Evan Berofsky is a Brick Originally uploaded by
Word Freak.
Mumbai is worth 12 points on a Scrabble board, but it’s worth the world to Evan Berofsky.
One of Canada’s top Scrabble players, Berofsky is competing in Mumbai, India Nov. 9-12 for the
World Scrabble Championships (WSC), representing Canada among a team of eight.
Among Berofsky’s teammates is Adam Logan, a mathematics professor at the University of Waterloo. Logan is also the current world champion. “I have a 7-7 record in tourney play against him,” Berofsky says. “There’s probably 110 players this year. Nigel Richards (representing New Zealand) is my likely strongest opponent.”
You’d think a competitive Scrabble player of his caliber is 100 per cent word nerd. Berofsky’s interests are varied. In his online profile on
Crosstables.com, a popular website for Scrabble statistics, he lists his hobbies as “extreme canasta, alphabet drinking game, prone to recite bad lyrics from obscure songs.”
Berofsky lives in a quiet, two-storey suburban home in Thornhill, Ont., just north of Toronto. He still lives with his dad Mervin and 30-year-old brother Adam in the house where he grew up as a kid. His bedroom is still very much a kid’s bedroom: Scrabble plaques and trophies adorn the wall just above his bed.
On the nearby bookshelf is an assortment of DVDs, including a large collection of The Simpsons. “I own all 10 seasons on DVD,” he says proudly as he points to an entire shelf full of colourful DVD cases.
“I watched the first episode in December, 1989 and I’ve seen every episode since,” says Berofsky. This may explain his wry, deadpan sense of humour. He quotes a lot of things from the Simpsons. His favourite from Homer could be applied to anyone who competes at any endeavour: “Kids, you try and fail. Lesson is: Never try.”
At 32, you’d think he’d have outgrown the show. But he’s still very much a kid, albeit with a grown-up outlook. “Soon after my mom passed away, I knew I’d have to fend for myself much more, become much more self-reliant. About a week after her death it sunk in. I was 16 at the time. I’ve since sought employment opportunities and relationships,” he says. “And cooking,” he adds. “And taking care of myself.
“She was the one I played all my Scrabble games against when I was little. She was encouraging. She’s the one I got all my smarts from. She was very well spoken and good at math. Like my dad, she was an artist. My dad was a typographer and later a graphic artist - now a security guard - and my mom was a talented visual artist.”
Berofsky started playing Scrabble when he was about four or five years old, starting with Junior Scrabble. At age 21 he started playing more seriously, regularly attending the Toronto Scrabble Club.
“I started playing professionally in May, 1997,” he recalls, remembering his first night at the club. “I played Margaret Tolnai, who tested all the newcomers. She was about 80 years old at the time and has since died. She beat me. Then I beat Merran Dunlop, another older lady. Third, I lost a close game to yet another old lady.
“Over the summer months I showed when the club didn’t meet formally, to get in some more games. I got the bug. I was playing experts there like Zev Kaufman, Tim Anglin and Jim Nanavati. It was sort of a trial by fire.”
“During that summer, at York University, before the my third year of classes began, I printed out hundreds and hundreds of word lists - all the twos (two-letter-words) through eights, as well as all the synopses of Simpson’s episodes. About 50 of them,” he brags. “Since then, they’ve changed their policy regarding photocopying, thanks largely to me.”
When he’s not playing Scrabble or studying word lists, Berofsky works from home for Descartes (formerly Cube Route) a logistics company based in Waterloo, Ont. He has worked for them about a year and a half as their weekend guy, doing routing and customer/client support. His job consists of organizing the stops by area and route taken by each company as they deliver their goods. His biggest client is Home Depot, including every single market in the US, but he also services Frito-Lay in areas such as Joplin, Missouri as well as Delta, B.C. and Edmonton, Alberta.
Berofsky was hired because of his Scrabble skills, he asserts. “Playing the game is somewhat like a puzzle. My job in figuring out these routes, beyond the capabilities of a computer, is figuring out the best routes. I have to ensure certain stores get priority, trying not to cause too many time or weight violations.
“In Scrabble, if I’m stumped, I just try to find something else to play,” he explains. “The consequences aren’t as dire in a Scrabble game. Worse case scenario, you lose the game. In my job, the worse case is that they don’t have the most ideal route and take longer to do their deliveries.”
Kaufman, a fellow club mate and expert player of many years enjoys the company of Berofsky at the club. “I appreciate the fact that, when I arrive at the club, Evan has already stacked a second chair where I sit,” says Kaufman. “He knows I prefer it that way.
“We travelled in the car together to a tourney in Montreal. He’s a quiet passenger,” he recalls. They passed the time talking Scrabble, mostly anagramming words. “He’s super fast at anagramming.”
Maxim Panitch, another fellow tournament Scrabble Player who is placed 11th at the last Canadian National Scrabble Championships, suitably impressed Berofsky soon after joining the Scrabble club. “When I started playing Scrabble, Evan said I was the next Evan Berofsky,” says Panitch.
Berofsky is currently rated the 50th best Scrabble player in North America. He has been as high as 19th. While achieving so much in such a little time at this game, Berofsky has a way of keeping things in perspective. “When I started playing Scrabble, I set a goal for myself to qualify for the WSC in 10 years,” he says. “I did that in six years. Then I set another goal for myself to finish in the top 10 in either the NSC (National Scrabble Association) or the Worlds.”
By then there might be another Berofsky to contend with.
For live coverage of the WSC, go to
the WSC website.
- Word!