P2 + 2 x P3)/4 , which is a weighted average of peak ratings in the three subperiods.
Third peak: You cannot earn the peak in the third subperiod until you have played 40 games rated by ASPA in the qualification period.
Penalty: If you do not earn a peak in a subperiod , your peak in that subperiod is equal to the last rating minus 200. This may be applied more than once.
Incomplete tournament: If you miss a game for any reason other than an assigned bye, you cannot count a peak attained in that tournament for any qualification purposes. Games played will count towards games quotas. Ratings will be calculated as usual, with byes and forfeits not rated.
Games: You must have played at least 40 games in the qualifying period.
Tie breaker: If two players have the same Q statistic, the one with the greater number of games in the qualification period is ranked higher.

Players may appeal to CASPA for a special dispensation in exceptional circumstances. In the event of any unforeseen issue the decision of CASPA is final.

Selection has now finished. Carol Johnson will be finalising teams.

Australian Masters

Contender	Q Stat 06.06.2025	Games need 40	Peak (games) Jun to Sep	Peak (games) Oct to Jan	Peak (games) Feb to May
YES David Eldar	2140.75	97	2130(41)	2139(32)	2147(24)
MAYBE Cameron Farlow	1911.25	140	1899(24)	1914(50)	1916(66)
YES Andrew Fisher	1903.75	90	1899(26)	1930(40)	1893(24)
YES Naween Fernando	1891.00	83	1947(26)	1889(28)	1864(29)
YES Trevor Halsall	1846.00*	115	1880(58)	1680(0)	1912(57)
YES Joanne Craig	1814.50	146	1682(25)	1820(58)	1878(63)
YES Edward Okulicz	1811.00*	91	1949(58)	1903(33)	1696(0)
YES Esther Perrins	1787.00*	61	1829(37)	1629(0)	1845(24)
YES Josh Watt	1782.25	198	1613(49)	1810(91)	1853(58)
YES Ryan Sutton	1770.75	129	1750(44)	1743(54)	1795(31)
YES Max Mason	1733.25	127	1680(54)	1675(20)	1789(53)
YES Tony Hunt	1717.50	182	1659(55)	1713(60)	1749(67)
YES Bob Jackman	1710.75	189	1688(25)	1697(102)	1729(62)
YES Rod Talbot	1708.50	215	1763(67)	1769(94)	1651(54)
YES David Vanzyl	1705.75	97	1678(44)	1717(28)	1714(7)
MAYBE Adam Kretschmer	1687.00	119	1641(42)	1607(17)	1750(54)
YES Carmel Dodd	1686.00	187	1635(61)	1683(46)	1713(72)
MAYBE Geoff Wright	1674.00	169	1642(60)	1696(38)	1679(71)
YES Jane Taylor	1663.00	258	1622(74)	1710(89)	1660(89)
YES John Spaan	1655.25	156	1657(50)	1696(50)	1634(56)

All 20 Masters places filled.

State Challenge

Contender	Q Stat 06.06.2025	Games need 40	Peak (games) Jun to Sep	Peak (games) Oct to Jan	Peak (games) Feb to May
ACT1 YES John Hamilton	1646.25	126	1653(46)	1618(35)	1657(45)
ACT2 YES Noel Barrett	1620.50	149	1574(67)	1624(35)	1642(47)
ACT3 YES Tim Reddan	1447.25	114	1413(49)	1470(41)	1453(24)
ACT4 YES Caroline Scowcroft	1255.25*	87	1353(23)	1372(64)	1148(0)
NSW1 MAYBE Garth van Vliet	1560.50	108	1589(25)	1543(51)	1555(32)
NSW2 YES Graeme Lock Lee	1503.50	79	1517(14)	1519(51)	1489(14)
NSW4 YES Greg Pinchbeck	1473.25	172	1469(50)	1474(61)	1475(61)
QLD1 YES Paul Richards	1568.50	276	1543(116)	1621(77)	1555(83)
QLD2 MAYBE Jane Brown	1543.00	106	1568(50)	1528(23)	1538(33)
QLD3 MAYBE Julie Brice	1469.00*	51	1526(17)	1292(0)	1529(34)
QLD4 YES Sheryl Davidson	1461.25	146	1482(60)	1469(39)	1447(39)
QLD6 YES Arnold Appelhof	1400.75	236	1396(80)	1395(66)	1406(82)
SA1 YES Antony Kimber	1505.00	172	1542(48)	1538(45)	1470(73)
SA3 YES Francoise Finlayson	1390.25	129	1385(33)	1366(18)	1405(72)
SA4 YES Angie Pearse	1373.00	123	1361(31)	1373(21)	1379(65)
TAS1 YES Jon Ford-King	1539.00	75	1489(29)	1553(22)	1557(24)
TAS2 YES Martin Rose	1454.50	75	1460(36)	1440(18)	1459(21)
VIC1 YES Oscar Ivanovski	1631.75	184	1628(65)	1661(59)	1619(60)
VIC2 YES Nat Podesser	1528.25	91	1521(45)	1506(27)	1543(19)
VIC3 YES Dianne Davis	1488.75	103	1505(21)	1482(41)	1484(41)
WA1 MAYBE Ian Ting	1631.75	123	1619(56)	1638(21)	1635(28)
WA2 YES Sally Martin	1582.00	102	1568(18)	1552(21)	1604(45)
WA3 YES Benjamin Lee	1546.25	154	1486(56)	1531(28)	1584(52)
WA5 YES Geoff Shepheard	1516.00	125	1455(18)	1515(37)	1547(52)

No intention received: Phillip Hamilton NSW3, Therese Nichols NSW5, Chris Ostrowski NSW6, Martin Waterworth QLD5, Antonios Syrigos SA2, Tracey Kneebone SA5, Teresa Dean SA6, Ros Wilkinson TAS3, Jan Hill TAS4, Carol Johnsen VIC4, Kashi Thiris VIC5, Rex Shakespeare VIC6, Anne Zion WA4, Judy Godfrey WA6

Not going: Daniel Piechnick, Russell Honeybun, Victor Tung, Nick Ivanovski, Karen Richards, Tony Miller, John Holgate, Rocky Sharma, Michael Vnuk, Liz Blanch, Dianne Brumby

Some worthies played too few games:

Peter Kougi (VIC) 23 games, (R=1922)
Sam Amarasinghe (QLD) 8 games, (R=1848)
Ayorinde Saidu (VIC) 12 games, (R=1833)
Michael Hornung (VIC) 5 games, (R=1782)
Mythili Rudra (VIC) 16 games, (R=1746)
Sumbul Siddiqui (VIC) 21 games, (R=1695)
Stephen Mooney Purse (TAS) 22 games, (R=1682)
Ryan Anderson (QLD) 5 games, (R=1618)
Ronnie Bennett (ACT) 8 games, (R=1616)
Alistair Kane (VIC) 11 games, (R=1610)
Rael Hayman (NSW) 6 games, (R=1609)
Chris Hall (WA) 37 games, (R=1554)
Dianne Ward (WA) 7 games, (R=1548)
Malcolm McAnulty (SA) 28 games, (R=1547)
Jeremy Yip (NSW) 9 games, (R=1541)
Guy Newsham (QLD) 34 games, (R=1528)
Howard Rayner (WA) 21 games, (R=1524)
Chris Scholten (VIC) 17 games, (R=1508)
Heather Long (VIC) 8 games, (R=1505)
Jyoti Chandna (NSW) 26 games, (R=1504)
Alan Burn (VIC) 7 games, (R=1500)
Quentin Abbott (QLD) 8 games, (R=1483)
Gwen Lampre (VIC) 21 games, (R=1458)
Lois Binnie (VIC) 16 games, (R=1455)
Helen Hynes (QLD) 13 games, (R=1442)
Marianne Bentley (VIC) 21 games, (R=1421)
Adam Kauschke (SA) 4 games, (R=1407)
Tony Williams (ACT) 24 games, (R=1399)
Roberta Tait (QLD) 12 games, (R=1384)
Madeleine Emerson (ACT) 16 games, (R=1381)