Timi Olaitan wins Pyramid scrabble retreat

By Ifeanyi Eduzor
Timi Olaitan has won the November monthly retreat of Pyramid Scrabble Club of Lagos decided on Saturday.
He took the top honour at the one day event with 8 wins and a cumulative of plus 769 ahead of Samuel Adebola and Adeyemi Adeosun who also had 8 wins too but with a lower cumulatives of plus 580 for Adebola and 419 for Adeosun.
Olaitan dropped two games back to back to Joseph Okere 523-424 in round five and he went down again to Samuel Adebola 513-391 in game six.
After that defeats, Olaitan never looked back as he picked game 7 to 10 with style to smile home with the top prize of 50,000 naira.
Adebola was coasting home unbeaten after 6 grueling rounds for the big prize until game 7 against Anthony Odok came calling. Adebola lost his unbeaten run by 432-373.
It was the turn of Odok to feel the pain of defeat as his unbeaten run was cut short in the 8th round which was the start of 3 of the King of Hill by Adebola with a unique scorelines 385-358.
Former African Champion and retreat number one seed, Jimoh Saheed came sixth with 7 wins just like Samson Salau and Anthony Odok who had a better cumulatives. Emmanuel Umujose was kept in the 7th spot, one place higher than Gboyega Akintokun.
The 4th to the 8th position were separated by cumulatives as they all had seven victories each.
It’s interesting to note that at game five, Segun Durojaiye who came 9th had the highest cumulative points of plus 582 but could only manage two more wins to close the retreat with 6 wins and 4 defeats just as six other big names in the Nigeria scrabble circuit namely; Babajide Alagbada, Victor Ewarah, Cyril Umebiye, Joseph Okere, Sunday Ituah and Olufemi Gbadebo.
Bukunmi Afolayan fresh from Lusaka, Zambia, had a good start to the retreat as she won her first three games against Lateef Oyawole, Adeyemi Adeosun and Dipo Akanbi and at that point she was second on the log but ended the retreat with 5 wins.
Lateef Oyawole was first from the bottom at the end of the ten games one day retreat put together by Pyramid Scrabble Club of Lagos and was rated by Nigeria Scrabble Federation (NSF).
Meanwhile, the top ten of the November monthly retreat of Pyramid Scrabble championship are; Timi Olaitan, Samuel Adebola, Adeyemi Adeosun, Samson Salau, Anthony Odok and Jimoh Saheed. Others are, Emmauel Umujose, Gboyega Akintokun, Segun Durojaiye and Babajide Alagbada
Thirty eight players competed for honours at the event.